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Seeing Evil

Posted December 29th, 2015 by Lesley Hazleton

In end-of-the-year phone calls from friends near and far, many express despair at the state of the world. I fully understand why, but I don’t accept their despair. In fact I can make a strong argument against it. Because what has changed is not so much the world itself, but our awareness of it.

drowned boyA single click on the screen you’re looking at right now will bring you to visceral images from thousands of miles away. A Syrian boy’s body washed up on the shore of a Greek island. A young woman beaten to death and set on fire in Afghanistan after a malicious rumor that she had burned a Quran (which leads me to ask “and even if she had…?”). Crazed Israeli settlers celebrating a wedding by cheering the arson murder of a Palestinian baby. A white cop shooting a fleeing black man in the back. We focus on such images, and ask what the world has come to.

We forget where it has come from.

When Harvard psychologist Steven Pinker’s book The Better Angels of Our Nature came out a few years ago, I bristled at the pseudo-religious sentimentality of the title. (Okay, I still do.) But the book has stayed with me, along with its subtitle: “why violence has declined.” Yes, you read that right.

Pinker is no cock-eyed optimist: he’s an empiricist, and he spends close to 700 pages proving his point with data . “We can see our world as a nightmare of crime, terrorism, genocide, and war,” he writes, “or as a period that, by the standards of history, is blessed by unprecedented levels of peaceful coexistence.”

Now, it’s true “the standards of history” are pretty low, and that as Pinker himself notes, to make such a case in a century that began with 9/11, Darfur, and Iraq could well be seen as hallucinatory, even obscene. But it’s also true that despite what we see on the news, more people live more safely than ever before.

The difference is that now we know about violence. News spreads almost instantaneously. Cellphones are everywhere. Images are captured in real time, and seen in real time. And it’s only human to focus on these images.

So how do we deal with so much knowledge? How do we go about our lives with this awareness?

Outrage, shock, and even despair all seem to me healthy reactions. Because they are reactions, and not so long ago, there were none.  White cops once shot unarmed black men as a matter of routine. Refugees have drowned and starved in far greater numbers in the past. Women were once set on fire in Massachusetts as well as in Afghanistan. And massacres were by the thousands, even without the aid of guns. But all of this was hidden from immediate consciousness. Such events once passed for the most part unnoticed, unreported, unremarked upon until far later.

And more important, we didn’t see the violence. We didn’t have the evidence of our eyes. Now we do, and it encourages me that we are shocked. That we are outraged. That we do condemn. That we do care.

Evil can no longer take place under the cloak of silence.  We hear it, and we see it. And we speak up against it. We are all witnesses now. And as witnesses, we will step forward.

And yes, despite the evidence of our eyes, this is progress.

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File under: sanity, technology, ugliness, war | Tagged: Tags: Afghanistan, cellphones, Israel, Palestine, Refugees, Steven Pinker, Syria, The Better Angels of Our Nature, violence | 15 Comments
  1. Candace Moore Hill says:
    December 29, 2015 at 10:28 am

    Dear Lesley, you and I are in complete agreement, but no one was burned at the stake in the Salem witch trials. Lynchings around the country maybe, but not as capital punishment.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      December 29, 2015 at 11:03 am

      Just checked, and you’re right: they were hung. In Denmark, they were burned.

      • Candace Moore Hill says:
        December 29, 2015 at 11:34 am

        Lots of burning in England as well. Which is an interesting question to ask, burning at the stake did not happen in the United States as a public execution, why was that? Lynching is another matter.

  2. Rachel Cowan says:
    December 29, 2015 at 11:41 am

    Thanks Leslie,
    I needed this reminder. I read articles about his book when it came out, and I hold to the anti-despair position, but sometimes my attention sags, and despair creeps in.

  3. Robin Bissiri-Lewis says:
    December 29, 2015 at 12:18 pm

    Yes.
    Various societies can allow the weight of knowledge, pertaining to worldwide human suffering, to crush the spirit of hope and resolve OR motivate all of us to collectively seek ways to relieve and prevent that which afflicts others.
    Positioning ourselves like the 3 chimps with hands over eyes, ears and mouths is a common impulse but we CAN and must overcome this!

  4. Anne says:
    December 29, 2015 at 12:49 pm

    Maybe “evil can no longer take place under the cloak of silence”, but evil seems to be doing just fine in the light of day. As of a few days ago, it appears that sentences in Farkhunda’s murder are being commuted and it is uncertain what the disposition of the case will be.
    Video of a “A white cop shooting a fleeing black man in the back” didn’t seem to deter the shooting of a white man (and the subsequent murder of his autistic 6 year old son, Jeremy Mardis), allegedly by black officers. All of the visibility and condemnation of the drug-related violence in Mexico hasn’t lessened the horror. It would seem that the determination of what is evil (or the degree of evil and whether to punish, or how severely to punish) is pretty much in the culture’s (those in power in the culture) eye.

    We know evil, we see it within a few hours, we condemn it, but now what?

  5. Pat Davis says:
    December 29, 2015 at 1:02 pm

    And it was not just “women” murdered in Salem, one was my great grandfather X6, Samuel Wardwell, hung on the gallows. He was an architect and builder of the House of Seven Gables (now the Salem museum.) His crime: a bachelor who scooped up the best looking widow in the area..

  6. John Odum says:
    December 29, 2015 at 1:11 pm

    Thanks for your optimism. Progress has always been a messy, “three-steps-forward-two-steps-back” business. When you’re in the midst of it, it’s hard to tell how to measure a step (or to have any clear sense of where you are in the process). It gets hard to avoid drowning in the gloom sometimes, but as you say – onward and upward. Of course these days we also have the complication of whether or not the rate of degrading planetary habitability is compatible with our process/pace of improvement as a species (yikes).

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      December 29, 2015 at 1:46 pm

      Yes, measuring the size of steps is tricky business, as is figuring out which way you’re going on them. Do they go up or do they go down, or are we all in the middle of an Escher drawing? (or stuck on one of those weird gym machines). Plus, I wonder if there’s a link between the violence we do to the planet and the violence we do to each other…

  7. jveeds says:
    December 29, 2015 at 3:17 pm

    As an anonymous would-be philosophe once said: “A bigger window always reveals more scenery…but not always the scene you want.”

    (Ok, that was me who said that).

  8. Dr Mansour Malik says:
    December 29, 2015 at 9:45 pm

    Our world is in a mess. I agree with you we must keep our hope and positive way for a better peaceful world

  9. Life's backpacker says:
    December 30, 2015 at 3:18 am

    Hi Leslie, very insightful and yes something that has come to my mind too. Thanks for putting the right words together (wish they could come as easily to me). Which brings me to my next question; is war/violence/death an auto-immune response by God/nature/whatever-you-choose-to-call-that-power, to the burgeoning population of this planet?

  10. Fran Love says:
    December 30, 2015 at 5:44 pm

    Leslie thank you for this reminder that all the current atrocities are actual improvements to previous times. I certainly was not looking at it that way so your point of view, and Pinker’s. is an important reminder for us all.

  11. lynnrosengiordano says:
    December 30, 2015 at 11:42 pm

    As Fran says, you’ve opened some eyes on world perspective and the actual progression of human kindness Thanks for the reminder.

  12. De Lise Hartzell says:
    December 31, 2015 at 8:54 am

    Your blog brings up a very good point. Going to read the book you mentioned.
    I have wondered and debated the same question.

    Awareness precedes action.

American Influence?

Posted October 26th, 2013 by Lesley Hazleton

rohdeThe road to hell may be paved with good intentions, as the saying goes, but there’s a lot of understandable suspicion out there about exactly how good American intentions even are when it comes to the Middle East.  That’s the theme of David Rohde’s book ‘Beyond War:  Reimagining American Influence in the Middle East.’

The first step I’d suggest:  do some major reimagining of images, and forget Orientalist stereotypes like the camel-rider on  the cover.  The second step:  question the whole concept of influence.

The Catholic weekly America asked me to review the book, and here’s what I wrote:

When the Egyptian military seized power in June, American pundits instantly rushed to preach about democracy.  This took some hubris considering that two recent American elections – 2000 and 2004 – are still considered by many to be of questionable legality, and that redistricting is rapidly ensuring the minority status of Democratic strongholds throughout the south.

Is the US even in a position to preach democracy?  Especially since as with national elections, so too with foreign policy:  democracy is subject to money, and how it’s spent.

This is the hard-headed reality behind two-time Pulitzer prize-winner and former Taliban captive David Rohde’s new book, which focuses on how the US government spends money abroad, specifically in the Middle East.  It’s an argument for small-scale economic rather than large-scale military aid, and as such is immensely welcome in principle. The question is how to do it in practice.

As Rohde writes, “Washington’s archaic foreign policy apparatus” and its weakened civilian agencies mean that “in the decades since the end of the Cold War, the ability of the White House, State Department, and Congress to devise and carry out sophisticated political and development efforts overseas has withered.”

Whether Rohde is aware of it or not, the problem might be encapsulated in the subtitle of his own book, which assumes not only the existence of American influence, but also its necessity. Many of his sources are well-informed and palpably frustrated employees of the Agency for International Development (USAID) who are basically in conflict with both the State Department and Congress.  Yet the stated goals of USAID are clear:  they include providing “economic, development and humanitarian assistance around the world in support of the foreign policy goals of the US.” [my italics].

For all the talk about the need for humanitarian aid and intervention (most recently in Syria), the reality is purely political.  What’s presented as humanitarian aid is always a matter of foreign policy.  And American foreign policy is still intensely focused on George W. Bush’s GWOT – the “global war on terror.”

The principle is that US aid should act as a stabilizing force against militant Islamic extremism.  But the very idea of the US as a stabilizing force has been thoroughly undermined by the disastrous wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Even the best-considered foreign aid has now been rendered suspect in many parts of the Middle East, especially when there’s “a widespread perception of the American government as a finely tuned, nefarious machine, not an unwieldy cacophony of viewpoints,” and when authoritarian control fosters an intense rumor mill, with conspiracy theories rampant (most recently, for instance, Malala Yousufzai as a CIA plant, or American-backed ‘Zionists’ as the instigators of the new regime in Egypt).  In Egypt in particular, Rohde notes, “Washington faces an extraordinary public-policy conundrum.  Decades of support for Mubarak will not be forgotten overnight.”

Rohde details the conundrum in a series of country-by-country chapters, some intensively well-reported (particularly on civilian contractors’ takeover of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and on the use of drones in Pakistan and Afghanistan), while others (on Turkey, Libya, and Tunisia) seem more perfunctory by comparison.  But in the light of the June military coup, the chapter on American dollars-for-peace financing and the Egyptian army’s vast business empire is particularly fascinating and uncomfortably prescient.

Oddly, though, there is no chapter on Israel, the largest recipient of American aid.  This seems to me tantamount to ignoring the elephant in the room, since the intense investment in an Israel that seems willing only to prolong and intensify the conflict with Palestine undermines US efforts elsewhere in the region.  In fact you could make a pretty strong argument that American support of Israel, driven by domestic electoral politics, runs directly counter to its own foreign policy interests.  Inevitably, the US is perceived elsewhere in the Middle East as at least tolerating if not encouraging Israel’s land grab in the Palestinian territories;  if its funds do not literally finance the expansionist project, they certainly free up funds that do.

Even assuming the best American intentions, then, they’re all too often interpreted as the worst.  But what exactly are those best intentions?

At root, this book is, or could have been, about America’s perception of itself.  Are we the world’s greatest do-gooders, distributing our largesse (and our arms) where most urgently needed?  Or are we acting to secure a blinkered and out-dated conception of our own interests?

Either way, as Rohde wrote in a New York Times op-ed back in May, “We should stop thinking we can transform societies overnight…  Nations must transform themselves.  We should scale back our ambitions and concentrate on long-term economics.”  His economic recommendations are accordingly small-scale (sometimes to the level of pathos, as in his enthusiasm for an Egyptian version of ‘The Apprentice’).  Yet his emphasis on entrepreneurship may actually undercut his argument that trying to force Western models on other countries will backfire.  And this is the argument that matters.

Like Ambassador Chris Stevens in Libya, says Rohde, American officials need to listen rather than try to muscle their way in, whether economically or militarily.  A little respect, that is.   Preach less, listen more.  That may not be much of a “reimagining,” but it’s the really important message of this book.

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File under: Middle East, US politics | Tagged: Tags: 'America' magazine, 'Beyond War', Afghanistan, David Rohde, Egypt, Iraq, Israel, Libya, Pakistan, Palestine, Syria, Tunisia, Turkey, USAID | 2 Comments
  1. fatmakalkan says:
    October 26, 2013 at 2:13 pm

    I agree with you Lesley. In reality after Eygptian over throw of Moursi next one was Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey. Turkey has much older democracy than Israel in Middle East but it is not in the interest of west to have strong Turkey with strong leader. West wants Soudi type regimes that will obey. Gezi park demonstrations at Istanbul in reality was an unsuccessful cue attempt of west. Thanks God it was unsuccessful. It would destabilize Turkey politically and economically and make Turkey again slave of west. Why West and Israil gov. Wants to get rid of Erdogan? Is he radical Islamist? No. Is he planing to bring sharia law back to Turkey ? No. If Turkey was a Christian state they would allow it to became another France or Germany but it is Muslim state very mellow understanding of Islam no treat to anybody but still even that much of Islam is not OK. There fore Turkey must remain as a third world country for western Judeo- Christian politicians.

  2. Jerry M says:
    October 28, 2013 at 10:57 am

    I can understand why the author left Israel out. I may not like our policy in Israel but it is a very different problem than what is happening in the Muslim world. In the case of the Obama administration, I don’t think they have a clue as to what they want to accomplish. Their lack of real preparation has led to them to keeping the mistakes of the Bush administration in effect long after they have left town. For example the spying on Germany has been going on for 10 years.

    Obama is a good administrator when he has a clear goal, but without ideas and without good advisors he is only a little better than an amateur.

Zero Bland Thirty

Posted December 23rd, 2012 by Lesley Hazleton

After a mind-numbing two and a half  hours of Zero Dark Thirty last night, I came away with a single piece of information:  Jessica Chastain has amazing hair.

chastainThat red mane stays toss-worthily silky even in the deserts of Afghanistan.  The dust clouds raised by helicopters landing right in front of her can’t dull her plastic glossiness.  Nor can the sight and sounds of torture alter the uncanny blandness of her expression.

The movie’s much-talked-about scenes of torture are peculiarly sanitized:  shown, but not shown.  There is no real sense of agony or degradation.  The chief torturer’s lines are a bunch of clichés straight out of the Hollywood B-movie playbook.  And the effect of torture on both victim and perpetrator?  So far as this movie is concerned, non-existent.

And this is what’s being touted as some kind of breakthrough for women?  It’s hardly news that there are women CIA analysts, or women movie directors.  And after seeing the infamous photos of Private Lynddie England at Abu Ghraib in 2004, do you really want to join the chorus of “Wow, look, a woman torturer!”

Zero Dark Thirty is a movie with zero point of view.  It has no engagement with any of the political and ethical issues it indicates but never explores.  Despite its subject matter, it is, in the end, a movie as bland as its star.  Its “reality-TV” lens on the slow accretion of intelligence work is merely confusing.  And I suspect director Kathryn Bigelow knew this, interspersing moments of ham-fisted emoting to keep her audience from nodding off.

All of which raises the question of why this movie was made at all.  A question whose answer apparently lies in the swell of orchestral music toward the end, signaling American triumphalism.

But my reaction was more of a shrug.

“We” killed bin-Laden, true.  And…?

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File under: ugliness, US politics, war, women | Tagged: Tags: Afghanistan, Bin Laden, CIA, Jessica Chastain, Kathryn Bigelow, torture, Zero Dark Thirty | 2 Comments
  1. tamam Kahn says:
    December 25, 2012 at 1:00 pm

    One more thing, Lesley. The identification for the raid reportedly came from faking polio vaccines, and by doing so, obtained info on ObL. That allowed for the raid. The horrible consequence is that polio workers are being gunned down and many more people will get this disease in the Pakistani/Afgan area! The director had an opportunity to include this but did not mention it, I understand. What a lost opportunity! What a sad thing! Tamam

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      December 25, 2012 at 4:17 pm

      There was one very brief scene — a few seconds — of a medical worker calling at the Islamabad house, and a voice-over from a CIA discussion saying, as best I can remember, “we tried using medical personnel, but that didn’t work.” (i.e., though the script didn’t make it clear, they didn’t manage to get DNA.) That last phrase — “that didn’t work” — certainly jarred like hell.

Portrait of a Saudi Criminal

Posted May 24th, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

You might think it absurd that a woman driving a car is news.  But then this is the absurdity known as the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, now frantically trying to censor video clips of Manal al-Sharif driving.  An apparently government-supported online drive is under way to beat women caught driving, and al-Sharif  (this is her, to the right) is being held in detention for “inciting public opinion” and “disturbing public order.”

That is, for driving while female.  DWF.  A crime.

Watch the Al Jazeera report here.  Check out the newly replicated Facebook page here.  Read al-Sharif’s instructions for the June 17 ‘drive-in’ protest here on Saudiwoman’s Weblog.

And then consider the far greater absurdity of the continued existence of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which refuses to extend the most basic civil rights (even the vote) to half its population, and whose wealth and power is entirely fueled by the Western thirst for oil.  An intensely repressive Middle East regime, that is, funded directly by Western money.

But that’s only the surface.  This Western oil money is still funding the worldwide Saudi export of the most conservative and repressive form of Islam.  If there is one single country that has enabled violent Islamism, it’s not the perceived enemies of the United States like Libya, Afghanistan, or Iran, but our “good friends” the Saudis — our oil dealers.

The Saudis thought they had escaped “the Arab spring.”  They sent their military into Bahrain to help squelch protests there.  They encouraged the violent suppression of protests in Yemen.  They thought they had things under control.

But another kind of Arab spring may now be in the making.  An Arab summer, perhaps.  Six months ago, a single Tunisian street vendor couldn’t take it any more and sparked a revolution by setting himself on fire.  Now a tech-savvy Saudi woman refuses to take it any more and threatens to spark another revolution by simply taking the wheel.

This is how it starts — with individual acts of defiance, with a refusal to knuckle under, with an insistence on basic dignity.  And with the support of a vast and unsquelchable online community.

The links are above.  Go to it, everyone.

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File under: feminism, Islam, Middle East | Tagged: Tags: Afghanistan, Arab spring, arrest, Bahrain, censorship, driving, Iran, Libya, Manal al-Sharif, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, video, women, Yemen | 12 Comments
  1. Derakht says:
    May 25, 2011 at 9:21 am

    Its good Saudi Arabia doing that which help people in the world to understand and find true Islam.
    In fact nothing wrong with woman driving, just Saudi Arabia want to destroy Islam by this way! but its very helpful for the people think. in a lot of Islamic country woman driving car even van and airplane. but in wahhabism thought NO. they not Muslim, they are anti-Islam, and anti human.

  2. aboalhasan says:
    May 27, 2011 at 3:19 pm

    Really, this is intrior issue for saudi people..
    U R not saudi, so why you are talking about ?
    Every social has thier own traditions, may you know how they save thier family.
    so just keep away from us 🙂

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      May 27, 2011 at 3:41 pm

      Does that ‘us’ include Manal al-Sharif? Does it include all Saudi women? Does it even include all Saudi men?
      And why, precisely, should I not comment?

      • Abdulrahman says:
        May 27, 2011 at 8:30 pm

        Lesley, I am a Saudi man and I am a supporter of the women right to drive (and so many other rights), actually i think it is stupid law to ban women from driving. However, I do not encourage my female family members to disobey it, simply because it is the law no matter how stupid it is. so in this context I think what manal did is wrong; she broke the LAW. what she should have done is: ask for changing the law through the legal channels. and now if you ask me should we change the law and allow women to drive I would say no, at least not this year. because that would encourage anybody: just go to the street, break any law that you do not like, get the support from all over the world, and there you are: you made it. there are some people who are looking to make weed legal in the US, are they out there smoking weed in public to make it legal? is this the right way to do it? absolutely no. On the other hand, It is purely internal issue, it is up to the society to decide. I was against banning women from driving (and i will be again in the future) but i did respect the opinion of the majority (even women majority). this bring us to how we make the law anywhere in the world. what is right and what is wrong? believe me, people from different parts of the world have different views, what you think is right is not necessary right in the eyes of a group of people in Nigeria for instant. you have to respect that. Did you ask your self how did the goverment in Saudi made this law? it is a long story and i am happy to tell it if you wish.
        to answer your question: why should you not comment, 1. because it is purely internal issue (no saudi has the right to comment on an internal issue in the US)
        2. you do not know the circumstances related to enforce this law in the first place and the issue of 1991 and the issue of conflicting parties in Saudi regarding this issue and so many others.
        3. and believe me when i say that: you are making it harder to us (supporter of the women right to drive) to change the law any time near in the future, and the more you interfere the harder you make it.
        PEACE

        • Lesley Hazleton says:
          May 27, 2011 at 9:48 pm

          Abdulrahman, it sounds like you’re between the proverbial rock and a hard place.
          If I understand you right, you’re essentially saying “of course the law is nuts, but now’s not the time to change it.” But to quote an ancient saying: “If not now, when?”
          You’re saying that open discussion will only make things worse. But isn’t that another way to suppress speech and thought?
          You’re saying that we must respect the law. But law is not carved in stone. When it’s manifestly wrong — segregation laws in the American south in the 50s, for instance — it needs to be broken, and those with the courage to do so both need and deserve our support, wherever we are.

      • aboalhasan says:
        June 12, 2011 at 12:25 am

        1- Yes
        2 – also YES
        3 – also YESSS
        4 – I just told that ” U R not saudi ” citizen !!

  3. Abdulrahman says:
    May 27, 2011 at 9:07 pm

    it is me again, aha, after posting my last comment i checked you on wikipedia. and i would like to say that my last comment was based on the assumption that your article was just a pure support for the human rights. now after reading about you I think that you are going to criticize this country no matter what. so my comment was a huge waste of my valuable time.
    anyway: PEACE

  4. Abu Abdulrahman says:
    June 2, 2011 at 1:59 pm

    To the best of my judgement, allowing Saudi women to drive will be a negative change in Saudi society because of the high potential for them being grossly mistreated and harrassed, in more ways than you can imagine, by the general male public. That is why the “Saudi Society” is fearful of allowing it. This fact is acknowledged by most opposers as the real reason for continuous ban on women driving and it is why the majority of Saudis do not want it so as to protect their women.

  5. Abu Abdulrahman says:
    June 2, 2011 at 2:09 pm

    Correction: This scenario is acknowledged by most opposers as the real reason for continuous ban on women driving and it is why the majority of Saudis do not want it so as to protect their women.

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 2, 2011 at 5:15 pm

      “Their” women? See my latest post “The Virginity Test.”

      • Abu Abdulrahman says:
        June 3, 2011 at 3:43 am

        Please do not perceive my thoughts as contradictory (on one hand, I say the people want to ‘protect’ their women while on the other hand I warn of the potential ill treatment of these same women by the same ‘general public’). Unfortunately, ME societies suffer from high levels of ignorance, hypocricy, lack of education, misconception and non-implementation of the true values of Islam, and the list goes on . . .

  6. Abu Abdulrahman says:
    June 3, 2011 at 2:52 am

    Yes, “their” men. Likewise, us men are “their” men. Considering who you are and where/how you were brought up, you may never understand the nature of social relations in an Eastern, not necessarily Islamic or Arab, society. And considering you have much insight into the Arabic language, explore the word Haram (حرم)

Can We Please Go Home Now?

Posted May 2nd, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

No exultation.  No victorious “mission accomplished.”  No jingoistic “Rah rah, USA USA.”   What a relief that Barack Hussein Obama is the president of the United States.

While students cheered wildly in front of the White House as though their team had just won a major football game, Obama’s announcement last night was characteristically calm and realistic:

Bin Laden’s death does not mark the end of our effort. There’s no doubt that Al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must –- and we will — remain vigilant at home and abroad.

Obama is clearly aware that the killing of Bin Laden is more a symbolic victory than anything.  “Emblematic” is the word being used.  Al Qaeda is a loose alliance, with no reliance on a single leader.   But the fact that this happened on Obama’s watch and on his orders is a huge shot in the arm for the voices of calm and reason in the United States.  And a brilliantly timed one.  Bin Laden’s death may finally give Obama the respect and authority he merits in Congress, especially since it has to be clear as of last night that he is all but assured of a second presidential term.

We need it.  The US is still reeling from the racist absurdities of the “birther” luantics (how many hours until they start demanding Bin Laden’s “long-form death certificate”?).  It’s still in deep recession.  It’s still enmeshed in Iraq, newly mired in Libya, and floundering in Afghanistan. And, as Steve Coll makes clear on The New Yorker blog, bamboozled in Pakistan, where Bin Laden was hiding out just a thousand feet from a major Pakistani military base, “effectively housed under Pakistani state control.”

So I know this is naive.  I know it’s not going to happen soon.  But really, all I can think right now is this:

Mr President, can we please get out of Iraq and Afghanistan and Libya?

Can we please go home now?

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File under: Middle East, US politics | Tagged: Tags: Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Bin Laden, Iraq, Libya, Obama, Pakistan | 4 Comments
  1. AJ says:
    May 3, 2011 at 10:12 am

    Lez
    We hardly know
    This war on terror is principled or cost effective.
    One thing we know
    Al-Qaida is not into making the weapons and have no control over Arm Trafficking.
    These terrorists are getting enough resources to execute where they are allowed to execute i.e.Iraq, Iran and Pakistan.
    Although to them biggest culprit is Israel but thats where they are not allowed to execute.
    Amazingly soft targets like Dubai and Saudia and other Gulf puppets are nowhere in the list.
    Thought provoking question is when terrorists have no access to Banking system and money smuggling is also curtailed, how they get the finances and who chose their targets.
    My take is trillion dollars war was not needed in the first place…just cut their roots and access to arms and that was enough at mush less cost.
    Hopefully I am not in violation of allowed quota of words.

  2. Lesley Hazleton says:
    May 3, 2011 at 10:53 am

    So far as I know, two major financing sources are 1. opium, and 2. Saudi (partly in protection money?)

    • Shishir says:
      May 3, 2011 at 2:57 pm

      That may not be true. It is known that OBL lived and
      worked in Iran for some time, it’d be wrong to rule out money from Iran. In fact given the whole “nation of islam” thingy I’d be surprised if money wasn’t coming in from almost all Islamic states. The money that was being pumped in Pakistan and Afghanistan, some part of it either in form of technology transfer to Al-Queda or weapons or straight forward money, would also be contributing.

  3. AJ says:
    May 3, 2011 at 11:34 am

    Unfortunately both routs with our permission

Soul Brothers: The Crackpot Pastor and the Taliban

Posted April 4th, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

I’ve been asked what I’d do about the crackpot pastor Terry Jones, the Quran-burning Florida redneck who keeps a poster of Mel Gibson’s ‘Braveheart’ in his office for “spiritual sustenance.” It would be wonderful to just laugh, but last week Jones’ idiocy set off the reciprocal idiocy of riots in Afghanistan that have so far resulted in at least 24 deaths (in addition to the 5 he caused last September when he first threatened to burn the Quran).  It’s a horrendous example of how prejudice feeds prejudice and ignorance feeds ignorance — with the food being other people’s blood.

If ever you wanted proof that extremists of all faiths are the real co-religionists, this was it.   Terry Jones meet your soul brothers:  the Taliban.

What actually happened?  The publicity-hungry Jones, whose entire church consists of some twenty family members, was encouraged to hold a mock trial of the Quran by Ahmed Abaza, a former Muslim who runs a deliriously amateurish satellite channel called TheTruthTV — that tell-tale capitalized Truth yet again.   (Abaza’s testimony to his conversion to “the light of Christ,” apparently intended as heart-rending, is here, if you can stand it).  Abaza obligingly live-streamed the trial proceedings,  and then (the verdict being a foregone conclusion) Jones carried out his heart’s desire, got out a can of firelighter fluid, and burned a copy.

The American media acted with uncharacteristic wisdom and ignored the event.  All might yet have been calm if word of the burning had not reached Pakistan president Asif Ali Zardawi and Afghanistan president Hamid Kharzai, who then tried to outdo each other in condemning it — an excellent way to distract attention from the real problems in their respective countries, especially at a time when both are highly aware that the call for regime change throughout the Middle East might spread to threaten their hold on power too.  Three fire-and-brimstone mullahs took up the call the next day at Friday prayer, inciting an anti-American mob out for blood, and UN workers paid the price.

So what would I do?   Well, as you can imagine, my fantasies at first tended to my own version of violent retribution, but then my better side took over.  So here’s my proposal, courtesy of existential philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre, whose play Huis Clos (No Exit) is starkly simple in conception:  three people locked together in a bare room, slowly realizing that where they are is hell.  As they tear each other apart with words, they conclude, in the play’s most famous line, that “hell is other people.”

Jones, Karzai, and Zardawi locked together for eternity, condemned to listen to each other’s vanity and bombast?  That might not be the perfect punishment, but it’s a damned good one.

—————

[The only question:  should Jones be allowed to take his ‘Braveheart’ poster into the room with him?  For the sake of ensuring Karzai and Zardawi’s ongoing torment, I’d have to vote yes.]

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File under: Christianity, fundamentalism, Islam | Tagged: Tags: Afghanistan, Ahmed Abaza, Asif Ali Zardawi, Hamid Kharzai, Huis Clos, Jean-Paul Sartre, Koran burning, Mel Gibson, No Exit, Pakistan, Quran, Terry Jones | 16 Comments
  1. Lynn Rosen says:
    April 4, 2011 at 11:26 pm

    Damned damned good sentence, I’ll say.

  2. Derakht says:
    April 5, 2011 at 9:38 am

    Be an extremists in any religions is bad, in fact extremists it mean no mind! it means only emotion.
    unfortunately some groups call them self Muslim there are very more extremists than other religions, Taliban or Qaeda they Wahhabism. for example driving for woman in Saudi Arabia is forbidden, but is not in Islam, I don’t know how human can be stupid!
    like in Bahrain they killing people just because of religion!!

  3. Philip says:
    April 5, 2011 at 10:13 am

    It is time American’s question their defense of absolute “free speech”. Most democratic countries have laws against “hate speech”. Such laws in the US might lower the heat of the pronoucements of irresponsible people.

  4. AJ says:
    April 5, 2011 at 10:22 am

    I disagree a bit.
    Taliban are extremist but this Terry Jones is not.
    He is a crook and he is into money and fame.
    He should be charged on 5 counts of man slaughter.
    Burning of Quran is also violation of 1st ammendment.
    He is free to express his views, burning Quran is like choking views he disagree with.
    And last but not least, this for sure is crime of violence.
    But unfortunately US Justice system is not as fair as we think.

  5. Adila says:
    April 5, 2011 at 12:28 pm

    This is completely unrelated to our post, but I wanted to say, I’m reading your book on the Shia and Sunni divide. It’s an emotive read, and very well done. I hope the second half is as good as the first.

  6. Ada says:
    April 5, 2011 at 1:18 pm

    My favorite line in the text was “..extremists of all faiths are the real co-religionists..” and I had to laugh at “Terry Jones meet your soul brothers: the Taliban.” I fully agree.

  7. Ali says:
    April 6, 2011 at 1:22 pm

    American people in general and American Muslims in particular must condemn and expose the crackpot pastor Terry Jones in media & also prosecute him by American law [….]
    as easy as that .. no madness ,no yelling , no screaming, no violence , just by law … you can do it Dr. Lesley .. or at least can help ..

    My regards
    Ali

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      April 6, 2011 at 2:09 pm

      Ali — the principle of free speech is paramount under US law. This includes speech we detest as well as speech we approve of, and the reason why it does so is basic to real democracy: if speech we find hateful is banned, the next time round, it might be our speech that someone else finds hateful.
      Much as I detest Jones and would love to see him behind bars — much as the vast majority of Americans detest him and would love to see him behind bars — his right to free expression is protected. The same would apply if he had burned a Bible.

      He has, however, been thoroughly exposed and condemned. And it would be good to see Karzai, Zardawi, and the three mullahs who directly incited those Afghanis to violence equally exposed and condemned in their own society.

      • Ali says:
        April 6, 2011 at 4:54 pm

        First ,I would like to thank you for your reply & for your amazing speech about Quran while ago, I still amazed about it . I’ve seen it so many times with Arabic subtitle & without. & I think only somebody with very good skills in pure Arabic language can say those observations , it was so beautiful & I wish if people in the west & in the whole world even in the Islamic world can see that beauty & mercy in Quran and don’t condemn it because of some ignorants or extremists behaviors .

        Second , as you know prosecuting somebody doesn’t mean necessarily puting him in jail “seeing him behind bars as you said ” , however with all paramount of free speech & democracy I still believe there are some fines or penalties for anybody who insults people publicly or urging some people for some severe acts against other people . there is a motive behind any crime & urging is the main motive for hate crimes .. & the motivator should be punished logically, exactly like those Mullahs you’ve mentioned before..

        Third , wish you all the success in your next book

  8. AJ says:
    April 6, 2011 at 9:25 pm

    Irony is what Lez says is true.
    You can burn anything in your possesion
    including cigarettes
    and its not inciting violence

    • Ali says:
      April 7, 2011 at 3:47 pm

      Burning a cigarette or any other private thing is not the same like burning a book or symbol ..burning a book or symbol publicly means a demonstration against a nation & gives signs for some people to take some acts against that nation which believes in that book or symbol .. now what do think will happen for somebody who would burn the American Constitution publicly in front of the white house , or somebody who would burn the Bible publicly in the center of Vatican , or an American Islamic Clerk or an Islamic Scholar who would burn the Bible publicly in America … I think it would be a hard test for our believes in ” Freedom of Speech” ..

      • Lesley Hazleton says:
        April 7, 2011 at 5:19 pm

        Ali, you now understand the principle of freedom of expression in the USA: it’s hard, but it’s vital for a free society. It is always being tested by people who want to ban some part of it — right-wingers wanted to ban burning the American flag, for instance, while liberals wanted to ban the right of Nazis to march — but it applies to all.

        Plus you should know that my stance on Jones is not at all unusual. He has zero support here in the US — nada, nil — and is widely regarded as a crackpot nuisance. Please do not feed his absurd grandiosity and thirst for publicity by making him out to be more than he is.

  9. hossam says:
    April 7, 2011 at 1:49 am

    yep, hate speech is protected by the first amendment. Unless it directly incites violence, like telling people to go around and kill other people, which Terry didn’t do, so his rights are protected. What is unfortunate though is that his actions are likely to produce more intolerance and hate in someone else, who may in turn resort to violence against a muslim.

  10. Persnickety says:
    April 11, 2011 at 9:10 am

    It is very strange to me how religion, more specifically faith which primarily is a personal belief, gets exploited for personal promotion and used as a tool to condemn others. The arrogance at play here with extremists (of any religion) reaches profoundly immoral levels. The colossal ego needed to convince oneself that he/she is knows ‘the truth’, while others are misled. Unfortunately, I see a growing trend amongst rabid athiests who mirror the same arrogance.

    It takes a lifetime (and more) to fully grasp and understand your own faith to address your need for personal growth and spiritual intellect… so how come some jump the gun…and assume they know it all?

  11. Anand Rishi says:
    April 14, 2011 at 4:01 am

    I agree with Lesley that such acts of attention mongering are best dealt with by not giving it. Barring a few knee jerk reactions, it has failed to elicit desired response and publicity. Let us rejoice that, by and large, sanity prevailed.

  12. AJ says:
    April 15, 2011 at 4:35 am

    Billion sentiments are played with to get a chance to rejoice.
    Sanity prevailing….those who used to go 9 to 5, still going.

Why Libya?

Posted March 23rd, 2011 by Lesley Hazleton

It’s kind of absurd that I should even be writing this post, since I know next to nothing about Libya.  But I’m writing it because I have the uncomfortable impression that those policy-makers who urged the current American and European military intervention in Libya – aka instituting a “no-fly zone” (a strange formulation when it involves so much use of fighter jets) — know very little more than I do.

I hope I’m wrong about this.  But hope isn’t much of a substitute for reason when people’s lives are at stake.

Why Libya?  Apparently because it seems safe.  Everyone in the west can agree that Qaddafi is nuts, that his regime sucks, and – most important from their point of view – that they have nothing to lose by intervening.  No strategically important naval base to protect, as in Bahrain.  No major oil supplier to coddle, as in Saudi Arabia.  No “partner” in the struggle against the elusive Al Qaeda, as in Yemen.  No close military ties, as in Egypt.

I can almost imagine the decision-makers thinking “Finally, a chance to prove that we really are on the side of freedom and democracy and all the things we keep talking about but don’t back up with action.  Phew!”

Of course the last time they did that – barging with heavy firepower and astounding ignorance into a country where it seemed clear who was Good and who was Bad – the result was disastrous.  Iraq is still a mess.  Afghanistan, an even worse mess.   But this time, you see, it will be different.  This time, we’ll do it right.  From the air,.  No feet on the ground.  So what if we don’t even know who’s who in Libya?  They hate Qaddafi;  what more could one ask for?

When I was a dreamy adolescent, I used to think that if I could only go round the world with a six-shooter and assassinate the worst dictators, the world would be a better place.  I spent hours deciding which six I would target (some weird English sense of fair play dictated that I could only have six bullets), until I grew up enough to realize that those I killed in my dreams would only be replaced by others, that this was not a matter of individuals, but of systemic social and political problems way beyond my grasp. (As for “solving” violence by violence, I’m glad to say I quickly grew out of that too.)

Now, in 2011, it seems that powerful nations are acting like that naïve adolescent that I once was, the difference being that their choice of target is determined not by dumb idealism, but by strategic realpolitik.  So sorry, Bahrain – we know you’re right in your demand for democracy, but our hands are tied.  Too bad, Egypt – we know the military has no intention of giving up power, but we need them.  You’re on your own, Yemen – who knows if you mightn’t threaten our good Saudi friends next?

But Libya?  Thank god for Qaddafi.  A chance to prove how good we are, at last…

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File under: Middle East, US politics | Tagged: Tags: Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Libya, no-fly zone, Qaddafi, Saudi Arabia, Yemen | 29 Comments
  1. Hossam says:
    March 23, 2011 at 1:46 pm

    @Lesley
    well i can see how many people think this way, and i can see this is happening in the west and here too (i am egyptian) but i think it’s important to note that only Gadhaffi was so vocal in his intent to kill opposition figures, no other country you mentioned did that. Also it’s important to note that this was a UN resolution and not america trying to “export democracy”
    as for why america is taking a leading role, america is the world’s leader in terms of military, but of course we can argue you don’t really need that much strength to bomb libya.
    this is my opinion and i think that america already knows that it is risking its reputation just by interfering, no matter what the outcome is

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 23, 2011 at 3:41 pm

      Hossam — just one two-bomb example of what can go wrong, from the NYT’s Elisabeth Bumiller yesterday on the rescue of a US pilot who ejected over eastern Libya when his plane malfunctioned:

      “A Marine Corps officer said that two Harrier attack jets dropped two 500-pound bombs during the rescue of the pilot, about 1:30 a.m. Tuesday local time (about 7:30 p.m. Monday E.D.T.). The officer said that the grounded pilot, who was in contact with rescue crews in the air, asked for the bombs to be dropped as a precaution before the crews landed to pick him up.

      “My understanding is he asked for the ordnance to be delivered between where he was located and where he saw people coming towards him,” the officer said, adding that the pilot evidently made the request “to keep what he thought was a force closing in on him from closing in on him.”

      • hossam says:
        March 24, 2011 at 7:03 am

        That is scary of course. Of course there is a lot that can go wrong.
        I have to admit i am not looking from an american perspective, but from an arab perspective or an anti-gadaffi perspective, what other solution can be done to stop him from killing his people?

  2. Chad Tabba says:
    March 23, 2011 at 4:54 pm

    While we wish international politics and relationships were based purely on human ideals, unfortunately it is based on specific interests. We do that on a personal level too. A sibling or friend’s mistake always seems less bad than someone else’s. Don’t u think?

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 23, 2011 at 7:02 pm

      Am not sure it isn’t somehow worse — like we feel more responsible if it’s someone close to us or someone we identify with in any way.

      What do others think?

      • hossam says:
        March 24, 2011 at 7:07 am

        i am not sure i am following the relation of this to the topic, but i will take this chance to say something i want to say.
        i agree with Lesley 100% on that it feels worse when someone somehow related to you does a mistake or something “wrong”
        i feel that particularly when i see a fellow Muslim commit a terrorist act or call for a terrorist act, i feel somehow responsible (even though i’m not) and i feel it somehow damages my image
        especially when that person does that terrorist act in the name of my religion

      • Chad Tabba says:
        March 24, 2011 at 12:01 pm

        Hossam I agree with what you are saying. What I meant was that international politics are built on interests. USA will be less critical of a dictator who is an ally than one who is not (and so the different standard in treating the “uprisings” in Libya compared to Bahrain or Yemen.) what it shows u is that politicians twist the talk and spew morals, but ultimately every country’s leaders will do what they perceive as in their country’s interest. There is more to gain in supporting a change in oil rich Libya than there is in supporting change in any sub-Saharan poor African country. Which is sad. Who will fend for those people? Who will fend for Palestinians? Who will fend for every oppressed people in the world who don’t have oil or who are oppressed by an ally of superpower countries. I hope I’m not too long with this reply?!

        • Lesley Hazleton says:
          March 24, 2011 at 12:08 pm

          Chad — No way is this too long!

  3. Lynn Rosen says:
    March 23, 2011 at 11:38 pm

    Spot on.

  4. Lesley Hazleton says:
    March 24, 2011 at 8:11 am

    @ Hossam — Nick Kristof agrees w/ your first comment: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/24/opinion/24kristof.html?_r=1 Still not sure I do. Am torn both ways.

  5. Lesley Hazleton says:
    March 24, 2011 at 8:12 am

    @Chad, @Hossam, @Lynn — Yes, some of us feel responsible, even though we know we aren’t personally, and find ourselves immensely frustrated and angry that someone who declares themselves part of our “we” should commit terrorism. But then there are others who are seduced into that declared “we,” maybe even only half-willingly, and get caught up in rationalizations to cover up that uneasy feeling of wrong, even evil, done in their name. They end up justifying the unjustifiable in the name of the “we.”

    Dangerous words, “we” and “they.”

    • hossam says:
      March 24, 2011 at 12:20 pm

      @Lesley
      yes, “us” and “them or “we” and “they” are dangerous words and dangerous thoughts, unfortunately i think that ultimately the majority of people think in terms of us and them, of course the definition of us and them may be different, for example in Egypt when a Muslim talks with another Muslim or Christian with another Christian about religion in Egypt, the us and them is Christian or Muslim, yet when a Muslim and Christian here are talking about US intervention then it’s the West vs. East or whites vs. Arabs.
      I Think the same can apply for example when you have a stereotypical American neoconservative and right winger talk about Muslim immigration to USA (i may be way off with this one but would like to hear what you think)

      About US intervention in Libya, i just thought of an interesting question, what would have people thought if the US had Vetoed the UN resolution?
      I would’ve been baffled, i would’ve thought it is for a reason beyond my knowledge. I also think that many people here (probably the same who object to the intervention) would have thought and said that America really is evil, not only is it not helping, but is preventing other countries from helping.
      what do others here think? sorry for long comment

  6. Ammar says:
    March 24, 2011 at 11:37 am

    Good point Lesley. All the Khalifa, Malik, King they are same in killing people. its not matter which one killed more,
    khalifa of Bahrain Oppressed people Bahrain,
    Malik of Saudi Oppressed people Bahrain and Saudi,
    Malik of Qatar Oppressed people of Bahrain (and maybe his people in near Future),
    in Yemen and Egypt and Libya as well.
    But the problem of Libya as I believe:
    1- Gaddafi: (as you pointed Nuts) 🙂
    2- its an American plan: to stop revolutions in other countries, by showing the people of Jordan, Yemen, Bahrain and … if you want democracy this will happen to you as well, not easy(fast) like Tunisia. (Scar them)
    Is evident that America its not happy with revolutions (new Middle East) in these countries (but revolutions in Iran absolutely happy!!!).
    American Plan make revolution longer and to take more time, and this plan have very good Benefits for them like: A: people of world please forget Bahrain, Jordan, Yemen …. oh and what about new politic happening in Egypt right now, most of concentration is on Libya(Miserable people, like football ball). B: Israel Killing people of Gaza, did you see the body of cut baby only few month of age? (excellent time for Killing). C: time to think, Transfer Weapons (selling), …..
    But as all we know it will be revolutions and victory is with Nation will. [….]
    Why we have Religion, Why Moses, Jesus and Muhammad (Peace be upon them all) [….] We have god and one day this world will end and we are front of our Almighty God with empty hand or ….

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      March 24, 2011 at 12:49 pm

      Ammar — I seriously doubt that things are as conspiratorial as you seem to imply. I think those who urged intervention in Libya were deeply frustrated at having been held back from doing more to support protest in Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, and more, and so perhaps over-compensated re Libya.

      My concern is that good intentions without good information can create bad unforeseen consequences.

      • Ammar says:
        March 25, 2011 at 7:44 am

        dont doubt Lesley, this is politic.
        I like your blog, thanks

  7. Shishir says:
    March 24, 2011 at 2:50 pm

    Ms. Hazleton, I’ve decided to become a regular commenter :-).

    People in power don’t like to lose power, those not in power want to gain power, other people in power tend to support people in power for they derive benefits out of that support, they withdraw that support only when they see another center for power emerging.

    None of this has any thing to do with freedom, democracy etc etc. If US realizes a pro-US entity may gain power why mustn’t it support it, it is just the instinct of self preservation, every organism has it.
    Similarly if they realize anti-US entity gaining power
    they’d use whatever means permitted to ensure it doesn’t come to power.

    Isn’t that all that is there to any political situation? It is interesting to note in all major revolutions – when did businesses start financing the revolutionaries that tells a lot about when the revolution or any movement really gained critical mass required for potential success.

    Bombing Libya is less about freedom chest thumping and more about gaining a potential foothold with a favorable regime which you help install 🙂

  8. Helen Wenley says:
    March 24, 2011 at 4:27 pm

    I understand that Gaddafi is nuts and he threatened to kill his people. However I feel very uncomfortable with what is happening. The Americans have the reputation of being stumble bums and as its been pointed out, their track record is not the best. I feel very sad for the people of Libya that the situation has escalated.

  9. AJ says:
    March 24, 2011 at 8:50 pm

    Lez you are beauty…right on spot.
    your words satisfied the feelings of many.
    I will add character of new Bully France joining the ranks of Britains….Angela Markel lagging behind probably saved for better evil project until then she should play half willing doll of the puppet master
    Since Things started in Tunis and Egypt and then other nations…uneasy feelings were always there wheres the name of Al-Qaida why its not poped up yet…what happened to Bullys…are they sleeping.
    Nay they were working …working hard.
    Al-Qaida is old trick…now more reasonably theatrical approach is adopted.
    [….]
    They kill to save. What difference would it make if few thousands or few hundred thousands of Libyans are killed…still millions would be left…only few hundreds needed to pump oil to France and other civilized countries where human life is as expensive as oil.
    I wish Libyans understand it sooner than later.

  10. hossam says:
    March 25, 2011 at 6:55 am

    @Lesley
    i love this blog!
    you know, i talked with my wise friend today about US interests and Libya intervention, and he pointed out something interesting; he told me “don’t forget the word interests is very broad” it can be something like a Military base (which US does not have any in Africa), can be oil, can be even preventing China’s possible future foothold, etc…
    So i think there is always self interest when it comes to States, but i like to think that there is a little bit of humanitarian side to it too, i hope.
    I guess what I’m saying is that definitely there is US interest involved, but that doesn’t mean that it is exclusively US interests in mind, or even if it is, but in that situation it will also bring humanitarian interests to the Libyan people, whether on purpose or not, if nothing goes wrong as you pointed out Lesley

  11. A.S says:
    March 25, 2011 at 7:38 am

    The history of the mankind shows that many atrocious oppressors try to hide their unhumane deeds under the veil of persuading justice-seeking slogans, they also seek protection under the rubric of fighting against corruption and unsecurity.

  12. Chad Tabba says:
    March 25, 2011 at 8:17 am

    I have neutral feelings about international intervention. I will know how I feel about it after we see the results! LOL

    I do wonder and hope that this is some form of “Renessaince” happening in the Middle East after 300-400 years of “dark ages”. Or maybe its just wishful thinking. I think people have started to lose interest in the “palestinian-israeli conflict”. Maybe people have started to realize that you only gain respect in the world by growing economocally, through education, through freedom. You don’t get what u ask for just because its “right”. People are looking at their own financial situations and freedom and realizing they need to stand up for their rights. I hope….

  13. Lana says:
    March 25, 2011 at 12:08 pm

    I sure hope what you are saying is true … i pray it has nothing to do with the oil … we don’t need another occupation … i pray for the best

    thank you … I LOVE your blog

  14. A.S says:
    March 26, 2011 at 3:03 am

    Turkish President Abdullah Gul says the goal of NATO-led invasion of Libya is not “liberation of Libyan people,” warning against pursuing any hidden agenda. ….. whats happening in libya!

  15. AJ says:
    March 26, 2011 at 12:23 pm

    @hossam Sir with due respect — The humanitarian interests to the Libyan people is hard to envision. We can forget but history always record.
    Look at Afghanistan and Iraq…trillion $ wars. Had we spent 10 billion each on infra structure, we could have won the hearts of people. more than 10 years of occupation…we had plenty of time resources and expertese to build roads and schools and industrial network plus railway tracks…that had generated jobs and created a middle class in Afghanistan.
    Afghanistan has upper ruling class and tribal leaders AND down trodden lowest class which is 80% of population…they eat and feed their family the day when they can find work on daily wages…they sleep with empty stomach the day when their labour is not required.
    Whats the worth of 20 bil in 10 years in a multi-trillion dollar war…… that could have given them reasonable means to survive respectfully.
    Other means of survival there are to join Taliban which is left wide open and I am sure intentionally. Believing in their sincerity is naive.

  16. Kinopop says:
    March 31, 2011 at 12:20 am

    I’ve recently discovered your blog, and I can only shower you with praise. You are among the few who are so learned without a glaring agenda or bias, who has an honest disposition toward peace and accord among different cultures.
    Your tremendous wealth of knowledge in religious scriptures is enviable.
    Perhaps one of the less mentioned praiseworthy characteristics you have is an unashamed curiosity.
    I mean this as no insult when I say that you appear to be beginning a long journey of learning about the true nature behind political and economic incentives in that region. All I will say about it is that there should be no shred of doubt that the US’s involvement in Libya is far from “humanitarian.”
    A great resource for thorough analyses by well-intended academic political ‘demystifiers’ is counterpunch.org, among a few other sites.
    On a side note, I respect your opinion a lot, and I was wondering if you have any familiarity with ourbeacon.com and/or Dr Shabbir Ahmed’s interpretation. If so, I’d like to know what you think of it.

  17. AJ says:
    March 31, 2011 at 11:57 am

    Dr. Shabbir […] is a strong advocate of Quran alone…. Prophet’s prime job was to explain Quran… He thinks all Quran explained by Prophet is within Quran.
    When Quran says “For believers the best example is life style of Prophet”…he thinks all life style of Prophet is enshrined in Quran.
    He is against Prophet’s traditions [….]

    [By way of explanation: AJ is talking here about the hadith — later reports of Muhammad’s life and practice — and the ongoing argument within Islam as to how much emphasis to place on them and how reliable they are. For AJ, they are ultra-reliable and an essential part of Islamic belief; for Shabbir, not. — LH]

  18. Remittance Girl says:
    April 1, 2011 at 1:48 am

    Ms. Hazelton, I want to applaud you for your wonderful blog, for your wonderful work. I agree with your opinion about Libya completely.

    The West has a phenomenally bad record in helping people to embrace democracy in the past 40 years. I understand why protesters in Syria, Libya, Egypt and Yemen want the West to intervene, but that doesn’t and shouldn’t give us permission to do so. We have example after example of how we ‘intervene’ wrong, no matter how noble or ignoble our intentions. We don’t leave places better off than we found them. It’s seems easy to make a bargain with the devil when you’re in pain, but you’ll pay for it later. Look at Iraq. Look at Afghanistan.

  19. Eddie says:
    April 11, 2011 at 9:11 am

    Dear Ms. Hazelton,

    I don’t have to fully agree with you to extend my fulliest respect! You are a very inspiring person and humanity can never thank you enough for making us think on many levels, I really believe this does make the world a better place, ultimately.
    I was very sorry to find that someone is using your name as a You Tube Channel, promoting zero tolerance in additions to other spcial poisons you actually warn of.

    Good luck, and wishing you peaceful productive times.

    Sincerely,

    Eddie

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      April 11, 2011 at 10:00 am

      Thanks Eddie — and yes, several fake Lesley Hazleton videos on YouTube, and YouTube stunningly unresponsive to complaints. So much for their ‘community standards.’

Bravo, WikiLeaks

Posted July 26th, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

Give a thousand Pulitzers to WikiLeaks — one for every American death so far in Afghanistan.   Their securing and release of  92,000 reports from inside the US military, spanning six years, is the largest ever of secret documents from an ongoing war.  And it’s a devastating confirmation of everything we already knew was wrong with this war.

I realize this is counter-intuitive for online readers, but it’s worth getting a hard copy of today’s New York Times (or The Guardian, or Der Spiegel, the three publications that co-released the secret cache together with WikiLeaks ) just to start to make sense of these tens of thousands of messages, many of them sent in the field and under fire, minute by minute, by US military in Afghanistan.   The NYT spends half the front page and five full inside pages quoting and analyzing them, in acknowledgment of their scope and potential effect on the course of the war.

Here’s Julian Assange, founder of London-based WikiLeaks, in an interview with Der Spiegel:

These files are the most comprehensive description of a war to be published during the course of a war — in other words, at a time when they still have a chance of doing some good. They cover more than 90,000 different incidents, together with precise geographical locations. They cover the small and the large. A single body of information, they eclipse all that has been previously said about Afghanistan. They will change our perspective on not only the war in Afghanistan, but on all modern wars. […]

This material shines light on the everyday brutality and squalor of war. The archive will change public opinion and it will change the opinion of people in positions of political and diplomatic influence.

Self-promotion?  Sure.  But also correct.  Like many other pundits, Andrew Sullivan gripes over on The Daily Dish that the secret reports give us little information we didn’t have before, but he underestimates the vivid power of the horse’s mouth.   There is information and then there is real knowledge.  Read the desperate messages sent under fire, the laconic accounts of civilians killed by mistake. the reports of Pakistani intelligence leaders working with the Taliban, and you’ll see for yourself why the White House, so bafflingly committed to this absurd war, is in red-hot fury.

Above all, enormous credit to whoever gave this enormous cache of documentation to WikiLeaks.   This is clearly someone inside the US military, and there’s doubtless a major witch-hunt on now for him or her — to the same old tune of “blame the messenger.”   If whoever it is needs shelter, my home is open.

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File under: Middle East, war | Tagged: Tags: Afghanistan, Julian Assange, Obama, Pakistan, Taliban, WikiLeaks | 1 Comment
  1. Lavrans says:
    July 27, 2010 at 10:26 pm

    Amen 😉

    I really like J. Assange’s work.

The Rockets’ Red Glare

Posted July 3rd, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

Ten at night on July Fourth, and the gunship helicopter comes in low over Seattle’s Lake Union, the prelude to the fireworks show.  A giant Stars and Stripes hangs from it as it parades slowly around the lake, an ominous matte-black presence made all the more threatening by the music blaring from the loudspeakers at the north end of the lake.  That music was chosen by someone who was either cinematically ignorant or had zero sense of irony, because until last year, it was Wagner’s ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ — the same music that accompanies the long tracking shot of gunship helicopters flying off to napalm the hell out of a Vietnamese village in perhaps the best war movie ever made:

Even in liberal Seattle, nobody seems to question why an attack helicopter is considered a suitable means of displaying the flag.   National independence is  easily militarized, since it is often — far too often — achieved at the cost of war.   “Blood and treasure” is the current phrase for this cost, and a particularly abhorrent one, not least because it seems to imply that blood is not treasured.   We are now past the 1,000 mark for US dead in Afghanistan, and approaching the 5,000 mark in Iraq (nobody keeps precise tallies of the far greater fatalities of Afghanis and Iraqis, said to be anywhere from “tens of thousands,” as though an extra ten thousand here and there makes no difference, to close to 200,000).   So this year, when the gunship flies around the lake, albeit sans the Valkyries (did irony finally hit? or did someone catch up on their Netflix queue?),  the sight and sound of that massive metal weapon looming and booming over my houseboat will again make me feel not pride in my American citizenship, but anxiety.   And not just because of the association with ‘Apocalypse Now.’

That gunship makes me see the fireworks differently.  I still go ‘Wow,’ but there’s no innocence in it.   Instead, I remember how people watching TV went ‘Wow’ as ordnance arced over the night skies of Baghdad in 2003, or how they tuned in to the cameras in the nose-cones of those peculiarly imprecise ‘precision’ missiles in the Kuwait war, as though the light and sound effects had nothing to do with real lives, real blood, real bones pulverized into the dust.    The fireworks, I realize, are non-lethal versions of that lethal ordnance, the utterly literal illustration of the national anthem:   “The rockets’ red glare/ The bombs bursting in air/ Gave proof through the night/ That our flag was still there.”

But how strange that rockets and bombs are needed to prove independence.   The insecurity behind those lines from the anthem is clear, which may be part of why we’re now mired deeper than ever in Afghanistan.  Two hundred and thirty-four years have passed, yet even in Seattle, we still need to send in the gunships.

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File under: US politics, war | Tagged: Tags: Afghanistan, Apocalyse Now, fireworks, gunships, Independence Day, Iraq, Seattle, Vietnam | 5 Comments
  1. rachel cowan says:
    July 4, 2010 at 3:37 am

    I had similar thoughts – though less eloquently presented even within my own mind – as I watched the fireworks launched last night from West Point as a culmination to the 1812 Overture. I was watching from a terrace above and across the river – in a totally idyllic setting on a warm night with many small children going WOW and what’s next? So pleasant, and yet this huge West Point complex can not produce victory in Afghanistan or Iraq, and invites such delusion of strength. I thought of each dazzling (and totally amazingly wonderful) burst of sparkling lights as a drone bomb missing its “target”, not even able to imagine what that would be like from below.

    so here’s to a fourth with fireworks for peace! for my grandchildren at least!

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      July 4, 2010 at 10:23 am

      Fireworks for peace — what a wonderful light-filled image. Thanks, Rachel.

  2. Nancy McClelland says:
    July 4, 2010 at 12:39 pm

    I’m embarrassed to post this — but felt more shamed about hiding the truth. I watched the display of this military ship with its American flag the past two years (so, yes, even with the Wagner), and was impressed. My husband and I sheepishly admitted to each other afterward that it was impossible not to be charmed out of our anti-military stance and into a pro-nationalist one. I wanted to stand up and cover my heart and sing the national anthem for the first time since seeing a flag hanging off a highway overpass the day after 9/11. What does this mean? Why mention it? Well, if this show of force can be inspiring even to those of us who normally abhor military/imperialist propaganda, then imagine the cumulative effect of all the crap that is fed daily to Americans eager to embrace it. Discounting the results of such efforts by various parties (tea- not excluded) is going to get us into even more trouble. How can we “take back the flag”?

  3. charlotte gerlings says:
    July 4, 2010 at 2:48 pm

    It’s often been said that because they’ve never struggled through years of foreign aggression on their own patch – unlike the Europeans – Americans have a propensity to elevate and eulogise violence and disregard the human cost. But after the get-nowhere of the past decade, now could be the time to protest about that helicopter’s lap of dubious honour above your neighbourhood. There’s nothing redemptive about violence, it can never make one’s own country more secure or other nations more compliant. So what has the willy-waving of weaponry got to do with a celebration of independence? Hope you’re all having a great time – fireworks over water are extra spectacular – enjoy every sparkle!

  4. Accidental Theologist v. Gunship Helicopters: 1-0 « The Accidental Theologist says:
    July 5, 2010 at 10:15 am

    […] The Comets’ Red Glare […]

To the Slaughter

Posted June 28th, 2010 by Lesley Hazleton

En route to Afghanistan.   I wish I could run this photo larger (left click to enlarge it slightly).   It’s heart-breaking.   Those tight rows of American soldiers in full gear, dwarfed by the cathedral-like ceiling of the plane.    The accompanying report said that some in this battalion are fresh out of basic training, others starting their fifth combat tour in nine years.    I stared at it for a long while, trying to pick out a particular face, to give individual identity to at least a few of these young men and women.    But I couldn’t even tell who was male and who female.  All identity is gone.    What remains is the tension — the awareness in their bodies that at least some of them are flying toward their death.    That, and the overwhelming sense of waste.

(Photo:  Damon Winter, New York Times.)

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File under: Middle East, war | Tagged: Tags: Afghanistan, deployment, soldiers, United States | 2 Comments
  1. Charlotte Gerlings says:
    June 28, 2010 at 2:29 pm

    A worse picture is the type they don’t publish for public consumption – a similar carrier filled with flag-draped coffins on their way home. Here in England dead servicemen and women are flown back to the RAF base at Lyneham in Wiltshire. No one organised the ritual, but a small market town called Wootton Bassett regularly comes to a halt while people line the main street to pay their respects as the sad trail of hearses passes through on their way from Lyneham to the coroner in Oxford. It is a sobering and heartrending sight and can reduce you to tears even to watch on TV. I think that sense of waste you speak of is overwhelming because we also know the process is never-ending. Iraq, Afghanistan – they’re just the latest on a grim list – and sometimes the battle sites are revisited through history. Remember the Forbury Lion, Lesley, in our old home town? A massive cast iron lion that commemorates men of a Berkshire regiment killed in Afghanistan 130 years ago! And only last month in a country church in Suffolk, in East Anglia, I saw a plaque to a soldier killed in Baluchistan – in 1920. But there’s one point I wanted to make – as the daughter of a serviceman who was posted away for most of my childhood – the uniform that reduces their identity in civilian eyes actually binds them closer to one another. It’s all part of the way they can bring themselves to go abroad and take the risks if our governments order them to. To the slaughter? Well, it’s obviously a dreadful possibility but I think too we should care far more for the survivors – there’s more than one way to waste a life.
    PS Congratulations, a great forum you’ve got going here.
    PPS I have to thank the RAF for my first flight, aged six, in a tinny old Dakota with moulded metal seats set sideways – no, I was never inspired to get a pilot’s licence!

    • Lesley Hazleton says:
      June 28, 2010 at 6:42 pm

      Hi Charlotte and thanks so much for the thoughtfulness of your comment. Yes, I’ve heard about what’s happening at Wootton Bassett, and you’re right, it’s absolutely remarkable, all the more since it’s spontaneous, done out of a deep sense of respect and not out of any political motive. And yet… if it were not for politics, the trail of hearses would not be moving with that horrible regularity through the small market town. I’m very much with those who say “Support our military — bring them home.” Alive, that is. To die for someone else’s political ambitions and inability to say they were wrong, to die because the military offers you a paycheck you would not otherwise find and educational opportunities you could not otherwise afford, as in the US, to die simply because, as in Vietnam, your very presence makes you a target that would otherwise not exist — all this, it seems to me, is the stuff of real tragedy. That’s what got to me about this photo — the awareness of the living. Every person on this plane knows that among them, some will make the return flight in coffins. Perhaps the person to their left. Or the one to their right. Or the one in the middle…

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