rocks & hard places

I'm not sure which is worse: that the Obama campaign, judging by Biden's comments during the VP debate, claims that Senator Obama did not support the 2006 Palestinian elections because he knew Hamas would be elected, or because Biden actually lied to say so.

(Note: I am really fond of talking about those elections both because it's kind of the starting point for my paying attention to what was happening in Palestine, and because I was in Jerusalem when they happened. I really like talking about that.)

Obama has had to work hard to convince people that he supports Israel; you can see that at work in this interview with Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic. The questions, of course, are always about a secure Israel and denouncing terrorism and having a zero-tolerance attitude towards anti-Semitism. They're not so much about human rights and self-determination for the Palestinians, which of course is the other half of "the peace process," and of course it's the half the U.S. has mostly ignored. And Obama ignores it when he talks about Hamas supposedly supporting him, though he does offer Goldberg a bit of a solid explanation.

But if he weren't running to be elected the president of the United States, and his words didn't have political consequences, he could have given a response like this:

"Hamas? Yeah, of course those guys prefer me to McCain. I've told you about my deep ties to the Jewish community in Chicago, but what I haven't mentioned is that Chicago also has a huge Palestinian population and a very active Palestinian activist community. So I got to know them and the injustices faced by their people in the occupied territories. So I recognize that we need to end Israel's occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip so that we can give the Palestinians a better shot at self-determination and human rights, which is really the key to ending the violence in Israel. Here's the thing about Hamas: of course I denounce their terrorist tactics, and of course I applaud that they now officially recognize Israel, though most U.S. press and politicians ignore this fact. And yeah, I think their fighting with Fatah and claiming power in Gaza is not ultimately in the interests of the people they were elected to represent. But despite their deep flaws, Hamas, like every Palestinian, has a vested interest in seeing the Palestinian people free, and stable, and peaceful. And they recognize that I'm more likely to work towards that than John McCain is. And I think most Palestinians do, but most Palestinians don't have a voice in mainstream U.S. media. So their voices can only be heard, distorted, though what their most famous leaders and groups have to say."

In my dreams, anyway. I want Obama to win this election, and I mostly really liked Joe Biden during the debate. But I'm afraid the Palestinians are going to be stuck where they usually are. And that's a tragedy for them, which should lead a few of us to raise our voices anyway, because it matters, innately, and the Palestinians are going to continue to be this rallying point for people in power in the Arab world- and in Iran- to use to point at the injustices of the U.S. and Israel. And their grievance will be legitimate, whether or not their policies are.

In the meantime, a really beautiful bit of nonviolent resistance: FREE GAZA.

but will the IRAQIS win anything in november?

"Real change in Iraq would mean that Obama realized that for five years straight the United States has promoted and consolidated an artificial sectarian system in the country, and that disengagement from Iraq should also aim at reversing this trend."

Bingo.

starting a lil' conflict

I'm about to have a little clash of civilizations RIGHT HERE with the editors of my Intro course textbook/anthology, Leashing the Dogs of War. Soon into the intro I developed a suspicion that Eds. Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela Aall were neo-con imperialists, nothing too apocalyptic mind you, just your average American university faculty think-tank types operating with certain assumptions about the legitimacy of global U.S. intervention, but I was floored- FLOORED- when I got to this staggering paragraph:

Since the collapse of European empires, the assumption has been that new states emerging in their wake would have whatever time it took to develop effective and legitimate institutions of governance...Regional actors in formerly dependent areas have gradually taken control of their own destiny while intesifying linkages to the major world power centers of Europe, Asia, and North America.

"No way!" I was thinking. "Formerly dependent areas? DEPENDENT? Like, you mean Africa and Latin America and the Middle East and the other areas that were colonized against their will by European countries?" It continues...

Since September 11, 2001, however, new understandings have challenged this assumption. It is no longer accepted that chaotic, ill-governed regions and zones of failed modernization should be allowed to flounder towards an uncertain future...

Uh, yeah, that's exactly what they meant. I'm reminded of my Oxford prof who famously in MY memory once reminisced about the British Empire by exclaiming, "Ghandi! Wasn't HE a pain in the neck!"

Could this be any more patronizing- or less democratic? Couldn't we at least give a little shout out to the people of those nations who deserve self-determination? The vision here is one of post-colonial states freed to make a name for themselves and royally screwing up; the insinuation is that things were orderly before the independence movements of the 20th century and that if the states are failing, it's their fault alone, and that we've got the right to intervene, like parents taking back the car keys. Or, perhaps, like slave-owners catching runaways because we know what's best for them. (Yeah, I'm gonna risk the harshness of that metaphor.)

I think this is the core conflict between the tasks of "promoting democracy" and "policing the world." This little introduction, and most American foreign policy, places security above democracy (or, if you will, freedom.). And as long as you put your idea of what a secure, ordered world looks like above your commitment to honoring human dignity and the right of peoples to self-determination- well, we got beef.

That's not to say that a Robert Mugabe or even a Hosni Mubarak doesn't merit some kind of international, sanctioning (not necessarily economic) response. (In Mugabe's case, global outcry is appropriate.) They are certainly not interested in creating democratic states, either. But the U.S. approaches these situations not as a servant of people who should live democratically or even as a partner in creating democracy but as a SWAT team. And remember, what's happening in Afghanistan and Iraq are the results of the U.S. "no longer accepting" that other states take care of themselves.

best heading ever

As obscure and neglected as this spot is, I'm still incredibly proud of the quote beneath the title.

In other news, what peace agreement should I choose to analyze for my Intro to Peace and Conflict Resolution class? I'm thinking something to do with Lebanon, something that will force me to untangle more of its crazy history and politics.

I've also found myself increasingly interested in refugees. Conflict uproots and changes their entire lives, they are incredibly diverse, and, as Palestine has taught me, they are one of the most difficult "questions" of war. As history disappears or is rewritten and as politicians argue over solutions or as violence itself ceases, refugees remain. Dealing with refugees humanely and justly requires, I believe, a certain extension of oneself, one's country and resources, that lie beyond what can be considered cost-effective or strategically advantageous.* That's not to say that I think of refugees as overgrown infants, lousy with needs, but that those who have been uprooted deserve homes. And people, nations, don't really like making space for new people to have homes. So it's a big issue, and one that requires attention both here and abroad, one that's really at the heart of Christian spirituality.**

*Unless, in terms of strategy, you believe that hurt and neglected people will lash out violently later on and eventually drain economies and fail to integrate into new societies, etc etc... but that's another story I guess...

**WOAH bet you weren't expecting that! Just seeing if you're paying attention.

"my commitment to justice/ my eyes"

The Trial of Salim Hamdan

So here we have a guy who was (unquestionably) Osama bin Laden's driver and who may have been (questionably) actually a member of or at least very much aiding Al-Qaeda or who may have been (questionably) actually just a driver, a personal employee, guiltless in bin Laden and Al-Qaeda's crimes. Now he's getting a trial in Guantanamo. Boy do I have questions about this.

So this has been an opportunity for me to learn about our attorney general Michael Mukasey. He's the guy asking for legislation keeping detainees from entering the U.S. based on the "extraordinary risk" they pose. Yet another CRAZY MOVE from the Bush administration. I have a hard time believing that they actually think they can't muster up the security to move detainees to the U.S. safely. Do the detainees on Guantanamo have explosives up their sleeves? So I wonder what the real motive is. To try to keep barriers in place to keep the trial, and the detainees, out of U.S. jurisdiction, so the U.S. military, which is running the court and supplying the jury, stays in charge? A symbolic gesture of disagreement with the Supreme Court's ruling that the detainees can contest their detentions in federal court? Will this make Bush/the party/McCain continue to look tough on terror, helping the American people feel safe? Or maybe they really are paranoid.

My first question about the trial, though, was: what does a jury of Mr. Hamdan's peers look like? Seems like a really just jury would be a global jury. Americans, both civilian and military, Afghanis, Yemenis, another Guantanamo detainee perhaps. Maybe a Saudi or two. Muslims, Christians, Jews, agnostics, Buddhists. Maybe some parents who'd lost sons or daughters here and abroad.

You'd have to have a lot of translators. And I guess one result of the Supreme Court's ruling is that the trials are American-run, so they don't require an international body. But if those folks came to a real consensus, seems likely it would be fair. I fell in love with To Kill a Mockingbird when I read it in eighth grade, so I pretty quickly thought about America's history of prejudiced juries.

I hope the six military personnel they have on the jury chose their careers because they have a strong sense of justice and will do their best to objectively hand Hamdan the sentence he deserves. But, uh, it's also possible that they're pretty biased. The New York Times:

Another [jury member], an Army pilot, said he had been later deployed to Iraq and had been attacked by ground fire there. When Mr. Hamdan’s military lawyer, Lt. Cmdr. Brian L. Mizer, asked what the impact might be on the pilot’s ability to judge the case fairly, the pilot answered, “I’m not sure of the answer to that, sir.”

I commend his honesty and humility, but wonder why they picked him.

BUT what's crazy to me is that this jury of six senior military officials can convict with 2/3 support. I don't know the legal precedent, domestic or international, but it strikes me that in a situation where A) there's a good chance the jury is biased and B) a guilty verdict could lead to a life sentence you might want to come to a solid consensus.

those roots

You know how I was saying that Arabic is magical and interesting, etc.? Here's an example of how it's lovely when you start making connections: I realized, today during my lunch break, trying to meet the meager summertime study goals I've set for myself, that the verb "to read" is related to the word "Q'uran." The same root letters- I think the Q, the R, the A. How had I never noticed it before?

It's lovely to me, anyway.