Hollywood by the Syr Darya

According to Ferghana.Ru, the film industry in Uzbekistan has revived after its post-Soviet collapse:

According to the 2008 statistics of UzbekKino, the state agency overseeing the Uzbek film industry, there are close to fifty private film studios in the country. In 2008 they produced 48 films, compared with 30 in 2006, 20 in 2005, and a dozen produced between 1991 and 2000.

Uzbek TV soap operas modeled after Latin American and Korean ones are also becoming popular across Uzbekistan. In November 2008, Uzbek filmmakers instituted an annual ceremony to award best films and actors. The current trend marks a stark contrast to the early 1990s, a period when the Uzbek film industry was on the verge of collapse as lavish Soviet state subsidies abruptly ended.

Most Uzbek films rely on low budgets and heart wrenching plots to attract viewers. The 2005 box-office hit, "An American Groom," fits this genre. A young Uzbek-American visits his grandfather’s village in a remote part of Uzbekistan only to fall in love with an Uzbek girl from a conservative family. The girl rejects his charms and refuses to marry him. The American wins her over only after he masters nuances of Uzbek traditions and his affluent grandfather generously gifts one million dollars to her family.

“Super Kelinchak,” (Super Daughter-in-Law), a 2008 box office hit, tells the story of a posh city woman who falls for and marries a man from a family where conservative values run strong and wives are subordinated to their in-laws. In the course of the ensuing power struggle with her feisty mother-in-law, the city woman learns how to wear traditional clothes, milk cows and respect family traditions.

Sobirjon Rahimov, an assistant film producer based in Tashkent, told Ferghana.ru that film directors often pay out-of-pocket to produce such movies. “It costs about 30 to 50 thousand [US] dollars to make [a film], but the return can be three time bigger.” According to Rahimov, it takes less then three months to complete a film in Uzbekistan.

Daniel Pipes on the Council on American-Islamic Relations

Daniel Pipes writes about the release of a potentially explosive new expose. An excerpt:

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has, since its founding in 1994, served as the Islamist movement in North America's most high-profile, belligerent, manipulative, and aggressive agency. From its headquarters in Washington, D.C., CAIR also sets the agenda and tone for the entire Wahhabi lobby.

A substantial body of criticism about CAIR exists, some of by me, but until now, the group's smash-mouths and extremists have managed to survive all revelations about its record. The publication today of Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underwold that's Conspiring to Islamize America may, however, change the equation.

Written by P. David Gaubatz and Paul Sperry, the investigation is based largely on the undercover work of Gaubatz's son Chris who spent six months as an intern at CAIR's D.C. headquarters in 2008. In that capacity, he acquired 12,000 pages of documentation and took 300 hours of video.

Chris Gaubatz's information reveals much that the secretive CAIR wants hidden, including its strategy, finances, membership, and internal disputes, thereby exposing its shady and possibly illegal methods. As the book contains too much new information to summarize in small compass, I shall focus here on one dimension – the organization's inner workings, where the data shows that CAIR's claims amount to crude deceptions.

CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad and undercover intern Chris Gaubatz at CAIR's national headquarters in 2008.

Claim 1: According to Ibrahim Hooper, the organization's communications director, "CAIR has some 50,000 members." Fact: An internal memo prepared in June 2007 for a staff meeting reports that the organization had precisely 5,133 members, about one-tenth Hooper's exaggerated number.

Claim 2: CAIR is a "grass-roots organization" that depends financially on its members. Fact: According to an internal 2002 board meeting report, the organization received $33,000 in dues and $1,071,000 in donations. In other words, under 3 percent of its income derives from membership dues.

Claim 3: CAIR receives "no support from any overseas group or government." Fact: Gaubatz and Sperry report that 60 percent of CAIR's income derives from two dozen donors, most of whom live outside the United States. Specifically: $978,000 from the ruler of Dubai in 2002 in exchange for controlling interest in its headquarters property on New Jersey Avenue, a $500,000 gift from Saudi prince al-Waleed bin Talal and $112,000 in 2007 from Saudi prince Abdullah bin Mosa'ad, at least $300,000 from the Saudi-based Organization of the Islamic Conference, $250,000 from the Islamic Development Bank, and at least $17,000 from the American office of the Saudi-based International Islamic Relief Organization.

Claim 4: CAIR is an independent, domestic human rights group "similar to a Muslim NAACP." Fact: In a desperate search for funding, CAIR has offered its services to forward the commercial interests of foreign firms. This came to light in the aftermath of Dubai Ports World's failed effort to purchase six U.S. harbors in 2006 due to security fears. In response, CAIR's chairman traveled to Dubai and suggested to businessmen there: "Do not think about your contributions [to CAIR] as donations. Think about it from the perspective of rate of return. The investment of $50 million will give you billions of dollars in return for fifty years."

Combining these four facts reveals a CAIR quite unlike its public image. Almost bereft of members and dues, it sustains itself by selling its services to the Saudi and U.A.E. governments by doing their ideological and financial bidding...

Afghan Ambassador Backs Gen. McChrystal

Transcript from The Newshour with Jim Lehrer. Ambassador Said Jawad spoke with Margaret Warner:

MARGARET WARNER: Do you disagree with the assessment that General McChrystal did, for instance, about the whole security situation, that it was serious and that it was deteriorating?

AMBASSADOR SAID JAWAD: Overall, in the country, yes, it is. In the south, we are facing serious security challenges. That's why we welcome General McChrystal's assessments, and think that additional troops are needed in order to provide space and time for the Afghan security forces to be trained and equipped.

Additional troops are needed. The U.S. engagement should be long-term in Afghanistan, does not mean necessarily military engagement.

MARGARET WARNER: All right, let's get into that more, because, of course, this takes place as the president and his administration are doing this intensive review of strategy and troops. So, what would Afghanistan like to see come out of this reassessment?

AMBASSADOR SAID JAWAD: A clear commitment to success in Afghanistan. Additional troops are needed. The U.S. engagement should be long-term in Afghanistan, does not mean necessarily military engagement.

We would like to see more investment being made and build the capacity of the Afghan security forces, Afghan police force, and the government to take more responsibility on this fight.

MARGARET WARNER: And how many more troops?

AMBASSADOR SAID JAWAD: It depends on how intense the pressure on Afghanistan is.

Today's bombing shows that -- that, really, it's a -- terrorism is a regional issue. And unless we get the cooperation of all the parties involved in the neighborhood, we will need stronger presence of the United States. We will need 30,000 to 40,000 additional troops on the short term.

MARGARET WARNER: And you said for an expended period, you want to see a commitment. What are we talking about here?

AMBASSADOR SAID JAWAD: A commitment to build the Afghan security forces to a strength of 250,000, helping the Afghan government to extend its capability to provide service and protection to the Afghan citizen, and for the -- Afghanistan to serve as a partner in a volatile region of the world, where there are nuclear ambitions or there are a lot of threats from extremism, to have an Afghanistan that will serve for the cause of stability.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, if the U.S. were to do this, I mean, you know the strength of the Afghan security forces now. You know all of the problems. What do you think we're talking about in terms of years, in terms of at an extended -- at a -- at a beefed-up troop strength, say 100,000 troops?

AMBASSADOR SAID JAWAD: It really depends how much we invest up front. It is truly an investment in building the capacity.

If we continue to do a duct tape approach and under-resource the mission and does not provide the investment necessary, then you will be there for long haul. But if better investment has been made to build the capacity up front, then that pressure will be relieved on you.

There is no shortage of courage or manpower in Afghanistan. There's shortage of skills on the part of our army and police force. And that skill could be created if there is more intense investment.

I think we should not allow a sense of -- of retreat or defeat to emerge from our mission in Afghanistan.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, you know -- as you know, there's another set of voices inside the administration -- reported -- reportedly, Vice President Biden is among them -- saying really that the U.S. ought to rethink the whole focus here, not try to focus on building up a strong Afghan central government, which they say Afghanistan's never had, stop trying to fight Taliban insurgents all over the country, and focus instead on al Qaeda and its immediate allies, targeting those kinds of terrorists, if they're in Afghanistan or if they try to return. Now, what do you think of that notion? Does that make sense to you?

AMBASSADOR SAID JAWAD: First, it will send a message of defeat of the United States in undertaking in Afghanistan.

And this message will further embolden the terrorists and extremists, not only Afghanistan, but also in the region. Targeting al Qaeda targets through drones and -- and cruise missile has been done in Afghanistan. After the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Africa, similar actions were taken.

But it put al Qaeda and Taliban even more closer together. There is close correlation, and there's close relation between Taliban and al Qaeda, as evidenced from the bombing of today. Why would actually -- if it's a Taliban action, why would not they target our ministry of interior, which is just across the street, and target an international target that shows the international connections of the Taliban and al Qaeda and how closely they work with each other?

I think we should not allow a sense of -- of retreat or defeat to emerge from our mission in Afghanistan.

MARGARET WARNER: Now, as you well know, also underlying this reassessment is a concern here that the Karzai government really isn't legitimate. It isn't seen as legitimate by its own people, that it's -- it's widely seen as corrupt, and that the election was considered to be riddled with fraud.

What is your response to that? How serious of an Achilles' heel is this for the case you're trying to make?

AMBASSADOR SAID JAWAD: Well, first, the issue of the legitimacy of the Afghan government should be determined by Afghan people, not by a foreign capital or a foreign individual.

A lot of preparation went into the election process in Afghanistan. It was not a perfect election and a perfect condition. There were irregularities. There were potential frauds. But there's also processes in place to look after that.

And, if the majority of the Afghans elect their president, that president is a lot more legitimate than having the president being appointed by a foreign individual or a foreign capital.

Millions of people went out to vote. On the day of the election, rockets were coming in. People were killed. People were -- fingers were cut to go out and participate in the election process.

MARGARET WARNER: But nobody's talking about having a foreign capital appoint the president of Afghanistan, but they -- you said if a president is legitimately elected by the people. But that's the big if, isn't it?

AMBASSADOR SAID JAWAD: Millions of people went out to vote. On the day of the election, rockets were coming in. People were killed. People were -- fingers were cut to go out and participate in the election process.

So, considering all these challenges -- and more than 6,000 observers, both Afghan and international, participated in this process -- considering all these constraints, in the history of Afghanistan, and comparing to the elections in the region, in other countries, this is the best that could happen in Afghanistan.

If we could improve the -- the security situation, we would have had better outcome of -- sure, that's the target that you are working for.

MARGARET WARNER: So, when do you expect this recount process to be concluded?

AMBASSADOR SAID JAWAD: Early next week, hopefully.

MARGARET WARNER: And if the conclusion is that President Karzai falls below 50 percent, is he prepared to go through a completely new election?

AMBASSADOR SAID JAWAD: This is a requirement by the Afghan constitution. The president is completely ready to comply with what the Afghan laws and constitution require, of course.

MARGARET WARNER: And, on the other hand, if the recount certifies that he did get over 50 percent, then the question here is, what is President Karzai prepared to say and do in a concrete sense to address these concerns about widespread corruption in the government?

AMBASSADOR SAID JAWAD: We have heard clearly the message of our friends, both in the U.S. Congress and the U.S. administration and Europe.

President Karzai is planning on having two clear compact if he is elected, one compact with the Afghan people indicating what he's going to do in the next five years, and a second compact with the international community, especially the United States, indicating the mutual expectations that exist between the Afghan government and the international partner, especially United States.

MARGARET WARNER: So, what would you say to members of Congress, particularly a lot of Democrats, who are reflecting the concerns of their constituents?

I will just quote one, Jane Harman...

AMBASSADOR SAID JAWAD: Right.

MARGARET WARNER: ... who's consider add hawk in the Democratic Party.

And she said, "How can we ask our troops to risk their lives in Afghanistan while Mr. Karzai cavorts with warlords and drug smugglers?"

Now, what do you say to that kind of deep suspicion of this government and -- and concern that -- that their constituents don't want to waste or spend young American lives on that kind of government?

AMBASSADOR SAID JAWAD: Young American lives are -- are served in Afghanistan for a very noble cause, of making Afghanistan, the United States a safer place.

I think members of Congress, friends of Afghanistan should work harder to shape the public opinion. It's a hard sacrifice when your son and daughter is fighting in Afghanistan. We're very grateful for that. We appreciate this very much.

But now to -- to add to this fuel, and not to support the government of Afghanistan, or find excuses, that is not helpful, neither for the mission of the United States in Afghanistan, nor helpful for those soldiers who are fighting so bravely to make Afghanistan, the United States, and the world a safer place for all of us.

We have to work more actively to strengthen our partnership and shape the public opinion.

Charles Crawford on President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize

The retired British diplomat on the first American President since Jimmy Carter to win the honor:

Here is the citation for President Obama's Nobel Peace Prize. One line stands out:

His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population.

Huh?

Michael Binyon gets in an early wallop.

John Miller at The Corner notes that nominations for this award had to be in by 1 February 2009, so Obama wins on the basis of 10 days' work!

On the substance, I always thought that democratic leaders should respond to the values and attitudes of those who elected them, not those who don't. My bad.

How do we assess the Values and Attitudes shared by the 'majority of the world's population'?

It looks like a safe bet to say that (for example) they are for the death penalty and generally homophobic. So does Obama represent them?

If a majority of the planet in a global poll voted to abolish Israel or indeed the USA, would Obama represent them?

Blimey.

The good news here is that to try to save a flagging Presidency sooner or later President Obama will order a tough response to some or other outrage against civilisation somewhere on Earth, and then these simpering Euro-weeny Nobelists will be left looking utterly ridiculous.

Update: a reader wittily proposes a posthumous Nobel Peace award to Neville Chamberlain.

The point being that the Road to Hell is paved with Good Intentions. Delivering real progress on peace and disarmament requires not only la few days' worth of lofty rhetoric in that direction, but years of patient and wily and skilled work.

And, perhaps, some tough work which does not easily accord with the Values and Attitudes of the majority of the world's population.

Which we'll be able to asertain with great accuracy once all of them have a free vote for their own leaders and a free media so that rival views can be explored and debated.

In other words, not for a very long time.

An award which at best is a tad premature?

An Advertisement in DC Metro Stations

Sent in by an anonymous reader:

I looked up the ad's sponsoring organization on Google, and found this information in the "About Us" section:

The Avaaz community is served by a small team of global campaigners working in many countries to identify and develop opportunities for members to take action. Our campaign team consults with Avaaz.org members to develop campaigns and set the priorities of the organisation. Avaaz also relies on teams of expert advisors to help develop our campaigns, and often Avaaz members volunteer to work with the team on specific projects. We currently have staff based in Rio de Janeiro, Geneva, New York, London, and Washington DC. Our core campaign team members are:

Ricken Patel – Co-Founder and Executive Director (Canada)
Paul Hilder – Campaign Director (UK)
Ben Wikler – Campaign Director (US)
Alice Jay - Campaign Director (Spain)
Luis Morago - Campaign Director (Spain)
Brett Solomon - Campaign Director (Australia)
Alice Wynne Wilson - Media Director (Belgium)
Milena Berry – Chief Technical Officer (Bulgaria)
Rajeev Purohit - Washington DC Representative (UK)
Taren Stinebrickner-Kauffman - Senior Climate Campaigner (US)
Raluca Ganea - Senior Campaigner (Israel)
Paula Brufman – Global Campaigner (Argentina)
Iain Keith – Global Campaigner (UK)
Graziela Tanaka – Global Campaigner (Brazil)
Pascal Vollenweider – Global Campaigner (Switzerland)
Benjamin des Gachons - Global Campaigner (France)
Julius van de Laar - German Elections Campaigner (Germany)

Margaret Mikkelsen - Operations Director (US)
Veronique Graham - Executive Assistant (France)

Avaaz.org was co-founded by Res Publica, a global civic advocacy group, and Moveon.org, an online community that has pioneered internet advocacy in the United States. Our co-founding team was also composed of a group of global social entrepreneurs from 6 countries, including our Executive Director Ricken Patel, Tom Perriello, Tom Pravda, Eli Pariser, Andrea Woodhouse, Jeremy Heimans, and David Madden. Avaaz is lucky to have the founding partnership and support of leading activist organizations from around the world, including the Service Employees International Union, a founding partner of Avaaz, GetUp.org.au, and many others.

Google led to this bio of the organization's co-founder on the Res Publica website:

Ricken Patel: Ricken is Canadian and has consulted for the International Crisis Group, the United Nations, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Gates Foundation, Harvard University, CARE International and the International Center for Transitional Justice, in Sierra Leone, Liberia, Afghanistan, Sudan and New York. He has a Master in Public Policy from Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government, and a Bachelor’s degree from Balliol College, Oxford University. He graduated first in a class of 350 from Oxford, and led student governments and student activism at both universities.

And here's a list of the Res Publica advisory board from the website (dated 2006):

• Anthony Barnett, Editor in Chief, OpenDemocracy.net.
• Dai Qing, celebrated Chinese journalist and environmental activist, and opponent of the Three Gorges Dam
• Clare Short, former UK Sec. of State for International Development, resigned over Iraq war, current member of Parliament.
• Soha Ali Khan, Indian Bollywood film star, also Oxford/LSE graduate, has worked with the Ford Foundation and Citigroup.
• Baroness Glenys Kinnock, Member of the European Parliament, Vice-President of Parliamentarians for Global Action, President of One World Action.
• Eli Pariser, Co-Founder and Executive Director of MoveOn.org PAC.
• Sanjeev Khagram, Co-Director of the Transnational Studies Initiative of Harvard University and the University of Washington, a prominent scholar of transnational civil society networks
• Andrew Graham, former Economic Advisor to the UK Prime Minister and current Master of Balliol College, Oxford, Co-Founder of the Oxford Institute for the Internet and Society
• Kofi Woods, Reebok Human Rights award winner and prominent Liberian human rights activist, Founder and Director of the Foundation for International Dignity.
• Zainab Bangura, African anti-corruption and women’s rights activist, former World Bank civil society advisor, and former board member of the Open Society Institute West Africa and the International Crisis Group.
• John Podesta, former Chief of Staff to President Clinton and President and CEO of the Center for American Progress

So, now readers of this blog know who to write...

Hermitage Capital v Russia

Video on YouTube. In English:
Or, in Russian:

What if Afghanistan is Not Another Vietnam?

"Generals always fight the last war," goes the cliche. After listening to current public debate over Afghanistan policy, and the recurring invocation of America's Vietnam experience, perhaps that might be updated to something like: "Anti-war activists always fight the last war?"

Of course, any war could become another Vietnam. Such a parallel could easily become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Just run an interminable "limited war" rather than demanding victory. Make strategic decisions for short-term domestic political gain. Give juicy contracts to Kellogg, Brown and Root (which became KBR/Halliburton, for a while). Undermine your allies and the leadership of the country you purport to be defending. Watch domestic public support disappear. See your party crushed at the polls....

But if there is a reasonable strategy, there's no necessity to repeat the Vietnam debacle. Anti-war activists tend to call any war "Vietnam" just because it is a war they oppose. I was around in 1981, and like most New Yorkers, a knee-jerk liberal anti-war protester, when Glenn Silber released a documentary film under the title "El Salvador: Another Vietnam. Unfortunately for Glenn, who might have become his generation's Michael Moore, President Reagan came up with a successful strategy for Central America as one front in the context of a global ideological struggle against Communism--and not too many people remember the film, or even America's war in Central America. Even anti-war activists don't talk much about Central America anymore. So successful was Reagan, that I eventually became a late convert to Reaganism--as did many in the former Soviet Bloc (my university in Tashkent had pictures of Milton Friendman and von Hayek hanging on the walls).

So, speaking from personal experience, it seems clear that defeat of Al Qaeda should put an end to talk of Vietnam redux, even from anti-war activists.

In any case, no Vietnamese ever blew up the World Trade Center or Pentagon. Which in my mind, makes America's conflict with Al Qaeda and the Taliban more akin to World War II after Pearl Harbor. It is unfortunate that George Bush wasn't up to the job. But just because the worst President in the history of the United States couldn't beat Osama Bin Laden (is he dead or alive?), doesn't mean that Barrack Hussein Obama won't be able to do the job that, in my opinion, he was elected to do... And strongly in President Obama's favor is his decision to shoot those Somali pirates a few months ago (piracy headlines have disappeared, since).

Of course, I'm not the only one who believes the Vietnam parallel is forced and phony. General Petraeus said it at an October 1st Washington, DC conference covered by CBS News:

...U.S. commander in the Middle East and Central Asia David Petraeus discussed why, in his mind, it is unwise to draw close comparisons between Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam or assume what worked in one conflict will work in another.

Is Gen. McChrystal the New Billy Mitchell?

I can't believe that commentators who in the Bush administration held views like "dissent is the highest form of patriotism" are now telling Gen. McChrystal to "shut up and salute the Commander-in-Chief." Secretary of Defense Gates is wrong. Policy debates should take place in public--before commitments have been made. Principled dissent over strategy is the essence of a democracy.

And military officers don't give up their rights as citizens when they join the armed forces. Dissenters can become heroes, as in the case of court-martialed Billy Mitchell. Or they can be heeded, as in the case of George Marshall, or Colin Powell during the first Gulf War. When they go too far, like Gen. McArthur, they can be fired for insubordination by the Commander-in-Chief, and disgraced. But until that point, they need to speak up-- before things get out of hand.

Indeed, Rumsfeld's sidelining of Gen. Shinseki for stating his unvarnished opinion that the Iraq war effort needed more troops should give pause to those pundits, bureaucrats and politicians currently engaged in general-bashing. A reminder from Wikipedia:

Shinseki publicly clashed with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld during the planning of the war in Iraq over how many troops the U.S. would need to keep in Iraq for the postwar occupation of that country. As Army Chief of Staff, General Shinseki testified to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee that "something in the order of several hundred thousand soldiers" would probably be required for postwar Iraq. This was an estimate far higher than the figure being proposed by Secretary Rumsfeld in his invasion plan, and it was rejected in strong language by both Rumsfeld and his Deputy Secretary of Defense, Paul Wolfowitz, who was another chief planner of the invasion and occupation.] From then on, Shinseki's influence on the Joint Chiefs of Staff reportedly waned. The end of his term of Army Chief of Staff came in June 2003, just a few weeks after President Bush proclaimed that "Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed." At that time, General Shinseki retired from the Army after 38 years of military service.

If President Bush had listened to Shinkseki, Obama wouldn't have some of the problems he is facing today. Of course, Shinseki is in the cabinet as head of the VA, so perhaps he is offering private counsel on Afghanistan...

Meanwhile, my favorite story of public debate over strategy in wartime involves Walt Disney. He was an advocate of strategic bombing as opposed to tactical support. So convinced was Disney that the United States needed a change in strategy, that he personally paid for the production of a 1943 feature film based on Russian aviator Alexander P. de Seversky's (a disciple of Billy Mitchell) 1942 book, Victory Thorugh Airpower. Disney arranged for the film to be shown in the White House to FDR, an event that led to the eventual destruction of Japanese and German cities by strategic bombing campaigns--and victory in World War II. More details, again, from Wikipedia:

While most World War II films were created for training purposes, films such as “Victory Through Air Power” were created to catch the attention of government officials and to build public morale among the U.S. and allied powers. Among the notables who decided after seeing the film that Seversky and Disney knew what they were talking about were Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt. The Disney studio sent a print for them to view when they were attending the Quebec Conference. According to Leonard Maltin, "it changed FDR's way of thinking—he agreed that Seversky was right." Maltin also adds that "it was only after Roosevelt saw Victory Through Air Power that our country made the commitment to long-range bombing.".

If Gen. McChrystal is convinced that his strategy is correct, he could do worse than to follow in the footsteps of Billy Mitchell. BTW, there's a great film about him, The Court-Martial of Billy Mitchell, starring Gary Cooper.

Standardized Test Results as Phony as Moody Ratings of AIG Stock

Todd Farley spilled the beans about the fraudulent standardized academic writing tests in a September 28th NY Times Op-Ed , that I looked up because of all the interesting letters published today. Here's the money quote:

Multiple-choice items are scored by machines, but open-ended items are scored by subjective humans who are prone to errors. I know because I was one of them. In 1994, I was a graduate student looking for part-time work. After a five-minute interview I got the job of scoring fourth-grade, state-wide reading comprehension tests. The for-profit testing company that hired me paid almost $8 an hour, not bad money for me at the time.

One of the tests I scored had students read a passage about bicycle safety. They were then instructed to draw a poster that illustrated a rule that was indicated in the text. We would award one point for a poster that included a correct rule and zero for a drawing that did not.

The first poster I saw was a drawing of a young cyclist, a helmet tightly attached to his head, flying his bike over a canal filled with flaming oil, his two arms waving wildly in the air. I stared at the response for minutes. Was this a picture of a helmet-wearing child who understood the basic rules of bike safety? Or was it meant to portray a youngster killing himself on two wheels?

I was not the only one who was confused. Soon several of my fellow scorers — pretty much people off the street, like me — were debating my poster, some positing that it clearly showed an understanding of bike safety while others argued that it most certainly did not. I realized then — an epiphany confirmed over a decade and a half of experience in the testing industry — that the score any student would earn mostly depended on which temporary employee viewed his response.

Farley has written a tell-all book about his experiences in the standardized testing business. Making the Grades: My Misadventures in the Standardized Testing Industry, may be found online at Google books.

An excerpt published in Rethinking Schools contains these gems:

If test scoring is "scientifically-based research" of any kind, then I'm Dr. Frankenstein. In fact, my time in testing was characterized by overuse of temporary employees; scoring rules that were alternately ambiguous and bizarre; and testing companies so swamped with work and threatened with deadlines that getting any scores on tests appeared to be more important than the right scores. I'd say the process was laughable if not for the fact those test scores have become so important to the landscape of modern American education....

***

...A project manager for a test-scoring company addresses the supervisors hired to manage the scoring of a project. The project is not producing the results expected, to the dismay of the test-scoring company and its client, a state department of education. The project manager has been trying to calm the concerned employees, but she's losing patience. She's obviously had enough.

"I don't care if the scores are right," the project manager snarls. "They want lower scores, and we'll give them lower scores."

How about a Congressional investigation of ETS?

Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About the New Head of Britain's MI6

In Ann McElvoy's Sunday Times (UK) profile, illustrated with Facebook photos of John Sawers in his bathing trunks, copied from his wife's Facebook page, and headlined: "On Her Majesty's Not-So-Secret Service"... (ht Charles Crawford)

In 2001 Sawers was dispatched as ambassador to Cairo — in effect a listening post for the Middle East. Then in 2003 Blair sent him to Iraq, to report on the aftermath of the invasion. It took only four days for the newcomer to issue a devastating verdict. Sawers soon sent a cable entitled “Iraq: what’s going wrong” back to Downing Street, the FCO and the Ministry of Defence, clearly informed by a multiplicity of sources in Baghdad. It combined an intelligence-gatherer’s breadth with political analysis. Neither was it short on self-belief: “A Baghdad first strategy is needed. The problems are getting worse in the capital and it is the one place we cannot afford to get wrong. We need a clear framework on which Ba’athists can return, a more concerted effort on reconstruction, and an imaginative approach on the media. The clock is ticking.”

He noted further that the US administration in Baghdad was “an unbelievable mess — no leadership, no co-ordination, no strategy, no structure, inaccessible to ordinary Iraqis”.

Most controversially, he declared that the 3rd (US) division, which was battle-weary, should “go home and be garlanded as victors” and that the British should put its battalions onto the streets of Baghdad instead.

Blair’s response was mixed. He did not put British troops in Baghdad — which would have been seen as a snub in Washington, though, as David Owen points out, “It would have been a very sensible thing to do at the time and it could have at least slowed the descent into chaos in the capital.”

In Iraq, the PM wanted to use Sawers as a trouble-shooter, and there was plenty of trouble to be shot. So for three months he was the British government’s special representative in Baghdad, then he headed the British side of negotiations on Iran’s nuclear programme — his graduate physics background ensuring, as one other member of the team wryly put it, “that he was the one person who probably really knew the ins and outs of a nuclear bomb”.

The shadow of Iraq still hangs over Sawers’ new appointment. Not least because it follows that of John Scarlett, whose authorship of the WMD dossier led to allegations that the service had allowed its work to be manipulated by the government of the day.

What Happened to Legal Seafoods at Reagan National Airport?

When I went to pick up my sister-in-law the other day, I was surprised to see that my favorite restaurant at Reagan National Airport, Boston's Legal Seafoods, had closed. It was always busy, and I know that someone I know and myself would book flights at the airport in order to be able to eat lunch or dinner there, so it couldn't have been a business decision by the owners. A quick google search turned up the explanation--the landlords forced out Legal Seafoods, replacing it with something called "Sam and Harry's Steakhouse." Owner Roger Berkowitz didn't want to close, it turns out--so Legal Seafoods is now suing the people who operate concessions at Reagan National.

You can read the whole story in an article from the DC Examiner, based on this Legal Seafoods press release:

"Legal's is a highly successful owner-operated restaurant at National Airport," Berkowitz added. "We have 5 restaurants in the DC area and we are very committed to staying and expanding at National. Despite challenging economic conditions including more dining options at National and a decrease in enplanements, we agreed to invest in the restaurant with a renovation and expansion plan. "

Legal Sea Foods filed a lawsuit in the Eastern District of Virginia this week to force MWAA to reconduct the leasing process in an open and transparent way as is required by federal law. In the complaint Legal Sea Foods believes that in awarding the lease for the space to another concession MWAA did not conduct an open and transparent process and thus violated the law.

"Something smells fishy and we are going to fight to get to the bottom of it," Berkowitz said.

"We are one of the top revenue generators at the airport and we want to stay. It simply makes no sense to replace a long term tenant like Legal Sea Foods and our track record of success with a concession that has no history at National Airport. We believe the process was unfair and probably illegal and we have filed suit to stay and keep over 50 jobs we have at the airport restaurant," said Berkowitz.

UPDATE: The Washington Post covered this dispute in an August 4th, 2009 story.

Speaking of What's Left Out...

William Easterly writes on AidWatch about NOT being invited to the Clinton Global Initiative meeting in NYC:

Last week, some people wanted to meet up with me at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) meeting in New York. I was a little embarrassed to tell them I was not invited to CGI, and in fact have never been invited to CGI. Actually, there is a long list of distinguished groups wise enough to have never invited me to anything.

I think each of us who makes some kind of public comment on anything have some places where we are welcome (INs) and others where we are not (OUTs). I thought it might be entertaining if I told you mine.

Coincidentally, I’m also working on a paper with some co-authors about export specializations that occur by destination country market, where there does not seem to be much rhyme or reason to which country markets a given exporter penetrates compared to other similar countries they do not. Maybe the same is true with intellectual markets.

Indeed, with some exceptions, I can’t detect much pattern in my INs and OUTs. It does not break down neatly by ideology or political spectrum, for example. There are many possible explanations: (1) my work is stupid, and some people are clever enough to figure this out, (2) my work is brilliant, and some people are too dumb to figure this out, (3) I’ve offended important people at some places but not others, (4) I have messages that are welcome at some places but not others, (5) some of my OUTs may have stricter standards than my INs (although I would NOT say that about those INs so kind as to invite me).

Some interesting exceptions to my IN and OUT pattern are (1) aid agencies, and (2) universities. Invitations to (1) and (2) include a representative spectrum and I don’t detect any OUTs in either category (although feel free to nominate yourself as an OUT if you have disinvited me without my knowledge).

Gabriel Pieterberg on Shlomo Sand's Invention of the Jewish People

A friend just called to tell me about this book review in New Left Review, which finally explains to me why Claude Lanzmann's filmed interviews with Peter Bergson (Hillel Kook) and Samuel Merlin (stars of my documentary Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die?) were not included in Shoah:

He is no stranger to controversy and confrontation. In 1983 he took part in a heated exchange over Zeev Sternhell’s Ni droite, ni gauche: l’idéologie fasciste en France, and later drew the ire of Claude Lanzmann with his 2002 book in Hebrew, Film as History, in which he not only passed scathing judgement on Lanzmann’s Shoah, but also revealed that the film had been secretly funded by the Israeli government. When and How Was the Jewish People Invented? too has attracted agitated commentary, as well as gaining considerable commercial success: its Hebrew edition was on the bestseller list for several months, and the French translation has been through three editions, selling over 25,000 copies and winning the Aujourd’hui Award. Its appearance in English from Verso later this year is sure to stir further debate.

Defund ACORN and Halliburton!

Since according to my understanding of Gen. McChrystal's interview with 60 Minutes, Halliburton is part of the reason we're losing Afghanistan (btw, whey were they allowed to continue receiving US government contracts after moving their corporate HQ to an Arab Gulf State?), I'm with Arianna on this:

Arianna was a guest on MSNBC's "Morning Meeting" today and she confronted a blogger for the conservative website RedState.com over conspiracy theories linking ACORN to the White House. Arianna noted that since the U.S. government has stopped giving money to ACORN as a result of their recent scandal, it is only fair that we stop doling out public funds to companies such as Halliburton. Halliburton is accused of defrauding the government out of billions of dollars in Iraq.


Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/huff-tv/arianna-takes-on-conserva_b_302977.html

General McChrystal's Sunday 60 Minutes Interview

Watch CBS News Videos Online

Copyright Alliance Begins Petition Campaign

I signed this letter--and you can, too, at this link:

Dear President Obama and Vice President Biden,

We, the undersigned, are just a few of the more than 11 million artists living, working, and creating across the United States. Our work brings significant cultural and economic value to our society - and contributes $1.52 trillion to the nation's GDP. Yet that value is being disregarded as our rights and incentives to create are increasingly under threat.
Hear us as we speak with one voice about the importance of creators' rights.

We are the essence of America. Since the founding of our country, our work has provided light in the darkness of conflict, humor in the depths of sadness, beauty in the face of ugliness, and reason in the dysfunction of division.
We serve as the foundation of our communities; you find us in schools, performance halls, libraries, museums, community centers, and movie houses. We enrich our culture with a wide range of creative expression, including music, film, software, video games, writing, photography, graphics, and other visual arts.

We contribute in some way to every single industry in the country. Many of us are self-employed. All of us work hard and pay taxes.

Yet, we are under assault. Our rights to control the distribution, use, and reproduction of our works in our vibrant digital age are dismissed by many who do not understand the value we bring to society. They tell us to work harder, create better, and give our works away. Some think that they should control our works and that they should be able to appropriate, perform, and copy them how they please, without our consent, benefit, or participation.

Our freedom as creators lies in the Constitutional rights we cherish, rights given to us to promote our culture. Without these rights, our ability to pursue our creative dreams and to meet the high expectations of those who benefit from our creative works is significantly diminished. As a result, all Americans will suffer.

Mr. President and Vice President, hear our call. We know you understand the value our creative contributions bring to our society and economy, and we know you can encourage our citizens to respect our rights. Please pursue policies supportive of the rights of artists and the encouragement of our creative efforts. Without the proper respect for our rights and works today, it will become even more difficult for us to create in the future.

Sincerely,

Benjamin Netanyahu's UN Speech

(ht ShiratDvorah)

Mr. President, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Nearly 62 years ago, the United Nations recognized the right of the Jews, an ancient people 3,500 years-old, to a state of their own in their ancestral homeland. I stand here today as the Prime Minister of Israel, the Jewish state, and I speak to you on behalf of my country and my people.

The United Nations was founded after the carnage of World War II and the horrors of the Holocaust. It was charged with preventing the recurrence of such horrendous events. Nothing has undermined that central mission more than the systematic assault on the truth.

Yesterday the President of Iran stood at this very podium, spewing his latest anti-Semitic rants. Just a few days earlier, he again claimed that the Holocaust is a lie. Last month, I went to a villa in a suburb of Berlin called Wannsee. There, on January 20, 1942, after a hearty meal, senior Nazi officials met and decided how to exterminate the Jewish people. The detailed minutes of that meeting have been preserved by successive German governments. Here is a copy of those minutes, in which the Nazis issued precise instructions on how to carry out the extermination of the Jews. Is this a lie?

A day before I was in Wannsee, I was given in Berlin the original construction plans for the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp. Those plans are signed by Hitler's deputy, Heinrich Himmler himself. Here is a copy of the plans for Auschwitz-Birkenau, where one million Jews were murdered. Is this too a lie?

This June, President Obama visited the Buchenwald concentration camp. Did President Obama pay tribute to a lie? And what of the Auschwitz survivors whose arms still bear the tattooed numbers branded on them by the Nazis? Are those tattoos a lie? One-third of all Jews perished in the conflagration. Nearly every Jewish family was affected, including my own. My wife's grandparents, her father's two sisters and three brothers, and all the aunts, uncles and cousins were all murdered by the Nazis. Is that also a lie?

Yesterday, the man who calls the Holocaust a lie spoke from this podium. To those who refused to come here and to those who left this room in protest, I commend you. You stood up for moral clarity and you brought honor to your countries. But to those who gave this Holocaust-denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency? A mere six decades after the Holocaust, you give legitimacy to a man who denies that the murder of six million Jews took place and pledges to wipe out the Jewish state. What a disgrace! What a mockery of the charter of the United Nations!

Perhaps some of you think that this man and his odious regime threaten only the Jews. You're wrong. History has shown us time and again that what starts with attacks on the Jews eventually ends up engulfing many others. This Iranian regime is fueled by an extreme fundamentalism that burst onto the world scene three decades ago after lying dormant for centuries.

In the past thirty years, this fanaticism has swept the globe with a murderous violence and cold-blooded impartiality in its choice of victims. It has callously slaughtered Moslems and Christians, Jews and Hindus, and many others. Though it is comprised of different offshoots, the adherents of this unforgiving creed seek to return humanity to medieval times.

Wherever they can, they impose a backward regimented society where women, minorities, gays or anyone not deemed to be a true believer is brutally subjugated. The struggle against this fanaticism does not pit faith against faith nor civilization against civilization.

It pits civilization against barbarism, the 21st century against the 9th century, those who sanctify life against those who glorify death.

The primitivism of the 9th century ought to be no match for the progress of the 21st century. The allure of freedom, the power of technology, the reach of communications should surely win the day. Ultimately, the past cannot triumph over the future. And the future offers all nations magnificent bounties of hope. The pace of progress is growing exponentially.

It took us centuries to get from the printing press to the telephone, decades to get from the telephone to the personal computer, and only a few years to get from the personal computer to the internet.

What seemed impossible a few years ago is already outdated, and we can scarcely fathom the changes that are yet to come. We will crack the genetic code. We will cure the incurable. We will lengthen our lives. We will find a cheap alternative to fossil fuels and clean up the planet.

I am proud that my country Israel is at the forefront of these advances by leading innovations in science and technology, medicine and biology, agriculture and water, energy and the environment. These innovations the world over offer humanity a sunlit future of unimagined promise.

But if the most primitive fanaticism can acquire the most deadly weapons, the march of history could be reversed for a time. And like the belated victory over the Nazis, the forces of progress and freedom will prevail only after an horrific toll of blood and fortune has been exacted from mankind. That is why the greatest threat facing the world today is the marriage between religious fanaticism and the weapons of mass destruction.

The most urgent challenge facing this body is to prevent the tyrants of Tehran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Are the member states of the United Nations up to that challenge? Will the international community confront a despotism that terrorizes its own people as they bravely stand up for freedom?

Will it take action against the dictators who stole an election in broad daylight and gunned down Iranian protesters who died in the streets choking in their own blood? Will the international community thwart the world's most pernicious sponsors and practitioners of terrorism?

Above all, will the international community stop the terrorist regime of Iran from developing atomic weapons, thereby endangering the peace of the entire world?

The people of Iran are courageously standing up to this regime. People of goodwill around the world stand with them, as do the thousands who have been protesting outside this hall. Will the United Nations stand by their side?

Ladies and Gentlemen,

The jury is still out on the United Nations, and recent signs are not encouraging. Rather than condemning the terrorists and their Iranian patrons, some here have condemned their victims. That is exactly what a recent UN report on Gaza did, falsely equating the terrorists with those they targeted.

For eight long years, Hamas fired from Gaza thousands of missiles, mortars and rockets on nearby Israeli cities. Year after year, as these missiles were deliberately hurled at our civilians, not a single UN resolution was passed condemning those criminal attacks. We heard nothing - absolutely nothing - from the UN Human Rights Council, a misnamed institution if there ever was one.

In 2005, hoping to advance peace, Israel unilaterally withdrew from every inch of Gaza. It dismantled 21 settlements and uprooted over 8,000 Israelis. We didn't get peace. Instead we got an Iranian backed terror base fifty miles from Tel Aviv. Life in Israeli towns and cities next to Gaza became a nightmare. You see, the Hamas rocket attacks not only continued, they increased tenfold. Again, the UN was silent.

Finally, after eight years of this unremitting assault, Israel was finally forced to respond. But how should we have responded? Well, there is only one example in history of thousands of rockets being fired on a country's civilian population. It happened when the Nazis rocketed British cities during World War II. During that war, the allies leveled German cities, causing hundreds of thousands of casualties. Israel chose to respond differently. Faced with an enemy committing a double war crime of firing on civilians while hiding behind civilians, Israel sought to conduct surgical strikes against the rocket launchers.

That was no easy task because the terrorists were firing missiles from homes and schools, using mosques as weapons depots and ferreting explosives in ambulances. Israel, by contrast, tried to minimize casualties by urging Palestinian civilians to vacate the targeted areas.

We dropped countless flyers over their homes, sent thousands of text messages and called thousands of cell phones asking people to leave. Never has a country gone to such extraordinary lengths to remove the enemy's civilian population from harm's way.

Yet faced with such a clear case of aggressor and victim, who did the UN Human Rights Council decide to condemn? Israel. A democracy legitimately defending itself against terror is morally hanged, drawn and quartered, and given an unfair trial to boot.

By these twisted standards, the UN Human Rights Council would have dragged Roosevelt and Churchill to the dock as war criminals. What a perversion of truth. What a perversion of justice.

Delegates of the United Nations,

Will you accept this farce?

Because if you do, the United Nations would revert to its darkest days, when the worst violators of human rights sat in judgment against the law-abiding democracies, when Zionism was equated with racism and when an automatic majority could declare that the earth is flat.

If this body does not reject this report, it would send a message to terrorists everywhere: Terror pays; if you launch your attacks from densely populated areas, you will win immunity. And in condemning Israel, this body would also deal a mortal blow to peace. Here's why.

When Israel left Gaza, many hoped that the missile attacks would stop. Others believed that at the very least, Israel would have international legitimacy to exercise its right of self-defense. What legitimacy? What self-defense?

The same UN that cheered Israel as it left Gaza and promised to back our right of self-defense now accuses us - my people, my country - of war crimes. And for what? For acting responsibly in self-defense. What a travesty!

Israel justly defended itself against terror. This biased and unjust report is a clear-cut test for all governments. Will you stand with Israel or will you stand with the terrorists?

We must know the answer to that question now. Now and not later. Because if Israel is again asked to take more risks for peace, we must know today that you will stand with us tomorrow. Only if we have the confidence that we can defend ourselves can we take further risks for peace.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

All of Israel wants peace.

Any time an Arab leader genuinely wanted peace with us, we made peace. We made peace with Egypt led by Anwar Sadat. We made peace with Jordan led by King Hussein. And if the Palestinians truly want peace, I and my government, and the people of Israel, will make peace. But we want a genuine peace, a defensible peace, a permanent peace. In 1947, this body voted to establish two states for two peoples - a Jewish state and an Arab state. The Jews accepted that resolution. The Arabs rejected it.

We ask the Palestinians to finally do what they have refused to do for 62 years: Say yes to a Jewish state. Just as we are asked to recognize a nation-state for the Palestinian people, the Palestinians must be asked to recognize the nation state of the Jewish people. The Jewish people are not foreign conquerors in the Land of Israel. This is the land of our forefathers.

Inscribed on the walls outside this building is the great Biblical vision of peace: "Nation shall not lift up sword against nation. They shall learn war no more." These words were spoken by the Jewish prophet Isaiah 2,800 years ago as he walked in my country, in my city, in the hills of Judea and in the streets of Jerusalem.

We are not strangers to this land. It is our homeland. As deeply connected as we are to this land, we recognize that the Palestinians also live there and want a home of their own. We want to live side by side with them, two free peoples living in peace, prosperity and dignity.

But we must have security. The Palestinians should have all the powers to govern themselves except those handful of powers that could endanger Israel.

That is why a Palestinian state must be effectively demilitarized. We don't want another Gaza, another Iranian backed terror base abutting Jerusalem and perched on the hills a few kilometers from Tel Aviv.

We want peace. I believe such a peace can be achieved. But only if we roll back the forces of terror, led by Iran, that seek to destroy peace, eliminate Israel and overthrow the world order. The question facing the international community is whether it is prepared to confront those forces or accommodate them.

Over seventy years ago, Winston Churchill lamented what he called the "confirmed unteachability of mankind," the unfortunate habit of civilized societies to sleep until danger nearly overtakes them.

Churchill bemoaned what he called the "want of foresight, the unwillingness to act when action will be simple and effective, the lack of clear thinking, the confusion of counsel until emergency comes, until self-preservation strikes its jarring gong."

I speak here today in the hope that Churchill's assessment of the "unteachability of mankind" is for once proven wrong. I speak here today in the hope that we can learn from history -- that we can prevent danger in time. In the spirit of the timeless words spoken to Joshua over 3,000 years ago, let us be strong and of good courage. Let us confront this peril, secure our future and, God willing, forge an enduring peace for generations to come.

"Hashem Oz LeAmo Yiten, Hashem Yivarech et Amo Bashalom."
May G-d give strength to his people, may G-d bless his people with peace.

Arianna Huffington Reports from Israel

Now, Arianna Huffington is visiting Jerusalem.

JERUSALEM -- I arrived in Tel Aviv, at the Ben Gurion Airport, at 6:30 Sunday evening and went straight to the Yoezer Wine bar, a charming restaurant in Jaffa, housed in an old stone building that dates back to the Ottoman Empire.

I was there to have dinner with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and his wife Nili, who were leaving at midnight for Washington for meetings at the White House, as well as prominent Israeli venture capitalist, Meir Barel, of Star Ventures, fellow Greek Sabby Mionis, and Avital Leibovich, the spokesperson for the Foreign Press Division of the Israeli military.

Barak is Israel's most decorated soldier. A warrior turned politician, he is a former Prime Minister and Labor Party leader who was asked to join Netanyahu's government. Their relationship dates back 25 years, to when Barak was a grad student at Stanford and Netanyahu was a grad student at MIT. Another bond between the two would-be rivals is the close friendship of Barak and Netanyahu's brother Yonatan, a commando who was killed in the famed raid on Entebbe in Uganda.

During dinner, Barak's security detail stood guard around the table, guns at the ready and on full display. One of the guards stood directly behind the Defense Minister. Even though he was stationary, his eyes -- and, it seemed, his brain -- were in constant motion. He was an adrenaline rush come to life. In comparison, the Secret Service detail that guards the U.S. president seems positively laid back.

During his time as Prime Minister, Barak ended Israel's military occupation of southern Lebanon, and was part of the failed Camp David summit with Bill Clinton and Yasser Arafat. Given this, I asked him to compare George W. Bush's leadership to Obama's when it comes to Israel. "I'm an ABB," he said. "Anyone But Bush. Obama is investing a lot of his political capital in the peace process, and it's important that we don't waste this moment."

And what would it take to break through the current stalemate? "The Palestinian Authority," he told me, "needs to accept becoming an independent Palestinian state even before the borders are finalized."

Read more at: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/arianna-huffington/israel-diary-hyper-alert_b_295426.html

Lockerbie Families Protest Gaddafi UN Speech

Fox News reports:

Relatives of those who died in the Lockerbie bombing will protest outside the United Nations in New York when Libyan Colonel Muammar Qaddafi addresses the General Assembly.

Many are angry the Libyan leader has been granted a visa to attend the gathering just a few months after the only man convicted of the bombing, Abdel Baset al Megrahi, arrived in Tripoli to a boisterous welcome.

Megrahi was released on compassionate grounds by Scottish Justice Minister Kenny MacAskill, despite pressure from the U.S. State Department and senior members of Congress to keep him incarcerated in Scotland.

Michelle Ciulla Lipkin, who was 17 when her father Frank boarded Pan Am flight 103, has helped to coordinate the rally, harnessing support from Libyan-American activists, former employees of Pan Am and a group representing the families of 9/11 victims.

"I can't believe it's been over 20 years and we're still talking about this," she told Sky News. "The problem is releasing the only man convicted of this crime has opened up everything again."

BBC News story here:

Protesters have greeted Colonel Muammar Gaddafi on his arrival at the United Nations in New York.

Relatives of Lockerbie bombing victims were among those demonstrating against the Libyan leader, who was to address the general assembly.

Supporters of the formerly outcast North African leader also gathered outside the UN to welcome him.

The release of the Libyan man convicted of the 1988 attack over southern Scotland caused controversy in America.

Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, who is terminally ill, was freed on compassionate grounds by the Scottish government in August.

Meanwhile, Donald Trump has rented his suburban NY estate to the Libyan leader, who has likewise been officially welcomed to the United States by the Nation of Islam's Minister Louis Farrakhan. BP's reported role seems to have been forgotten, at least in the news media.

Joshua Foust on American Interpreters in Afghanistan

From the New York Times:

American officers and enlisted soldiers repeatedly told me how vital interpreters are. Yet there remains no standardized way for units to use them, which can lead to insulting incidents like the one Brooklyn had to endure.

Often, the insults are more subtle, but more personal. In Khost Province, I met an interpreter named Afzal, who worked for a team of Army civilians doing economic and cultural research. Afzal had helped this team for several years, through three rotations of leadership and personnel. He had been trying for a long time to get a visa from the State Department to come to the United States, something many interpreters hope for because of threats to their families. Eventually, extremists began posting threatening letters on his door overnight.

Afzal told me that two years earlier, the team’s leader, a lieutenant colonel, had promised to submit the paperwork for the visa and vouch for his status as an interpreter, but he apparently never did. The next team leader, another officer, made the same promise, but also apparently never followed through. It was not until the arrival of the third team leader, a civilian, early this year that Afzal was able to submit his application. The delay has complicated the procedure — for this year the State Department cut the number of available visas for interpreters from Afghanistan and Iraq to 50 from 500.

Brooklyn told me that the occasional grumpy officer wasn’t her only problem. She also complained about Mission Essential Personnel’s sloppy management, saying that the company tended to hire elderly interpreters, unsuited for rough travel in a war zone, just because they passed a language test. She said the contractor was unresponsive to complaints of sexual harassment and mistreatment.

There is also a growing number of stories of local interpreters who have been denied medical treatment. According to CorpWatch, a group that monitors military contractors, an interpreter named Basir Ahmed was fired for “failing to show up for work” last year when he was recuperating from shrapnel wounds to his leg received from a homemade bomb that exploded while he was on patrol with American forces near the Pakistani border.

In winning hearts and minds, how we treat Afghans as individuals matters more than how many Taliban we kill or how many roads we build. If we cannot treat our military interpreters with basic respect, why should Afghan civilians trust us to help them remake their nation?

Why is The Washington Post Playing Games with McChrystal's Report?

According to today's paper, the Post sat on its copy of the leaked McChrystal Afghanistan report for 24 hours while consulting with Obama administration officials--then published an article last Monday. However, the last time I checked, the papers editors hadn't posted the report itself on their web page...and there's nothing on Google. How can we decide whether the Post story got it right? How can the public evaluate McChrystal's claims? Why is the paper playing "drip, drip, drip" games with its readers. And, as I asked about the Osama Bin Laden transcript from last week: Whatever happened to the public's right to know?

MEMO TO WASHINGTON POST EDITORS: Stop playing "I know something you don't know." Start reporting the news in full.

FBI Destroyed Walter Cronkite Files

From USA Today (ht FOIABlog):

A search of the agency's main index of the subjects of FBI investigations found some records tied to Cronkite's name were destroyed in October 2007, the FBI said in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by USA TODAY. Cronkite's death in July at age 92 made any FBI files about him available for release under the federal law.

The FBI should have preserved records about Cronkite, who anchored CBS' newscasts from 1962 to 1981, said Scott Hodes, a former top lawyer in the FBI's records office. All FBI records on such a prominent person should have been saved under the FBI's policies, Hodes said.

"You're not supposed to destroy records that are historically valuable," Hodes said. "Somebody should have known who Walter Cronkite was."

FBI spokesman Bill Carter said the agency works with the National Archives to try to ensure historically important records are preserved. He did not respond to requests for further information Tuesday.

More on this story at Gawker.com

Daniel Pipes on the Nature of War

Pipes is writing about the Israeli-Arab conflict in Middle East Quarterly, but IMHO he could be writing about the US in Iraq or Afghanistan:

Rabin's mistake was simple and profound: One cannot "make peace with one's enemy," as he imagined. Rather, one makes peace with one's former enemy. Peace nearly always requires one side in a conflict to be defeated and thus give up its goals.

Wars end not through goodwill but through victory. "Let your great object [in war] be victory" observed Sun Tzu, the ancient Chinese strategist. "War is an act of violence to compel the enemy to fulfill our will," wrote his nineteenth-century Prussian successor, Karl von Clausewitz in 1832. Douglas MacArthur observed in 1951 that in "war, there is no substitute for victory."

Technological advancement has not altered this insight. Fighting either continues or potentially can resume so long as both sides hope to achieve their war goals. Victory consists of imposing one's will on the enemy, compelling him to give up his war ambitions. Wars typically end when one side gives up hope, when its will to fight has been crushed.

Defeat, one might think, usually follows on devastating battlefield losses, as was the case of the Axis in 1945. But that has rarely occurred during the past sixty years. Battlefield losses by the Arab states to Israel in 1948-82, by North Korea in 1953, by Saddam Hussein in 1991, and by Iraqi Sunnis in 2003 did not translate into despair and surrender. Morale and will matter more these days. Although they out-manned and out-gunned their foes, the French gave up in Algeria, the Americans in Vietnam, and the Soviets in Afghanistan. The Cold War ended, notably, with barely a fatality. Crushing the enemy's will to fight, then, does not necessarily mean crushing the enemy.

Arabs and Israelis since 1948 have pursued static and opposite goals: Arabs fought to eliminate Israel; Israelis fought to win their neighbors' acceptance. Details have varied over the decades with multiple ideologies, strategies, and leading actors, but the twin goals have remained in place and unbridgeable. If the conflict is to end, one side must lose and one side win. Either there will be no more Zionist state or it will be accepted by its neighbors. Those are the only two scenarios for ending the conflict. Anything else is unstable and a premise for further warfare.

The Arabs have pursued their war aims with patience, determination, and purpose; the exceptions to this pattern (e.g., the Egyptian and Jordanian peace treaties) have been operationally insignificant because they have not tamped hostility to Israel's existence. In response, Israelis sustained a formidable record of strategic vision and tactical brilliance in the period 1948-93. Over time, however, as Israel developed into a wealthy country, its populace grew impatient with the humiliating, slow, boring, bitter, and expensive task of convincing Arabs to accept their political existence. By now, few in Israel still see victory as the goal; almost no major political figure on the scene today calls for victory in war. Uzi Landau, currently minister of national infrastructure, who argues that "when you're in a war you want to win the war," is the rare exception.

Charles Crawford on the Crisis in the Balkans

From Diplomat Magazine:

In 1991 Western capitals were stunned by the abrupt collapse of the Soviet Union. Above all they wanted someone to be legally responsible for the Soviet nuclear weapons stockpiles now situated in four supposedly independent new countries (Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine and Belarus) while these weapons were restored to Russian soil and control. So the only realistic option was to recognise those previous internal boundaries as new international frontiers, and get on with treating the new governments there as grown-ups.

However, Yugoslavia was collapsing in rancorous circumstances, rival demands for self-determination to the fore. The West looked at Slovenia (predominantly Slovene-populated, borders mainly not contested) and decided to have its cake and eat it. Slovenia handily ticked both boxes: internal borders as new international borders, plus self-determination for the Slovene people.

Which was fine for Slovenia. But not for Croatia, Bosnia, Macedonia, Montenegro or Serbia, the other five republics in communist Yugoslavia, each with its own ethnic/national identity tensions. And no-one was interested in the sizeable category of ‘Yugoslavs’ – people not identifying themselves with one ethnic community.

Urged on by Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade, Serbs across Yugoslavia demanded to stay under one national roof. Other communities wanting to break from Yugoslavia would pay a price – and not take ‘Serbian lands’ with them.

You know the rest. Calamity in today’s tranquil Europe. War. Refugee columns. Ethnic cleansing. War crimes. The ICTY war crimes tribunal set up. NATO bombing. Dayton. Rambouillet. More NATO bombing. Kosovo run by the UN. Milosevic sent to ICTY and dies in prison. Kosovo declares independence from Serbia in 2008, but is still not recognised by the majority of either the world’s countries or its population.

Why is Kosovo not more widely recognised, even by all European Union members? For various reasons.

A feeling that regardless of the history of the matter Kosovo sets an unwise precedent too far for a region breaking away on its own terms. Unease about NATO’s intervention and underlying motives. Plus residual sympathy for Belgrade in many capitals who liked Tito’s communist-lite, allegedly non-aligned Yugoslavia.

Russia too has been angered. Moscow thought that when the Soviet Union broke up it had struck a Basic Deal with Western capitals over new borders in Europe, namely that any such problems would be dealt with in partnership with Moscow, not by confrontation.

Hence to me at least it was no surprise when Russia last year pounced as Georgia tried to resolve on its terms some long-running problems with separatists in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia sent in troops to protect those territories from Georgia, and quickly recognised them as two new independent states.

Russia’s policy has been a total failure in winning wider international recognition for these territories as new states. But a pretty good success (so far) in terms of Moscow asserting that the former Soviet Union is a ‘space’ where its rules now prevail, with Western policy-makers warned to back off.

Plenty of other examples are bubbling away with more or less intensity. In Iraq, complex ethno-religious negotiations are needed to keep the country together, with the Kurds keen to get maximum autonomy over ‘their’ oil-fields. China and Tibet. Scotland. Belgium.

Recently I chatted to a NATO officer now in Bosnia. I gave my old line that in Bosnia with its three rival communities (Bosniacs/Muslims, Serbs, Croats) three different constitutional outcomes made theoretical sense:

* One country, one entity (checks and balances to stop any one community dominating)
* One country, three entities (each community gets ‘its’ space within a single polity)
* One country, 18 entities (ie radical decentralisation via cantons to help diffuse ethnic tensions)

What made no sense was what we had all agreed at Dayton: one country, two entities. That outcome flowed from unwise tactical decisions made in 1992/93 with no strategic eye on the eventual ethno-constitutional implications. As I had written in a telegram to London, Bosnia had started as an ethnic omelette – it was now three hard-boiled eggs. ‘What a refreshingly honest view’, replied the officer wistfully.

Diplomacy. Building on what exists (ie racial, ethnic, religious tensions going back centuries) and accepting that good fences make good neighbours, as appears to be the policy for the break-up of what remained of Yugoslavia into Serbia + Kosovo + Montenegro?

Or building towards what we outsiders insist has to exist, hoping to compel people to cooperate nicely within single state frameworks that they dislike and distrust, as we have done in Bosnia?

Two utterly different philosophies and policies, applied to places a few miles apart which for some 70 years were part of one country.

Foolish Consistency? Or Foolish Inconsistency?

From Westphalia to West failure?

What Happened to 60 Minutes?

Tuned in after the football game tonight, hoping to see a new edition in its entirety--and found that not only was the episode a repeat, it was only 20 minutes long...Doesn't that violate some FCC "truth in advertising" regulations?

I guess some suits at CBS just waited until Don Hewitt died to start messing with his success...won't be long now before it goes off the air, if they keep up this sort of stuff, IMHO...

Of course, I turned off the TV.

In Praise of Central Aisles

Seating plan of the Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow

Yesterday, I had an unexpected argument with a working architect about theatrical seating plans. I blurted out, uninvited, that I really hoped he would put center aisles for audiences in his designs because it was a hassle climbing over all the members of the audience to get in and out of seats in modern theatres. It was an offhand remark, and I expected he would just smile patiently.

However, he took immediate umbrage, which really surprised me. I was told that my position was illogical. He said he'd show me on a diagram that aisles on the side were just the same as center aisles, and that "the best seats in the house" were wasted in designs featuring a center aisle.

I responded that emotionally, as an audience member, I felt trapped without a center aisle, that I preferred a choice of pathways into and out of my seat. He responded that I didn't know what I was talking about, that most theatres were now designed without center aisles. I shot back that maybe that was a factor in the decline of live theatre. He said he didn't think theatre had declined. Etc.

When I got back home, with the help of someone I know, I spent some time googling on the internet. So I learned some interesting things about theatre architecture. According to the late Stanford University theatre professor Wendell Cole's 1954 article, "Some Contemporary Trends in Theatre Architecture," the kind of seating plan I particularly dislike had been invented by Richard Wagner for his Bayreuth Festspielhaus in 1876. It was specifically designed to showcase Wagnerian Opera. It is called, in the trade, "Continental Seating." As part of his German aesthetic (no doubt somehow descended from Lutheranism as well as Modernism), Wagner stripped away decorations, boxes and balconies--replacing the traditional Opera House horseshoe ring with a fan-shaped design featuring seats on risers, like a stadium.

As in a stadium, such a architecture requires locating many seats too far back to hear properly (except, perhaps for the crashing noise of Wagnerian Opera or a contemporary rock concert--no wonder shows are mostly miked today, and actors no longer learn how to project their voice to fill a room). Not surprisingly, despite an absence of pillars to support balconies, sightlines from seats located on the far sides have only "partial views." Traditional theatres group most of the audience in front of the stage, increasing seating capacity through the addition of balconies and boxes.

Richard Pilbrow, a British theatrical designer, is another critic of "Continental Seating." In a 2000 Theatre Communications Group article, A Lively Theatre, he raised some of the concerns I had shared with the architect. An excerpt:

The 20th century has not been a good time for theatre architecture.

In the years from the 1920s to the 1970s, the world became littered with overlarge, often fan-shaped auditoriums that are barren in feeling and lacking in intimacy--places that are seldom conducive to that interplay between actor and audience that lies at the heart of the theatre experience. Why do theatres of the 19th century feel so much more "theatrical"? And why do so many actors and audiences prefer the old to the new?

Pilbrow blamed Wagner, and his idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk, for starting the modern trend. Likewise, he pointed out: "With hindsight, there were actually far too many bad seats--almost all those more than half way back--and the lack of encircling audience made the theatre seem more an antiseptic lecture hall than a theatre."

Architects, engineers and theatre people were all consumed by the urge to build new "democratic" frontal-view, fan-shaped theatres. This came to be coupled with the then-fashionable simplicity of the modern architectural movement. The result has been many theatres that today seem quite dreadful: vast auditoriums with the majority of seats to the rear, entirely lacking in any intimacy or "theatricality," and with poor acoustics to boot.

Luckily, he said, theatre designers had realized the error of their ways.

However, nothing I read seemed to make the point that the "best seats in the house" have more than the characteristic of central location. The reason that critics demand "two on the aisle" is the same reason that a central aisle is, in fact, central to good theatre. It is easy to leave if the show is not very entertaining. To have to clamber out across the laps of perhaps a dozen or more members of the audience is a deterrent to an quick getaway...which raises the stakes of attending a theatrical performance.

For, unlike the architect, who dealt with the theoretical ideal of designing seating for theatrical performances audiences wanted to see, traditional theatres were designed with the understanding that many shows are not worth seeing at all. Thus, a central aisle gives two sets of spectators aisle seats that are also near the center sightline--impossible with "Continental Seating." You want a seat near the aisle AND near the center. Traditional theatres fill up from the center outwards. So, a half-full house would be both near the central aisle and the central sightline. That's the beauty of traditional theatre design.

"Continental Seating," on the other hand, forces a choice between sitting in the center and sitting on the aisle. Yikes! Thinking of a play like a long airline flight, gives some understanding. What if you need to go to the bathroom? Who wants a middle seat?

In addition, a central aisle adds a "social networking" dimension to a night at the theatre (as do boxes and balconies). One may scan the audience to spot friends, enemies, and celebrities--then wander up and down the aisle during intermission, in order to work the room. Aisles, boxes and balconies also gives one something to look at, when attention drifts from the stage. It offers increased legroom at the best seats. And enables the cast to do Oprah-style audience interaction--to make entrances and exits amidst the audience. Sometimes a visible walkout by an audience member is a liberating experience for other theatregoers.

In sum, traditional central aisle seating plans recognize this reality of theatrical experience: Sometimes, the "best seat in the house" is the one that may be exited expeditiously.

President Obama's Rosh Hashanah Greeting

(ht Huffington Post)

Charles Crawford on Obama's Missile Withdrawal

Yesterday I said what I thought. However, The former British Ambassador to Poland (and other places) has a different view:

So the problem with the Obama Administration's Russian Reset button approach lies in the apparent assumption that Russia and the USA can move towards a new substantive partnership which gives the USA significant new gains which Russia will be happy to support. This partnership can not be.

At the root of it, Russian foreign policy ambitions have nothing to do with ideals or principles but only a strange self-absorbed zero-sum nationalist-tsarist idea that whatever territory Russia at some point has conquered is ipso facto 'Russian' for ever. Where those lands are no longer in Russia itself, Russia must have some sort of psychological or strategic edge there, and other influences (Europeanisation, Westernisation) necessarily subtract from that and are a threat.

America by contrast does have real universalist ideals and principles, however much they are sneered at in America itself and more widely round the planet. Even if the execution of its policy is (inevitably?) often incoherent, messy and contradictory, Washington looks at the Middle East, Africa and other strategic problems in their own terms - what might work to get a substantively respectable and fair and stable outcomes, preferably in a way which increases freedom for ordinary people.

Which is why when the going gets tough, Russia will never do more than the bare minimum to give the Americans real help against obnoxious states and extremists and terrorists. Much better for Moscow to keep the prospect of such help dangling like a carrot indefinitely, so that Russia can negotiate from greater strength far down the road as and when its power has grown and America's has diminished.

Conclusion?

The optimistic interpretation of this Obama move is that he has given up something that really did not count for much in strategic reality terms so as to get some other modest diplomatic gains (all with a keen eye on Obama's poll ratings), wrapping it up in vast spin about a 'huge move' to make it look bold and statesmanlike. Poles and Czechs are too right-wing for Democrats, so get a sharp clip round the ear followed by a perfunctory kiss to make up. The Russians know that it is all (mainly) rubbish, but piously applaud the 'wisdom' of it so as to make themselves look more powerful than they are. No real change.

The pessimistic interpretation is that there really has been a 'huge shift' in US foreign policy and President Obama is ready to put at risk all the gains for freedom, pluralism and progress achieved around the world by Ronald Reagan with a little help from his friends, in the hope of creating a new world order based around a diminished unambitious USA in sly cahoots with left-collectivist post-democratic polities (EU, Russia, China) and sundry unhealthy pre-democratic Islamic regimes.

Erev Rosh Hashanah, 9-18-09, Washington, DC

Another Good Move by President Obama...

Cancelling "missile defense" in Poland and the Czech Republic.

These were symbolic, token, "tripwire" installations--which the Russians believed violated a promise made to Gorbachev that NATO would never expand into the former Warsaw Pact, extracted in exchange for withdrawing Russian troops from Europe. When Russia was weak, the US pushed ahead. Now that the US is weak, Russia could be expected to push back. Since, IMHO, a strong Russia makes Europe behave in a more pro-American fashion, and a weak Russia allows Europeans to play their traditional Talleyrand diplomacy, a strong Russia and a weaker Europe is in American interests. Look, for example, at British perfidy in releasing the Lockerbie bomber in exchange for a BP oil concession. Russia has plenty of oil, so would probably be a more dependable ally than Britain (as we saw in World War II, where the Soviet Army bore the brunt of battle). All the Russians wanted, when I was living in Moscow, was to be treated as an "equal partner" instead of a "defeated foe." We didn't do it when we could have negotiated from a position of strength. Now that we are in trouble in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Obama administration is hopefully doing it...although from a Bush administration-created position of weakness that means the price paid to Russia (and inevitably China) is higher than had a similar deal been struck on September 12, 2001. Eight wasted years, eight trillion wasted dollars...but as Winston Churchill famously noted: You can count on Americans to always do the right thing--after they have exhausted every possible alternative.

Even Polish-American geostrategist Zbigniew Brzezinski has finally changed his tune, now saying that the US cannot manage without making Russian and Chinese security deals, as detailed in his current Foreign Affairs article, An Agenda for NATO: Towards a Global Security Web.

With Russia and China on our side, I think we may see the Iranians change their tune. Iran was divided between the Russians and the British once before, and they probably don't want their country split in pieces again.

Bravo, Mr. President! With real help from Russia and China, and the withdrawal of Old and New Europe from the field of battle (IMHO, it was a mistake to reactivate the German Army and the Japanese Navy in this war, pure symbolic and poorly thought out tokenism), I doubt the current worldwide Islamist fundamentalist insurgency will last too much longer...

Bin Laden's Book Club

A friend just sent emailed this link to Bin Laden's Book Club...from Foreign Policy Magazine:

http://rothkopf.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/09/16/on_the_latest_great_selection_from_osamas_book_club