Green light to bomb Iran?

President Bush’s tour of the Middle East has been overshadowed by the horserace between the many candidates from both the Republican and Democratic Parties who are campaigning to replace him. However, he remains President for one more year and it is important to watch what he does and says.

So far he has been urging Arab governments to take a stronger stance against Iran. By and large the surrounding Arab governments see Iran as a problem to be managed – not solved. They have seen how the United States “solved” the problem of Iraq and are a little leery about going along with any more American solutions. So far President Bush’s official statements to Arab governments has fallen flat.

However, the President’s statements that may have an impact on the Middle East were off-hand remarks he made to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that he did not believe the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iran. The NIE reported the Persian country had halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003. The report took steam out of the White House’s steady drumbeat last summer and fall for taking action (i.e., military action) against Iran. (Of course, the report also confirmed Iran had such a program that the Iranian regime had been denying.)

Israel, surrounded by hostile governments vowing its destruction, does not hesitate taking pre-emptive military strikes when felt threatened. In 1981, Israeli warplanes bombed a facility in Iraq developing nuclear weapons. Prior to 1979, Israel and Iran viewed each other as natural allies in a region where each were surrounded by unfriendly Arab governments. Since the 1979 Iranian Revolution, however, relations deteriorated quickly as the official Iranian state position on Israel did a complete 180-degree turn. Unofficial relations have been up and down over the years but definitely turned sour under the administration of Mahmound Ahmadinejad. Israel has every reason to be concerned about what Iran is up to.

What is of concern is whether Bush’s remarks undermining the credibility of his own intelligence agencies’ assessments are a way of urging the Israeli government to take military action against Iran even thought the United States won’t at this time.

Here is Fred Kaplan in Slate:

President George W. Bush hasn't accomplished much on his voyage to the Middle East, but he did take the time to inflict another wound on the entire U.S. intelligence community—and on the credibility of anything he might ever again say about the world.

In the latest Newsweek, Michael Hirsh reports that, during a private conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Bush "all but disowned" the agencies' Dec. 3 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran. A "senior administration official who accompanied Bush" on the trip confided to Hirsh that Bush "told the Israelis that he can't control what the intelligence community says, but that [the NIE's] conclusions don't reflect his own views."

The NIE—which was signed by all 16 U.S. intelligence agencies—concluded "with high confidence" that Iran had "halted its nuclear weapons program" back in the fall of 2003. The estimate, released to the public in sanitized form, seriously undercut efforts by the Bush-Cheney White House to portray Iran's nuclear ambitions as an imminent threat—and left the world either relieved or (especially in Israel's case) alarmed that the option of a U.S. airstrike on Iran was pretty much off the table.

***
There are two … ironies. First, this NIE is the product of reforms that President Bush himself signed into law—the creation of a director of national intelligence and various other procedural changes—designed to keep intelligence analysis free of political interference.

Second, the NIE contains plenty of passages that could legitimately justify a less-than-optimistic appraisal of Iran's intentions and capabilities. For instance, the estimate found that Iran is still enriching uranium and that it "has the scientific, technical, and industrial capacity eventually to produce nuclear weapons if it decided to do so." The authors allowed that they "do not know" whether Iran might want to resume its nuclear-weapons program in the future. Finally, they concluded that Iran stopped the program "primarily in response to increasing international security and pressure resulting from exposure of Iran's previously undeclared nuclear work." Therefore, Bush could have argued, the pressure needs to be kept up—or else Iran will rev up its clandestine program once again.

Secretary of Defense (and former CIA Director) Robert Gates has taken this approach when talking about the NIE to international audiences. Gates has said Iran and the rest of the world shouldn't cherry-pick the findings—that if they buy the agency's conclusion that Iran has stopped its nuclear-weapons program, they should buy the less-rosy conclusions, too. For a while, Bush displayed the opposite tendency: He played up the NIE's more sobering conclusions while dismissing the main finding. Now, in a private conversation with Israel's prime minister, he's rejected the whole package and says its conclusions "don't reflect his own views" (wherever he gets them from).

This remark has three baleful consequences. First, it can't help but demoralize the intelligence community. NIEs are meant, ultimately, for only one reader, the president; and here's the president telling another world leader that he doesn't believe it because, well, he doesn't agree with it.

Second, it reinforces the widespread view that the president views intelligence strictly as a political tool: When it backs up his policies, it's as good as gold; when it doesn't, it's "just guessing." This result is that all intelligence is degraded and devalued, at home and abroad. Let's say that six months from now Bush publicizes an NIE concluding that Iran has resumed its nuclear-weapons program or that, say, North Korea is reprocessing more plutonium. Given that he pooh-poohed an NIE that rubbed against his own views, why should anyone take him seriously for embracing an NIE that confirms them?

Third, by telling Olmert that it's all right to ignore the NIE, Bush is in effect telling him that Israel should go ahead and behave as if its findings had never been published. Hirsh reports that, when Olmert was asked whether he felt reassured by Bush's words, he replied, "I am very happy." ABC News reported Monday that, at a closed hearing of the Israeli parliament's foreign affairs and defense committee, Olmert testified, "All options that prevent Iran from gaining nuclear capabilities are legitimate within the context of how to grapple with this matter."

It is increasingly unlikely, for many reasons, that the United States will bomb Iran before the year is out. But, wittingly or not, did Bush just flash a green light to Olmert?

You can read the entire piece here.

Iran urged to stop the horrific practice of stoning

Amnesty International has called for the abolition of the practice of stoning people to death in Iran. The method of execution has been used throughout history but is considered so barbaric that it is rarely practiced outside a handful of countries.

In Iran, nine women and two men await death sentences by stoning. The method involves burying men up to their waist and women up to their breasts. They are then pelted with stones – specified to be large enough to inflict pain but not big enough to kill outright – until they die. Stoning to death is a "horrific practice, designed to increase the suffering" of those condemned, the UK-based rights group says in the report.

Stoning is the favored form of execution in Iran for cases involving adultery. A disproportionate number of these cases impact on women and a majority of those stoned are women.

According to Reuters:

Amnesty International on Tuesday called on Iran to abolish the "grotesque and horrific" practice of stoning people to death.

Amnesty, which opposes the death penalty under any circumstances, said an Iranian man had been stoned to death in July last year for committing adultery, despite a moratorium being imposed on such executions in 2002.

The woman he was convicted of committing adultery with still faces the threat of being stoned, a practice that involves the woman being buried up to her breasts in sand and then pelted with stones until she dies.

"Amnesty International is calling on the Iranian government to abolish immediately and totally execution by stoning and to impose a moratorium on the death penalty," the rights group said in a 30-page report on the practice.

"Iranian law prescribes that the stones are deliberately chosen to be large enough to cause pain, but not so large as to kill the victim immediately ... It is a particularly grotesque and horrific practice."

While stoning is used relatively seldom in Iran, it is the favored form of execution in cases involving adultery and has a disproportionate impact on women, according to Amnesty.

Iran has one of the highest rates of execution in the world. In 2006, 177 people were put to death, mostly by hanging. Last year, that number was expected to be exceeded, with 124 people executed in the first seven months of the year.

As well as calling for the abolition of stoning and a moratorium on the death penalty, Amnesty also urged the Iranian government to decriminalize adultery, which is not illegal in the majority of countries.

Is the house of Reagan collapsing?

Has the Republican Party run out of steam? Are they fielding a weak field of candidates and possibly facing electoral catastrophe? Is the Republican Party simply a house of cards with different factions now sniping at one another?

This analysis from the McClatchy news service:

The house that Ronald Reagan built is in danger of collapsing.

The coalition of fiscal conservatives, national security conservatives, anti-tax activists and social conservatives that rallied behind Reagan in 1980 and has defined the Republican Party ever since is coming apart at the seams heading into the 2008 election.

All the men running for the party's presidential nomination invoke Reagan's name repeatedly. But all of them offend at least one wing of the party enough that they'd find it difficult, and perhaps impossible, to pull the disparate elements of the old coalition together.

"It's gone," said Ed Rollins, who worked on Reagan's 1984 re-election campaign and now chairs the campaign of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

"The Reagan coalition is pretty much gone," added Karen Spencer, a Republican strategist in California who watched the Reagan phenomenon firsthand when her father served as Reagan's chief political strategist. "It's been 28 years. Maybe it is time for a change."

What happened?

Times changed, of course.

Fighting terrorism has created divisions where confronting the Soviet Union and rebuilding the U.S. military unified the party.

Cutting taxes still elates anti-tax conservatives, as it did in Reagan's day, but runaway spending by the modern party has outraged small-government conservatives.

And the much more religious tone of the party — Reagan was private about his faith — threatens to open a breach between social conservatives and country club conservatives.

Huckabee also thinks the party's in danger of losing the working-class Americans so drawn to Reagan — the blue-collar, ethnic, often Catholic "Reagan Democrats" voters who turned against the socially permissive Democratic Party of the 1970s and embraced Reagan in the 1980s.

"The Reagan coalition has certainly not seen those same middle-class, working-class Republicans feeling a part of the Republican Party as they should," Huckabee said at a debate in South Carolina last week.

Further threatening the coalition is the field of candidates now running for Reagan's old job.

Sen. John McCain of Arizona? Vietnam War hero, first to urge sending more troops to Iraq when that wasn't popular in the party, crusader against government spending.

He has the stature to make a strong argument for the old coalition. But he's criticized Bush tactics against suspected terrorists as torture, sided with the president in wanting to let illegal immigrants stay and earn citizenship and pushed a campaign-finance plan that curbed political speech.

A lot of loyal Republicans think he's anything but Republican, and the party's influential echo chamber on talk radio hates him.

Huckabee? A Baptist preacher who talks about his faith, he's excited social conservatives.

But he raised taxes as governor, wanted to let the children of illegal immigrants in Arkansas schools earn the same college aid as Arkansas-born children and called Bush's foreign policy "arrogant."

He turns off less religious Republicans — he got 6 percent of the non-evangelical vote in New Hampshire's Republican primary. He divides anti-tax advocates — the Club for Growth is against him; Americans for Tax Reform are OK with him. And talk radio big shots such as Rush Limbaugh think he's a liberal in preacher's clothes.

"Liberal economic policies, liberal foreign policies," said rival Fred Thompson, the former Tennessee senator. "That's not the model of the Reagan coalition, that's the model of the Democratic Party."

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney? He's the most aggressive in courting the Reagan coalition, promising low taxes and small government, a strong national defense and newfound opposition to abortion and gay marriage.

But social conservatives are suspicious of his recent conversions on abortion and gay marriage — he supported the rights to both in the 1990s. To some people, that leaves Romney with one foot in each camp, but grounded in neither.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani? He cleaned up New York, reduced crime and cut taxes. He also showed calm and nerve when his city was attacked.

But he supports abortion rights, gay marriage and gun control, he's been married three times, and his private life falls short of Christian conservative ideals. Social conservatives such as Dr. James Dobson, the head of the Colorado-based Focus on the Family, say they'd bolt from the party if Giuliani is nominated.

There is, of course, the possibility of a new coalition.

McCain, for example, might pull in independents who've been leaning more toward the Democrats during the Bush years. A primary win next week in Michigan with a strong independent vote, for example, could suggest a better chance of the Republicans winning a state they've been losing.

Giuliani could replace some of the social conservatives he'd lose with suburban moderates, putting states such as Connecticut, New Jersey and Pennsylvania in play for his party.

Ultimately, though, the fate of the Reagan coalition — or any strong Republican coalition — might lie in the other party.

It's important to remember that the rise of the Reagan coalition wasn't just an embrace of him, but a repudiation of Democratic President Jimmy Carter, as well as the antiwar wing of the Democratic Party.

So, too, today's Republicans might swallow their objections to McCain, Huckabee or Giuliani if the Democrats nominate a candidate that leaves many people looking for an alternative.

New York Sen. Hillary Clinton is some Republicans' choice for a Democratic candidate.

Said GOP pollster Whit Ayres: "When it comes to Republicans, Hillary Clinton is a unifier, not a divider."

Democrats would be wise to heed that last warning.

Obama’s endorsements

Political endorsements do not carry the clout they used to prior to the 1970’s. Back then the nod from a prominent politician or labor leader meant a whole political machine was going to work for the lucky candidate. Nowadays, with the decline of political organizations and the rise of direct appeal by candidates to voters via television, endorsements don’t count for what they used to. However, endorsements are not meaningless.

Of particular interest are the string of endorsements Senator Barack Obama received last week. What was particularly interesting about these endorsements was the timing. They followed the victory of Senator Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire’s primary. Usually the bandwagon effect benefits the victor.

Josh Marshall has this observation:

Endorsements don't usually count for much. But if they're big enough and come at critical moments they can count for a lot. And this string of endorsements Obama has picked up since his narrow defeat in New Hampshire four days ago is, I believe, a major story that has not gotten the attention it deserves.

Since losing the New Hampshire primary four days ago, Obama has been endorsed by Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD), Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE), Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) and Gov. Janet Napolitano (D-AZ). Additionally, he's also been endorsed by Rep. Miller (D-CA), Sen. Kerry (D-MA) and Ned Lamont. But they're in a slightly different category and it's the first four I want to discuss.

The first of these came from Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) who put out word he'd be endorsing Obama the day after New Hampshire. Johnson is a protege of former Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD). And Daschle has close ties to Obama -- a lot of operatives in the Daschle world went to Obama after 2004. So when I saw word of the endorsement I figured this was something Daschle or his former staffers had helped put together to help stabilize Obama's fortunes after the New Hampshire loss.

But now you have three others -- Nelson, Napolitano and McCaskill. Nelson and Johnson are from very red states while Napolitano and McCaskill are from swing states.

Now, there are a bunch of things you can draw from this spate of endorsements. One is that these folks don't seem worried about themselves running or having their supporters run with Obama at the top of the ticket. And these are people from either very conservative or somewhat conservative states. Despite the fact that Obama is running in some ways to the right of Clinton (at least tonally, as the candidate of unity and bipartisan reconcilation), there are still a lot of questions inevitably being asked about whether the country is 'ready' for Obama, whether that's his race, his name, his background in community organizing, his youth, etc. So these folks think America's ready; in fact, more ready than they are for Hillary.

But that isn't the biggest significance. The key is timing. You don't hit a big time politician like Hillary Clinton when she's down unless you're really against her and you're fairly confident she's not getting back up. After winning in New Hampshire, albeit narrowly and after the clobbering in Iowa, there's been a sense that Clinton may be back on track to consolidating her frontrunner status and perhaps following a modified version of the standard script in which the anointed frontrunner gets a scare in the early states before mopping up the competition as the race goes national. But these four clearly don't want that to happen. In fact, they're sticking their necks pretty far out to help make it not happen. And their endorsements, coming right now, tell me they have some confidence it won't.

To de-Baath or not to de-Baath, that is the question

The primary reason given for the “surge” in American troops in Iraq's civil wars was to buy time for the Iraqi government to achieve a number of political benchmarks – one of which was to overturn the de-Baathification rulings set down by occupation tsar, Jerry Bremer. Nothing has happened since the beginning of the surge and the so-called benchmarks President Bush said were so important a year ago, have somehow vanished from White House statements on Iraq.

That is, nothing happened until reports yesterday came out that one benchmark – de-Baathification – is being implemented. This was great news as a first step toward reconciliation between Sunni and Shiite factions in the country. (The Sunnis are a minority in Iraq but were dominant in the ruling Baath Party and, therefore, disproportionately affected by the de-Baathification ruling of the Coalition Provisional Authority after the downfall of Saddam Hussein.) As Matthew Yglesias put it, “Unlike the ephemeral "success" of the surge, reconciliation really would create the conditions under which US forces could withdraw on an uncontroversial note of success … from most all points of view.”

Unfortunately, as it is now being reported, the program may force the discharge of as many ex-Baathists as are eligible to return to government service. This from Kevin Drum:

Today saw the first concrete sign of political reconciliation in Iraq: the passage of a law that eases the anti-Baathist order put in place by Jerry Bremer at the beginning of the American occupation in 2003. In theory, the new law should allow thousands of Sunni ex-members of Saddam's civil service to once again serve in government jobs.

Whether it works out that way remains to be seen. The Washington Post quotes Ali al-Lami, spokesman for the current de-Baathification commission, saying that the law will have just the opposite effect, making it easier to get rid of even more Sunnis:

The new measure could lead to a new purge of members of the current Iraqi government, Lami said, including about 7,000 officers in the Interior Ministry. Even influential Iraqi security force officials who used to be Baathists could face removal.

"The commander of the Baghdad security plan and his assistants, according to the new law, they should retire," he said.

The New York Times provides an even bigger estimate:

One Shiite politician, who spoke on condition that his name not be used, said the new law could forcibly retire up to 27,000 former Baathists, who would receive pensions.

On the other hand, the Times quotes other officials suggesting that the law would allow 13,000 to 31,000 former Baathists to regain their jobs. So who knows? Whether reconciliation is really in the offing depends on just how the law is enforced and who does the enforcing. Wait and see.

Clifford Brown: “Lady Be Good - Memories of You” (1956)

This is Clifford Brown on The Soupy Sales Show television program recorded in early 1956. Brown was an influential jazz musician who died at the age of 25 months after this recording.

The Republican house of cards – Part II

A conservative is a conservative is a conservative. True? False!

As pointed out here before, the contemporary Republican Party coalition has become something of a house of cards. The various elements of American conservatism that came together under the leadership of Reagan are now in competition with one another for the Republican Presidential nomination. As it turns out, many representatives of these different elements are not particularly fond of one another and question each other’s conservative credentials as evident from the video above (compliments of Talking Points Memo). It seems that “political correctness” is as much (or more) a vice of the right as the left.

Better yet, this is impacting upon the Republican race for the White House. As Jeff Weintraub put it, “Several people have suggested, only half-facetiously, that it's mathematically impossible for any of the Republican presidential candidates to win the nomination, since each of them is strongly disliked by sectors of the party that add up to more than 50% of Republican primary voters.”

We can only hope.

Oppression of Iraq’s LGBT population

As stated here before, being gay or lesbian in Iraq can be like carrying around a death sentence that can be imposed at any time by almost anyone. The rise of religious extremists in a region already known for its intolerance of sexual minorities and the widespread violence of the Iraqi civil war have contributed to the “sexual cleansing” of the country as gay and lesbian people are either murdered or flee for their lives. Some of these groups have even resorted to the old police tactic of entrapment.

But it’s not just the freelance enforcers of alleged morality who are harassing and threatening the LGBT population of Iraq – it’s the government. According to 365gay – an online news service covering LGBT issues – even though homosexuality is not illegal in Iraq, police target gays by arresting them on other charges. In consideration of a proposal for amnesty for certain prisoners held in Iraqi jails by the Iraqi government, a government spokesman made clear the release would not include terrorists or “homosexuals.”

This is from 365gay (via Think Pink Radio):

(Baghdad) The Iraq government is considering the release of some 5,000 prisoners but a spokesperson said it would not include terrorists or homosexuals.

The Iraqi government has about 20,000 people in custody, while the U.S. military holds about 25,000.

Homosexuality itself is not illegal in Iraq, but police regularly arrest gays on other charges often trumped up.

The amnesty bill drafted by the Shiite-dominated government falls far short of Sunni demands. About the only thing on which the two sides agree is that imprisoned gays not be freed.

The amnesty would cover less than a quarter of the total number of people held in Iraqi prisons, and none of those held by the American military.

Sunni parliamentarians have criticized the bill for its limited scope. They have argued that most prisoners are charged with terrorist crimes, rendering it ineffective. Some also fear referring the bill to Iraq's gridlocked parliament will actually delay prisoner releases.

The total number of gays being held is not known. And, they may be the lucky ones, according to some LGBT activists.

Death squads imposing strict Islamic law are reportedly responsible for the murders of hundreds of gay men across Iraq.

Last year the leader of an exiled Iraqi LGBT rights group told a London conference on homophobia that that militias blamed for the murders of hundreds of gay men and women are sanctioned by the government and the US-led coalition is doing little to stop the killings. (story)

Ali Hili said that the Badr and Sadr militias - the armed wings of the two main Shia parties that control the government of Iraq - are routinely rounding up men and women, primarily in Baghdad, suspected of being gay. The men and women are never heard from again.

Five members of Hili's own group were taken away in November of 2006. About a dozen members of Rainbow For Life, another Iraqi LGBT group also have been seized and are presumed dead.

Another 70 have been threatened with kidnapping Rainbow For Life has said.

In 2006 the Iraq government strongly criticized a U.N. report on human rights that put its civilian death toll in 2006 at 34,452, saying it is "superficial" because it included people such as homosexuals.

Silvan Zingg: "Pinetop's Boogie Woogie"

"Pinetop's Boogie Woogie" composed by Clarence "Pinetop" Smith in 1928 and performed here by pianist Silvan Zingg from Ticino, Switzerland.

Be sure to check out the previous Zingg post: Dancin' The Boogie.

Virginia can be in play for the Democrats only with the right candidate

Last week in Iowa the Democrats’ strongest candidate came in first and the Republicans’ strongest candidate (McCain) came in fourth. Last night, New Hampshire reversed that with the Democrats’ weaker candidate (Clinton) winning by a narrow margin and the Republicans’ strongest candidate winning by a reasonable margin.

The Rasmussen Presidential Poll in my home state of Virginia only confirms my belief where the strength and weakness are in this field of candidates. As I have pointed out before, Virginia has voted Republican in all Presidential races since 1964. However, during the past couple of elections, the Democrats have considered the Old Dominion as being more and more “in play.” It has not gone Democratic yet but is slowly inching that direction. Virginia is a barometer of sorts of states the Democratic Party needs to pay attention to. Perhaps with the right candidate, we can make this state (and others like it) competitive sooner rather than later.

The Rasmussen Poll lined Hillary Clinton up against Mitt Romney and John McCain and then the same with Barack Obama. Clinton ties with Romney (Clinton 43%, Romney 44%) but loses to McCain by a wide margin (McCain 49%, Clinton 38%). Obama, on the other hand, defeats Romney by a reasonable spread (Obama 47%, Romney 41%) and loses to McCain only by a very narrow margin (Obama 43%, McCain 45%).

The report goes on:

McCain is viewed favorably by 65% of Virginia voters, while Romney earns favorable ratings from 51%. Fifty-six percent (56%) give Barack Obama a favorable rating, while only 47% offer a positive assessment of Clinton.

The Democrats can take the White House easily if they can carry Virginia or Virginia-like states but some candidates have a shot at that and others just don’t. This poll gives us a pretty good idea of who they are.

The fresh starts Obama and Huckabee represent

Frank Rich has these thoughts in today’s New York Times on the fresh starts Senator Obama and Governor Huckabee represent following the Iowa caucuses this past week:

The former community organizer from Chicago and the former Baptist preacher from Arkansas have little in common in terms of political views. But as I wrote here a month ago, the author of “The Audacity of Hope” and the new man from Hope, Ark., are flip sides of the same coin. The slogan “change” — a brand now so broad and debased that both Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney appropriated it for their own campaigns — does not do justice to the fresh starts that Mr. Obama and Mr. Huckabee represent.

The two men are the youngest candidates in the entire field, the least angry and the least inclined to seek votes by saturation-bombing us with the post-9/11 arsenal of fear. They both radiate the kind of wit and joy (and, yes, hope) that can come only with self-confidence and a comfort in their own skins. They don’t run from Americans who are not in their club. Mr. Obama had no problem winning over a conclave of white Christian conservatives at Rick Warren’s megachurch in Orange County, Calif., even though he insisted on the necessity of condoms in fighting AIDS. Unlike the top-tier candidates in the G.O.P. presidential race, or the “compassionate conservative” president who refused for years to meet with the N.A.A.C.P., Mr. Huckabee showed up last fall for the PBS debate at the historically black Morgan State University and aced it.

The “they” who did not see the cultural power of these men, of course, includes not just the insular establishments of both their parties but the equally cloistered echo chamber of our political journalism’s status quo. It would take a whole column to list all the much-repeated Beltway story lines that collapsed on Thursday night.

***

What was mostly forgotten … were the two largest elephants in the room: Iraq and George W. Bush. The conventional wisdom had it that both a tamped-down war and a lame-duck president were exiting so quickly from center stage that they were receding from the minds of voters. In truth, they were only receding from the minds of those covering those voters.

The continued political import of Iraq could be found in three different polls in the past six weeks — Pew, ABC News-Washington Post and Wall Street Journal-NBC News. They all showed the same phenomenon: the percentage of Americans who believe that the war is going well has risen strikingly in tandem with the diminution of violence — from 30 percent in February to 48 percent in November, for instance, in the Pew survey. Even so, these same polls show no change at all in the public’s verdict on this misadventure or in President Bush’s dismal overall approval rating. By the same margins as before (sometimes even slightly larger), a majority of Americans favor withdrawal no matter what happened during the “surge.” In another poll (Gallup), a majority still call the war a mistake, a finding that has varied little since February 2006.

It’s safe to assume that these same voters did not forget that Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Edwards enabled the Iraq fiasco. Or that Mr. Obama publicly opposed it. When Mrs. Clinton attacked Mr. Obama for his supposedly “irresponsible and frankly naïve” foreign policy ideas — seeking talks with enemies like Iran — she didn’t diminish him so much as remind voters of her own irresponsibility and naïveté about Mr. Bush’s Iraq scam in 2002.

In the Republican field, no candidate has less association with Iraq than Mr. Huckabee, a politically lucky and unintended consequence of his spectacular ignorance about foreign policy in general. When he finally did speak up in a newly published essay in Foreign Affairs, he condemned the Bush administration for its “arrogant bunker mentality” in its execution of the war. Mr. Romney, sensing an opening among the party faithful, loudly demanded that Mr. Huckabee “apologize to the president” for this insult. But Mr. Huckabee had the political savvy not to retreat, and in Iowa’s final hours even Mr. Romney desperately reversed himself to slam Mr. Bush’s mismanagement of Iraq.

Among the Republican candidates, Mr. Huckabee is also as culturally un-Bush as you can get. He constantly reminds voters that he did not go to an Ivy League school and that his plain values derived from a bona fide blue-collar upbringing, as opposed to, say, clearing brush on a vacation “ranch” bought with oil money attained with family connections. “People are looking for a presidential candidate who reminds them more of the guy they work with rather than the guy that laid them off,” he told Mr. Leno, in a nifty reminder of Mr. Romney’s corporate history as a Bush-style, Harvard-minted M.B.A.

It’s such populist Huckabee sentiments that are already driving the Republican empire to strike back. The party that has milked religious conservatives for votes for two decades is traumatized by the prospect that one of that ilk might actually become its standard-bearer. Especially if the candidate in question is a preacher who bashes Wall Street and hedge-fund managers and threatens to take a Christian attitude toward those too poor to benefit from the Bush tax cuts.

***

Mr. Obama is in a far better position in his more-or-less ideologically united party than Mr. Huckabee is among Republicans, but, of course, he could lose for a myriad of reasons. Mr. Obama could make some world-class mistakes; the Clinton machine could land some attacks more devastating than its withering critique of his kindergarten paper.

But if Clinton operatives know how to go negative, they don’t have the positive balance of a 21st-century message. Iowa confirmed that the message the campaign has used to date — experience — is D.O.A. in post-Bush America. It was fascinating to watch that realization sink in on Thursday night. In her concession speech, Mrs. Clinton had her husband, the most tangible totem of her experience, standing right beside her, yet she didn’t mention him or so much as acknowledge him.

Even before that tableau was swept away by the sight of the Obama family all but dancing across the stage in celebration, it looked like the passing of an era.

You can read the entire piece here.

Ben Webster: “Somewhere over the rainbow”

Ben Webster performing at the Marquee club in London on December 21, 1964 for the BBC TV series “Jazz 625” with Stan Tracey on piano, Rick Laird on bass, and Jackie Dougan on drums.

The Republican house of cards

The Republicans, despite comfortable control of all three branches of government for a number of years early in this decade accomplished little of their agenda (thank goodness) – abortion is still legal, Social Security was never privatized, the federal government is not smaller, the separation of church and state is still the custom and law of the land, constitutional amendments outlawing flag burning and gay marriage have gone nowhere, etc. This is not to say damage has not been done to the country – spiraling national debt, a full scale assault on civil liberties for citizens and non-citizens alike, and so on. And, of course, there is the complete failure of leadership on global warming and the two wars the United States is neither losing nor winning.

But the conservative agenda was so much more. The problem was (and is) they have pandered to so many different factions they may no longer be able to hold them together under one big tent.

The victory of Mike Huckabee in the Iowa caucuses this week is but one example of the unraveling of the Republican coalition. He was the first choice of the Christianist wing of the party who has felt ignored. They were especially courted by Karl Rove and were likely a factor in the crucial Ohio vote delivering that state to George Bush in 2004. What did they get in return other than empty promises? Not as much as there were expecting. The Huckabee victory shows that the Republican Party may have a tiger by the tail.

Johann Hari sums up the Republican predicament nicely:

… After seven years of Bush, American conservatism is coming apart at the seams, dazed and foggy about where to go now.

Ever since Ronald Reagan, the Republicans have managed to glue together a conflicting, contradictory coalition of interests. They took Christian fundamentalists and market fundamentalists, swollen Empire-builders and lean small-staters, and squeezed them all into one option in the polling booth. But in the run-up to Iowa, we have seen these different components turn on each other with an angry snarl.

Look, for example, at the Christian evangelicals. The Republican leadership has fed and watered this base by offering ever-more pious words, and ever-more anti-abortion judges. In return, they expect the evangelicals to support everything else they do – vast tax-cuts for the rich, pissing on the poor, bombing The Bad Guys. Bush’s former senior advisors David Kuo and John Dilulio have described how Bush and his confidantes would often invite evangelical leaders into the Oval Office, make reams of promises to them, and then mock them the moment they left as fools.

But something fascinating has happened this year: the evangelicals have grown angry at being kept in this judges-and-bromides cage. They have smashed through the bars, and the man who helped them do it is Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. He is a syrup-voiced Baptist minister from a town called Hope (yes, the same one that gave us Bill Clinton). And he is way off the establishment-Republican script.

Huckabee defines himself against “big corporations,” complaining that most hard-working families have not seen the benefits of the Bush boom because it has all trickled up to “Wall Street, not Main Street.” He dismisses the tax-cutting Club for Growth as “the Club for Greed.” As Governor he increased taxes by 47 percent to rebuild the state’s collapsing infrastructure, and gave scholarships to the children of illegal immigrants. In Huckabee’s hokey breast, the old-style evangelical populism of William Jennings Bryan – the perennial Democratic candidate for President at the turn of the last century – has been reborn.

And like Bryan, he is a barking theocrat. He insists the world was created 6000 years ago, and he ain’t descended from no monkey. He drawls, “Science changes with every generation with new discoveries, and God doesn’t. So I’ll stick with God.” In the 1990s he suggested quarantining HIV victims, and he openly compares homosexuality to necrophilia and bestiality. Both halves of this message resonated in the Republican heartlands: Huckabee was ahead in the polls for the nomination just a few weeks ago.

A panicked corporate Republican establishment – the likes of Bob Novak, Peggy Noonan and George Will – turned on him and threw anything they could find. These Republicans had spent decades inciting the evangelicals to ever-higher heights of rhetorical fancy – only to find the monster they created is now turning on them, demanding their theocratic words be taken seriously. They point out desperately that Huckabee accepted $112,000 of freebies in a single year as governor – including $48,000 of clothing, a discount card for Wendy’s, and a chainsaw.

At the opposite end of the Republican spectrum, there is a parallel and opposing rebellion – of the small state conservatives. The Republicans have always claimed they are committed to peeling back both taxes and spending, and (the old cliché) “getting the state off your back.” But under Bush, they have done the opposite. Spending has exploded – primarily because of the one trillion dollar war in Iraq, and the vast government hand-outs Bush signed into law for his corporate donors. True, there have been huge tax cuts for the wealthy – but they have been put on America’s Visa card, paid for with massive loans from China.

So now the small-staters are kicking back. Their magi is Ron Paul, a soft-spoken doctor and Congressman from Texas who openly describes the United States as “an empire” he wants to “abolish” overnight. He would bring all US troops home on his first night as President and he says this would end Islamic fundamentalism because “they don’t hate us because we’re free, they hate us because we’re over there.”

Ron Paul wants to shrink the US state back to the size it was when the constitution was written in the eighteenth century. He would abolish healthcare, pensions, anti-poverty programmes – almost everything. He would end the war on drugs and the ‘war on terror’, and pull the US out of the United Nations. This is a revival of the old isolationist America First! message that dominated the American right until relatively recently – the 1940s. His campaign has found extraordinary resonance with one chunk of the Republican base: Paul has received more individual donations than any other candidate, even though he has no chance of winning.

It shows how far the Republican coalition has been stretched that Paul and Huckabee are in the same party: Paul called one of Huckabee’s adverts “fascist”. Yet the Republican establishment has found it hard to totally demolish these tendencies because they have no obvious candidate to unite behind. Rudi Giulliani is a hardline imperialist and instinctive authoritarian, but he is soft on gays and guns. John McCain believes the US should be the successor to the brutal British Empire and wants to criminalise abortion, but he also believes in capping corporate power over politics and doing something (but not enough) about global warming. This Teddy Roosevelt Republicanism is too much for them today.

The Party’s corporate paymasters have tried to manufacture a candidate who can keep the old Reagan coalition together: the mega-rich businessman and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. He is handsome, wholesome and wholly false. He has taken a tick-list of all the things a Republican candidate has to be, and carefully contorted himself to fit them all.

Just a few years ago, Romney was a pro-choice, pro-gay, anti-gun governor who bragged he wasn’t a successor to Reagan. But like his Mormon Church, whenever politics requires it, he has a convenient divine revelation telling him God wants him to get with the focus groups. Just before it became illegal in the 1970s, God ‘told’ the Mormon elders their ban on black people was wrong all along. Just before running for the Republican nomination, Romney realised he was an anti-abortion, anti-gay and pro-gun Reaganite all along. He is now trying to gloss over the cracks by defining himself against (boo! hiss!) “secularists”, insisting “freedom requires religion,” and promising to “double Guantanomo.”

It is now plausible there will be no obvious winner from the Republican primaries at all. If that happens, we will be in a situation unseen since 1948: the delegates at the convention in September will have to huddle together and pick a representative of Republicanism. It won’t be easy. They will be trying frantically to glue together scraps of bacon, long after the pig has been slaughtered.

Billy Taylor and Monty Alexander: “Joy Spring”

This is Billy Taylor and Monty Alexander performing Clifford Brown’s “Joy Spring.”

The Congo rape epidemic

The Congo has a history of over a century of misery. From King Leopold and the Belgian rubber plantations to the current chaos in central Africa, the Congolese people have been victims of those with power who simply take what they want and do as they please. There are armies from a number of different countries and private militias roving the country raping, looting, enslaving and killing with no one to stop them. The central government is so corrupt and weak it cannot protect its citizens. Conscription of children by different armed factions has become a problem. An estimated 3.9 million people have died since 1998 from war related violence, hunger and disease.

It is an impoverished country wealthy with many natural resources (much of it mined by slave labor) such as coltan, diamonds, gold and cassiterite that are exported to the world market and the revenue is used to fuel the ongoing war. (For example, according to Johann Hari, Coltan is a metal that conducts heat unusually brilliantly. It is component in our cell phones, lap-tops, and our children’s Playstations. Eighty percent of the world’s supplies can be found in the Democratic Republic of Congo and is mined by men, women and children – many of them digging with nothing more than their hands and many of them slaves.)

The four dominant groups involved in the conflict in the eastern Congo are the Congolese government forces, insurgents loyal to renegade General Laurent Nkunda, Rwandan Hutu rebels, and the Mai-Mai militias. There are no alliances with each group fighting all the others and a helpless civilian population caught in the middle.

The breakdown of the social order war brings is no more evident than in the epidemic of rape of women and girls that is occurring. According to Anna Husarska in Slate:

The invisible side of the war in northeast Congo is the most painful one: a virtual epidemic of rape, and—if it is possible—worse forms of sexual assault, such as the brutal destruction of girls' and women's organs. Hospitals here in Goma and in Bukavu, the capital of South Kivu, mend the victims as best they can. These are often complicated surgical operations that may not be successful the first time around. But there is a whole other trauma: the stigma, the rejection by family, the fear—often, alas, justified—of contracting HIV/AIDS or other sexually transmitted diseases.

Whether rape occurs as a weapon of war or as a common crime makes little difference to the women who are attacked. Not only are they assaulted but their government has little to offer in the way of protection from being raped again. This from Reuters:

Intense fighting between government and militia forces in eastern Congo has led to a surge in rape by fighters from all sides, women and doctors say.

Renewed hostilities between the army and troops loyal to renegade Tutsi General Laurent Nkunda have stoked a volatile crucible of violence in Congo's North Kivu province, where traditional Mai Mai fighters and Rwandan Hutu militia also roam.

"I was leaving the market and I ran into FDLR on the road. They robbed me of everything and then four men raped me," Francoise Mwamasirika, a 45-year-old mother said of Rwandan Hutu rebels who include leaders of Rwanda's 1994 genocide against Tutsis.

Mwamasirika was stunned and barely able to speak when she arrived at a hospital in the South Kivu town of Minova.

"I won't go back," she said.

Sexual violence has escalated as hundreds of thousands of people have been forced to flee the safety of their homes -- around 400,000 people since August, when Nkunda quit a peace deal, bringing North Kivu's displaced population to 800,000.

Congo's government has called a peace summit for Sunday, but there is little optimism the chronic fighting will end soon.

Christophe Kimona, a surgeon at Goma's Heal Africa hospital, repairs the torn and damaged genitals of rape victims. Many can no longer control urination without surgery.

"The number of women we are seeing who have been raped is going up. We see an average of three or four rapes each day," Kimona said. "Those are just the ones who arrive at the hospital, we don't know how many are too ashamed to come."

Most rape victims say their attackers were armed groups of rebels or government soldiers.But Kimona said as rape becomes so common with the conflict, more civilians are committing rapes too, and the victims are often children.

Faura Ngabu Noela holds her 11-month-old daughter Chaunce close on her lap.

Villagers found Chaunce covered in grass, dirt and blood after she was raped by a 22-year-old man in her village, Noela said.

"I took her to the local hospital for surgery to repair her torn vagina, but it became infected and I had to bring her to Goma to have another operation and to heal that infection."

Now Noela says she is eager to go home.

"I just want to return to my other children because with the war, I'm not sure they are safe," Noela said.

There are laws in place to try rapists but victims often have little faith in the judicial system, said Marie-Antoinette Okimba, a senior field officer with U.N. refugee agency UNHCR.

"Many believe there is nothing that can be done -- especially if they were raped by military," Okimba said.

Okimba says some women are raped on the outskirts of refugee camps when they go looking for firewood.

Dr. Kimona says while he can repair many of the women physically, as long as the war continues, the women have little protection.

"We take care of them, but then you have people who leave and are raped again because society is not safe," Kimona said.

Happy Days Are Here Again

This is in honor of Senator Barack Obama’s victory in Iowa tonight. (This performance is by the Jack Hylton Orchestra recorded in 1930.)

Iowa insanity

"It is quite astonishing to see with what deadpan and neutral a tone our press and television report the open corruption—and the flagrantly anti-democratic character—of the Iowa caucuses."

That’s Christopher Hitchens’ assessment of the Iowa caucuses that are to take place this evening. The Iowa caucuses are important not because they are important but because they are first in line of an insanely early and long delegate selection process for major party conventions to take place mid-summer to nominate candidates for the Presidential election to take place in November – eleven months away.

Since 1972, the Iowa caucuses have been the first event in the Presidential campaign. In 1972, Ed Muskie tied with “uncommitted” while George McGovern came in a distant third. However, the momentum of the relatively strong showing of the anti-establishment McGovern candidacy led to the capture of the Democratic nomination by the South Dakota Senator. In 1976, Jimmy Carter came in a distant second to “uncommitted” but since he received the most votes of the candidates he declared victory giving the relatively unknown Georgia governor the momentum to capture the Democratic nomination and eventually the White House.

The process involves a complicated set of rules for evening meetings throughout the state on a single night to select delegates to 99 county conventions who in turn select delegates to Congressional District and State conventions who in turn finally select delegates to the National Convention of each party.

Iowa is a small rural state and its caucuses will be followed by the nation’s first Presidential primary in New Hampshire – another small rural state. The results of these two events will likely make and break a number of campaigns. At a minimum, the results will give the front-runners a big fundraising advantage.

As argued here before, this whole process simply isn’t in the best interests of the candidates or the parties. Given the timing of this whole process -- almost a year before the election -- there is the very real possibility of “buyers’ remorse” setting in and the public and maybe even party activists, becoming disillusioned and/or tired of the candidates. And while this campaign is almost as long as the term of office the candidates are running for, most of the public across the country are outside the process. Any momentum the eventual nominees may have had during the winter primaries and caucuses will be long gone by Labor Day.

Professor Larry Sabato has this assessment of the problems with the Iowa system:

The Timing. Have you met anyone who thinks it's a good idea to start the process two days after New Year's, with campaigning having peaked over the Christmas holidays? Let's remember why this has happened: Iowa and New Hampshire absolutely insisted upon going first, as always. Isn't that a little bit greedy? Aren't there 48 other equal states? Even if you buy their arguments about small states being better as the initial "screening committees" for White House contenders, there are twenty other states with just a few electoral votes. Any small state would take the lead-off post seriously. Yet Iowa and New Hampshire almost pushed the presidential selection process into early December 2007--an absurdity that could easily become reality four years from now if we don't insist on change.

Representativeness. Iowa, like New Hampshire, is overwhelmingly white and disproportionately rural. African-Americans and Hispanics in the Hawkeye State, for example, number just 2 percent and 3 percent of the population, respectively, and 38 percent of Iowans are located in rural areas. In the nation as a whole, nearly 25 percent of the population is African-American or Hispanic, and a mere 21 percent of U.S. citizens are found in rural localities. New Hampshire is even worse than Iowa, with a population that is 0.7 percent black, 1.7 percent Hispanic, and 41 percent rural. In the Democratic Party--the home of 90 percent of African-Americans and about two-thirds of Hispanics--the disparity is especially significant. The two first states to vote often determine one or both party nominees, yet racial and ethnic minorities will have played a tiny role.

Unfair Caucus Rules. Let's keep in mind that the Iowa caucus requires a great deal from all participants, not least a full evening devoted to travel and meeting. The time commitment discourages many from joining in. Iowa's population is about 3 million, of which approximately 2 million are registered voters. The news media are full of stories about an expected "record" turnout tonight. And what will that record amount to? In both parties combined, there may be as many as 250,000 people showing up for the caucuses, or 12 percent of the registered voters. Therefore 88 percent of Iowa's registered population won't be seen or heard from on caucus night.

That's just the beginning. If an Iowan has to work an evening job, he or she can forget about the caucuses. To have your vote count, you must be there at 7 pm when the doors close. It's just too bad for those who can't get time off or afford to do without the income. How about Iowans who are members of the armed forces and stationed out of state? Sorry Charlie, you may be defending our freedom but there's no provision for you to participate either. Absentee ballots and caucuses do not mix. As Governor Ted Strickland (D-Ohio) noted this week, if you are elderly or frail or ill, you are far less likely to endure hours of caucusing than a quick trip to the polls to cast a primary ballot.

Adding insult to injury, some Iowa activists and journalists actually condemned caucus participation by college and university students who live with their parents in other states three months of the year while feeding Iowa's economy nine months of the year by enrolling in a Hawkeye institution of higher learning. Participation among the young often lags, and they should be energetically facilitated in every way possible. Some in Iowa apparently think the caucuses are a private club that must be kept "pure." …

We haven't even mentioned the Byzantine caucus rules on the Democratic side. It would require a separate column to explain the process in detail, but suffice it to say that it almost takes a PhD in mathematics to advise Iowa Democrats on their delegate allocation formula. The party even refuses to release the simple hand-count of caucus participants for each presidential candidate, making public only the final delegate allocations. Thus, the raw popular votes for the candidates, which can differ considerably from the weighted delegate allocations, are never known. (The Iowa Democratic Party says it must do this to satisfy the national Democratic Party's rules; if so, the national rules should be changed.) By contrast, the Republicans just take a hand-count tally, and release it. Of course, all the other inequities we have outlined still apply to the Iowa GOP.

Will any of this change? I hate to be a cynic but I strongly doubt it.

Aretha Franklin: “Dr. Feelgood” (1968)

This is Aretha Franklin performing in Amsterdam in 1968 singing one of her hits, “Dr. Feelgood.” She has become known as the “Queen of Soul” but has performed many genres including jazz, rhythm & blues, and pop among others.

Ten Middle East challenges facing the U.S.

Juan Cole has come up with a list of Top 10 Challenges Facing the US in the Middle East. Whether or not you agree with the specifics of his conclusions each of the points he raises are clearly issues the United States needs to address this coming year.

His list:

10. Helping broker a deal in Lebanon between the March 14 Movement and the Shiites so that a new president can be elected and a national unity government can be formed. …. A prosperous, healthy Lebanon is good for US security and is less likely to become the cat's paw of regional powers hostile to US interests.

9. The US should exercise its good offices to encourage continued dialogue between Iran and Saudi Arabia. The capture of Baghdad by the Shiites and the ethnic cleansing of most Sunnis from it have set the stage for a big Sunni-Shiite battle for the capital as soon as the US troops get out of the way. It is absolutely essential to Gulf security, and to American energy security, that Saudi Arabia and Iran not be drawn into a proxy Sunni-Shiite war in Iraq. …

8. Congress should expand funding for, and guarantee the future of, the Combatting Terrorism Center at West Point. Its researchers do among the very best jobs of analyzing the writings and activities of the Salafi Jihadis, and so of combatting them. Few government institutions are as effective. … if Bush and Cheney had really cared about the threat of al-Qaeda, they would have gone after it and gotten Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri rather than rushing off on a fool's errand in Iraq.

7. The US must repair its tattered relations with Turkey. Turkey has been a NATO ally for decades and Turkish troops fought alongside American ones in the Korean War. Turkey stood with the US in the Cold War and gave the US bases on its soil. As a secular country, it is an ally in the struggle against the Salafi Jihadis, for which even religious Turks have contempt. Turkey has among the more promising economies in the Middle East, among non-oil states, and is attracting billions in foreign investment. The US has for some strange reason stiffed Turkey several times in the past decade. …

6. The US must keep the pressure on Pervez Musharraf to hold free and fair, early elections in Pakistan. … Musharraf's own legitimacy has collapsed, and he is in danger of becoming a Shah of Iran figure, hated by his own people and driven from office. Such a scenario could be very bad for the United States. That is why Joe Biden is right and John McCain is wrong when the latter warns against dumping Musharraf. Why cannot the American Right learn that backing the wrong horse is often worse than not having a horse in the first place?

5. The US and NATO have to stop doing search and destroy missions in Afghanistan. … The NATO and US military missions in Afghanistan have to be redefined so that they are not simply putting down tribes for the central government. The best Afghan central governments have ruled by playing the tribes off against one another, not by trying to crush them. The solutions in Afghanistan are political and economic. More reconstruction needs to be done. Farmers need aid to be weaned off poppies. Forced eradication of poppy crops appears to be behind a lot of the "Taliban resurgence," which actually often looks to me from a distance like angry farmers taking revenge for the destruction of their livelihoods.

4. The US must facilitate provincial elections in Iraq. They are arguably more important than any other step. They would solve a number of important problems.

The Sunni Arab provinces of Al-Anbar, Salahuddin, Ninevah and Diyala have unrepresentative governments (Diyalah, 60% Sunni, is ruled by the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, a hard line Shiite group!) The Sunni Arab parties declined to run in January, 2005, and there have been no subsequent provincial elections. Representative Sunni provincial governments could negotiate from a greater position of strength with the federal government of Shiite Dawa Party leader and prime minister Nuri al-Maliki. Some of the Awakening Councils members, who are self-appointed, might get elected and so gain greater legitimacy.

Without legitimate provincial governments in the Sunni Arab provinces, it is hard to see how the US can hope to withdraw troops and turn over security to locals, as Gen. Petraeus had planned to do in Mosul this year.

In the south, Basra needs new elections because its provincial government saw a major division this year, leading to an ISCI-led vote of no confidence in the governor, who is from the Islamic Virtue Party. But then the governor refused to step down! Ineffective governance in oil-rich Basra, which contains the country's only major ports, is bad for the whole country. In some other southern provinces, such as Diwaniya, a more representative provincial government might make for more social peace.

What I am saying now is not new, and Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Gen. Petraeus have repeatedly called for such elections. I am saying, now is the time to make a big push for them. If the US starts drawing down troops this year, it will make it harder to hold elections, since the Iraqi security forces probably cannot keep the voters dafe. If the US leaves behind the current provincial governments, as with Diyala, Diwaniya and Basra in particular, it is probably leaving behind provincial civil wars.

3. The US Congress must allocate substantial funds, on the order of $1 billion or more, for Iraqi refugee relief in Syria and Jordan. UNO relief funds are running out. Iraqis' own savings are running out. Children are not in school and are going hungry. People are being exploited, including young girls forced into prostitution. A majority of the 1.5 million Iraqis in Syria went there in 2007, and almost all of them have been forced out of Baghdad and other areas because of the political instability that the United States unleashed in their country. The surge is being touted as a victory in the US press, but it seems to have displaced 700,000 Iraqi civilians! The US is spending $15 billion a month on the Iraqi and Afghanistan Wars. It can afford $1 billion a year for refugee relief. This is our responsibility. How future generations of Iraqis view the United States will in part depend on whether we do this. …

2. The Bush administration should expend all of its remaining political capital in the region to have the Israelis return the Golan Heights to Syria. The Golan was captured in 1967. By the United Nations Charter, countries may not permanently grab the territory of their neighbors. The Syrians will have to agree to keep the Golan a demilitarized zone, with UNO blue helmets patrolling as a safeguard. In return, Syria would have to agree to cease backing Palestinian militants and would have to play a positive role in creating a Palestinian state. Damascus would also have to work to restore social peace in Lebanon. …

1. The US must insist that the Israeli siege of Gaza must be lifted. A third of Palestinians killed by Israel this year were innocent civilians. The agricultural sector is being destroyed because farmers cannot export their goods owing to the Israeli blockade. Food, water, essential medicines are all being denied to civilian populations, including children. If Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is so worried about Israel being seen as an Apartheid state, he should release Gazans from their penitentiary and stop deploying collective punishment against civilians.

The above is somewhat condensed. You can read the full details of his list here.

Dinner for One

“Dinner for One” is an old skit performed since the 1920’s on stage and made famous by its television production in 1963 starring Freddie Frinton and May Warden.

The sketch presents the 90th birthday of elderly upper-class Englishwoman Miss Sophie, who hosts a dinner every year for Mr Pommeroy, Mr Winterbottom, Sir Toby, and Admiral von Schneider – dear friends she has outlived. Her butler, James, makes his way around the table impersonating each guest. Miss Sophie decides on a variety of drinks to consume with the meal. James then drinks a toast to Miss Sophie on behalf of each guest and become a bit smashed as the evening progresses.

The crucial exchange during every course is:

James: The same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?

Miss Sophie: The same procedure as every year, James!

After the dinner, Miss Sophie indicates to a very drunk James that she wishes to retire to bed, to which James responds:

James: By the way, the same procedure as last year, Miss Sophie?

Miss Sophie, delightedly: The same procedure as every year, James!

James: Well, I'll do my very best!

Interestingly, while the skit and television production are little known in the U.S. and U.K., it has become something of a cult classic in Germany where it is played every New Year’s Eve and is the inspiration of numerous drinking games. Playing the video has become a tradition – the same procedure as every year.