Monday, July 31, 2006

How can ‘terrorism’ be condemned while war crimes go without rebuke?

How can ‘terrorism’ be condemned while war crimes go without rebuke?
David Clark
The Guardian
31 Jul 2006

As if we didn’t know it already, the conflict in Lebanon shows that truth and war don’t mix. All parties to the tragedy of the Middle East resort to disinformation and historical falsification to bolster their case, but rarely has an attempt to rewrite... read more...

Eyewitness 30.07.06 Qana

Friday, July 28, 2006

Only Hizbullah can defend against an Israeli invasion

Only Hizbullah can defend against an Israeli invasion
Jonathan Steele Beirut
The Guardian
28 Jul 2006

Arally of well-dressed middle-class ladies, perhaps 40 in all, protested outside the UN's offices here on Wednesday, calling for a ceasefire. Representing the Lebanese Council of Women, they handed out leaflets appealing to Kofi Annan to get something... read more...

Thursday, July 27, 2006

In a world of wealth, poverty has become a necessity



In a world of wealth, poverty has become a necessity

The Guardian
27 Jul 2006

The collapse of the Doha “development” round of trade talks has been widely lamented as bad news for the world’s poor. But poverty is not exclusive to developing countries, and there is little danger that the poor are going to become an endangered... read more...

We Europeans must never forget that we created the Middle East conflict

We Europeans must never forget that we created the Middle East conflict

The Guardian
27 Jul 2006

When and where did this war begin? Shortly after 9am local time on Wednesday July 12, when Hizbullah militants seized Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev — Israeli reservists on the last day of their tour of duty — in a cross-border raid into northern... read more...

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

At the heart of the Lebanon crisis lie the lethal mistakes of George Bush

At the heart of the Lebanon crisis lie the lethal mistakes of George Bush
Jonathan Freedland
The Guardian
26 Jul 2006

It was meant to be over by now. This time last week Israeli military planners were demanding another 72 hours to finish the job: that’s all they needed, they promised, to clear southern Lebanon of Hizbullah. Yet the enemy has proved stubborn. Despite... read more...

Monday, July 24, 2006

The west’s moral erosion has undermined the war on terror

The west’s moral erosion has undermined the war on terror
Max Hastings
The Guardian
24 Jul 2006

Morality in foreign policy is often subjective. The US administration is confident that it represents the forces of democracy and freedom, and thus feels free to do whatever it judges best to promote these fine things. Israel perceives Palestinians and... read more...

Saturday, July 22, 2006

After the flood



After the flood
Essay by Brian Keenan Illustrations by Noma Bar
The Guardian
22 Jul 2006

Dawn is cruel in Lebanon. Rocket holes have gutted this place Like a blunt blade In the flesh of a fish. In the suburbs An unkempt forest of rushes sprout Amid minefields Fed on sewage Watered by years Of un-staunched pipes The ghosts of night have no... read more...

Friday, July 21, 2006

Art that provokes argument is more tomy taste than art that inspires awe

Art that provokes argument is more tomy taste than art that inspires awe
Simon Jenkins
The Guardian
21 Jul 2006

Is the Ardabil carpet the most beautiful object in London? Made in Persia in 1540, and yesterday restored to public view at the V&A in London, the carpet is formed of one astonishing pattern extending over 50 square metres, reputedly with 30 million... read more...

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Lebanon, North Korea, Russia ... here is the world’s new multipolar disorder



Lebanon, North Korea, Russia ... here is the world’s new multipolar disorder
Timothy Garton Ash Stanford
The Guardian
20 Jul 2006

Welcome to the world's new multipolar disorder. The state of Israel is now at war with Hizbullah, but not with the state of Lebanon. The Lebanese state does not control its own territory. Iran heavily influences, but does not control, Hizbullah. Fresh... read more...

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

There is a way out of this crisis, but the legacy of hatred will endure

There is a way out of this crisis, but the legacy of hatred will endure
Jonathan Freedland
The Guardian
19 Jul 2006

The weather people call it the perfect storm. A set of events, each one minor and manageable on its own, comes together over the most vulnerable spot of a given region, at the highest intensity and at the worst time — wreaking the worst possible... read more...

The freedom to leave one’s country

The freedom to leave one’s country
BY EUGENE ROBINSON eugenerobinson@washpost.com
Miami Herald
19 Jul 2006

t was 6 a.m., I was at Jos Mart Inter- national Airport in Havana, and there was a problem. This was a few years ago. I had spent two weeks in Cuba, one of several trips to research a book, and the first leg of my trip home was an earlymorning hop... read more...

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

The climate-change deniers have now gone nuclear



The climate-change deniers have now gone nuclear
Polly Toynbee
The Guardian
18 Jul 2006

Murderous mayhem in the Middle East sends oil prices through the roof — $78 a barrel and climbing. Electricity prices are up 35% in two years, gas prices up 53%. So the government launched its energy review last week in a turbulent market. With no... read more...

Blair is determined to leave his successor no choice at all



Blair is determined to leave his successor no choice at all
Frank Dobson
The Guardian
18 Jul 2006

When Tony Blair tells us he is to carry on doing the job, he doesn’t just mean he’s going to stay on as prime minister. He means he’s staying on to finish the job of building up what his friends call his political legacy. Some legacy! A legacy is... read more...

If Israel has the right to use force in self defence, so do its neighbours

If Israel has the right to use force in self defence, so do its neighbours
Ahmad Khalidi
The Guardian
18 Jul 2006

Much has been made in recent days — at the G8 summit and elsewhere — of Israel’s right to retaliate against the capture of its soldiers, or attacks on its troops on its own sovereign territory. Some, such as those in the US administration, seem to... read more...

If Israel has the right to use force in self defence, so do its neighbours

If Israel has the right to use force in self defence, so do its neighbours
Ahmad Khalidi
The Guardian
18 Jul 2006

Much has been made in recent days — at the G8 summit and elsewhere — of Israel’s right to retaliate against the capture of its soldiers, or attacks on its troops on its own sovereign territory. Some, such as those in the US administration, seem to... read more...

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Barricades won’t stop migration. We have to learn how to manage it



Barricades won’t stop migration. We have to learn how to manage it
Jenni Russell
The Guardian
10 Jul 2006

Another week, another good news story from the Conservatives. It can’t last, so we may as well enjoy this fleeting experience. The party is dropping its hardline policies on immigration. Instead it is to consult ethnic minorities before drawing up a... read more...

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

American Conservatives and Immigration



American Conservatives and Immigration

The Wall Street Journal Europe
11 Jul 2006

No issue more deeply divides American conservatives todaythan immigration. It’s the subject on which we get the most critical mail by far, no doubt reflecting this split on the right. So with Congress holding hearings on the issue around the country,... read more...

Monday, July 10, 2006

What about men and their right to choose?



What about men and their right to choose?

Irish Independent
10 Jul 2006

It was a case, wittered one columnist, which “required the wisdom of Solomon”. Another commentator spoke of the “unprecedented moral grey area” and the unsolicited pundits who spend their time phoning radio talk-ins were all quick to emphasise just... read more...

Friday, July 07, 2006

We will never abolish child poverty in a society shaped like this one

We will never abolish child poverty in a society shaped like this one
Polly Toynbee
The Guardian
07 Jul 2006


However his reign ends, whatever his legacy may be, one moment will always stand out as a monument to Tony Blair. It was that remarkable, utterly unexpected pledge back in 1999 that Labour would abolish child poverty by 2020. That sunny morning he sprung it on an astounded assembly of economists and poverty experts. The hall rippled with people turning to one another to ask if they had perhaps misheard? Did he really mean it? And if so, did he fully understand how radical it was?


The answer was yes, he meant it, even if he is seized with spasmodic regret. It is one of his more admirable traits to nail himself to targets that matter, and work out afterwards how to do things that seem near impossible. (Abolishing hospital waiting lists by next year is another example.) But his poverty promise is by far the toughest social pledge any British politician has ever made, harder even than the founding of the NHS. And yes, he probably well understood the Herculean scale of the task.


Certainly the chancellor did and he has pursued it as a highest priority, through thick and thin. It has needed his fierce protection from ministers, and sometimes from his neighbour, clamouring to spend money on more popular vote-winners: the poor don’t vote, they show no gratitude and the well-off don’t know or don’t care. The first quarterway target was missed as 700,000, and not a million children, were lifted out of poverty. Instead of celebrating success, the headlines called it “failure”, so why stick to an impossible target?


Because this is emblematic, the unshakable moral underpinning of this government (which Labour defectors would do well to remember). It stands as a constant rebuke to the Tories that they doubled child poverty during their 18 years, leaving appalling social wreckage. It is such an effective moral back-stop that David Cameron has been obliged to sign up to it too. That is how seismic New Labour’s effect has been on the political landscape, marking 1997 as just as decisive a shift in political geography as 1979 or even 1945. Those who say there’s no difference should look at how the Tories are being hauled from the blue to the red side, with poverty a prime marker in the ideological tug of war.


But now comes the reality check — for both parties. The Joseph Rowntree Foundation has produced the most complete and hardheaded research so far on what it would take to reach that 2020 goal. Donald Hirsch, with a number of other leading economists, has modelled the future to find that even if the government hits all its most optimistic welfare-to-work targets for lone parents and those on incapacity benefit, the task ahead is daunting. And next year will be the toughest spending round yet. The halfway mark can be reached by 2010, at a cost of another 4bn-5bn a year. But, on the present trajectory, there is no chance of reaching the other half.


At the End Child Poverty event, John Hutton, secretary of state for work and pensions, sat tight-lipped through the facts. Only three countries of the EU 25 have more child poverty than Britain. Intergenerational poverty is... read more...

Thursday, July 06, 2006

Defeating the False Quetzacoatl



Defeating the False Quetzacoatl
By Alvaro Vargas Llosa
The Wall Street Journal Europe
06 Jul 2006


It is now almost certain that Felipe Caldern, the center-right candidate of the National Action Party in Mexico’s presidential election, has beaten Andrs Manuel Lpez Obrador, the left-wing candidate of the Revolutionary Democratic Party, by a tiny margin.


The optimistic view is that Mr. Lpez Obrador was gloriously defeated by Mr. Caldern, a modernizing reformer. But pessimists will point out that a third of all Mexicans voted for Mr. Lpez Obrador, and between a fifth and a quarter for the center-left PRI (the third party in the race). This means that the majority remains divided between the kind of leftwing populism that has kept Mexico underdeveloped—now represented by Mr. Lpez Obrador—and the PRI, a complex system of vested interests responsible for blocking every attempt at reform made by President Vicente Fox over the last six years. Both optimists and pessimists have a point.


Indigenous mythology and Westernstyle social utopianism—of the kind that pits good revolutionaries against evil reactionaries, and local values against foreign perversions—tend to produce populist messiahs like Mr. Lpez Obrador. In the early 1900s, Mexican folktales began to be recorded again after a three-century hiatus. Many evoke a local king—reminiscent of Montezuma, the Nahua ruler defeated by the conquistadors in the 16th century— who has gone underground, but who will one day come back to save his people. Many of Mr. Lpez Obrador’s voters see him as that sort of redeemer.


Mr. Lpez Obrador represents a renunciation of the idea that development comes from transferring responsibility from the state to civil society and embracing a full exchange with the world. He offered a presidency favoring popular legitimacy over institutional checks and balances (witness his promise to use referendums); a government that acts as the engineer of social justice (hence his promise to give a 20% raise to anyone earning under $800, and to spend $8 billion in social programs and


another $20 billion in infrastructure projects); and limits to foreign capital... read more...

Wednesday, July 05, 2006

Only a UN-led peace process can halt the Iraq catastrophe



Only a UN-led peace process can halt the Iraq catastrophe

The Guardian
05 Jul 2006

The government cannot justify the continuing presence of our troops unless it shows it has learned from its failures
The British and American governments like to pretend that things are getting better in Iraq. They are wrong. The facts belie their optimism. Between 2004 and 2005 the number of car and roadside bombs doubled, and suicide bombs trebled. Electricity supplies and oil production are still below prewar levels. Iraq stands on the threshold of civil war. The illegal invasion, launched on a flawed prospectus and with little understanding of the consequences, has resulted in the deaths of about 3,000 coalition soldiers, 40,000 civilians and many UN and humanitarian workers.
Since 2003 the coalition has met neither its obligations nor its objectives. There was a catastrophic failure to plan for postwar Iraq, followed by misjudgment and incompetence. This has been overlaid by a disproportionate use of military force, including gross human rights abuses. There are nearly 30,000 people being held without trial in Iraq. These failures and misjudgments have perpetuated the insurgency, increased corruption and criminality, and inhibited improvements to the lives of Iraqis. We must now face the possibility that Iraq could become a failed state. That would have devastating economic and security consequences for the region, and would risk taking the current humanitarian disaster to a completely new level.
The catalogue of errors means the capacity of the UK and the US to play a positive role in redeeming the situation is severely diminished. The legitimacy of the coalition, always questionable, is now simply not accepted by most Iraqis. A 2005 poll for the British Ministry of Defence found that eight out of 10 Iraqis strongly opposed the presence of coalition forces. Between 70%-90% want to see a timeline for the withdrawal of coalition troops.
Faced with this reality, the British and American governments seem to be in denial. The last time the British government allotted parliamentary time for a full debate on Iraq was July 20 2004, which was only the second occasion since March 18 2003. It appears to be running scared of critical evaluation. The coalition does not have an exit strategy, nor does it have a strategy for staying. But to continue as it has been is not a credible option. The British and US governments require a coherent stabilisation and exit strategy. The early moves by Iraq’s government of ... read more...