This Book Looks Interesting

The Myth of Islamic Tolerance...

Happy Easter

Here's a page of Easter links atEaster on the Net...

Not "Mission Accomplished" in Kyrgyzstan

Scraps of Moscow reminds us that it is too early to tell what will happen in the aftermath of the Kyrgyz revolution. Commenting on Daan van der Schreick's analysis in The Moscow Times, which argues that in the aftermath of the current revolt, Kyrgyzstan's 1990s-era experiment democracy may be viewed by leaders or neighboring countries as a cause of instability rather than an example to follow:

Probably this has idea has been mentioned elsewhere, but this is the first place I've seen it articulated in print. This sort of deflates the triumphalism I've seen on several US right-wing blogs, people crowing about the triumph of democracy. Sorry, guys, what happened in Bishkek is not really related to the 'liberation' of Iraq or to any US actions - in fact, I've seen reports that the US played on both sides of this game.

Well, I think it's pretty clear that the US supported the protesters, based on Ambassador Young's statements, as well as the way events played out. You could more reasonably conclude that Russia seems to have played both sides. But Lyndon's conclusion is worth thinking about:

As several more thoughtful bloggers have noted, the proof of the new government will be in the pudding - will we see democratic elections in the near future as promised, or will the opposition-turned-rulers get busy feeding themselves at the corruption trough, a rich tradition in the former Soviet space?

Easter Tourists Return to Jerusalem

From the San Jose Mercury News:

For people whose livelihood have depended upon the flow of tourists to Jerusalem's holy sites, the intifada, or Palestinian uprising, indeed has been a path of sorrows. Millennium celebrations at the start of 2000 helped bring more than 2.5 million visitors to Israel, perhaps half of them Christian pilgrims. After fighting broke out between Israel and the Palestinians in September of that year, that number plummeted, eventually falling nearly two-thirds.

The Israeli Tourism Ministry said visitors had increased about one-third over levels at this time last year, although numbers still lagged pre-intifada levels. The falloff in fighting over the past two months, though, reassured many people who had put off earlier travel. In Jerusalem, different faiths jostle up against one another every day, and [Good] Friday was no exception.

Washington Celebrates Walt Whitman

Today's Washington Post has an interesting guide to Walt Whitman's 10 years in Washington, DC, suitable for a walking tour. The article, detailing where he lived and worked from 1863-1873--military hospital, Department of the Interior, Attorney-General's office, and so forth-- begins with this verse from Leaves of Grass:

But each man and each woman of you I lead upon a knoll,

My left hand hooks you round the waist,

My right hand points to landscapes of continents, and a plain public road.

-- Walt Whitman, untitled version of 'Song of Myself' in 'Leaves of Grass,' 1855

The boarding houses he slept in have been torn down, but the government office buildings remain. There is a move to rename the street in front of the National Portrait Gallery after Whitman...

Bad Democracies, Good Dictatorships

Curzon considers the paradoxes of democratization in the light of the Kyrgyz crisis:

Clarrifying policy between good, established democracies and bad, corrupt dictatorships is easy. Regime change in France would be silly; regime change in Turkmenistan would be most welcome. But what we increasingly see is a messy choice between good and bad democracies. In an age where democracy is fetishized by politicians and NGOs alike and where the EU, the US, and the UN require third world countries to hold elections before the recieve aid, the emerging challenge for policymakers is to recognize when democracies are dysfunctional and when dictatorships are enlightened.

Robert Conquest on Democracy

From The National Interest (via TheRussianDilettante):

Another aspect of premature 'democracy' is the adulation of what used to be and might still be called 'the city mob' (noted by Aristotle as ochlocracy). In France, of course, in the 1790s, a spate of ideologues turned to the Paris mob, in riot after riot, until the 18th Brumaire, Napoleon's coup of 1799. The ploy was that, as A. E. Housman put it, a capital city with far fewer inhabitants could decide the fate of the country's millions.

That democracy is not the only, or inevitable, criterion of social progress is obvious. If free elections give power to a repression of consensuality, they are worse than useless. We will presumably not forget that Hitler came to power in 1933 by election, with mass and militant support. The communist coup in Czechoslovakia in 1948 was effected by constitutional intrigues backed by 'mass demonstrations.' We need hardly mention the 'peoples' democracies' and the 90 percent votes they always received.

As to later elections, a few years ago there was a fairly authentic one in Algeria. If its results had been honored, it would have replaced the established military rulers with an Islamist political order. This was something like the choice facing Pakistan in 2002. At any rate, it is not a matter on which the simple concepts of democracy and free elections provide us with clear criteria.

Herb Meyer Was Right

According to thisYahoo! News Report: Kyrgyzstan President Resigns.

Putin to Visit Israel

According to the BBC, Vladimir Putin will make his first visit to Israel at the end of April, a sign of improving relations between Moscow and Tel Aviv. (Though I doubt he'll pay a call on fugitive Yukos executives living there--unless he pardons Khodorkovsky, first).

How Do You Build Democracy?

Daniel Pipes worries President Bush may have the wrong theory of democracy-building:

The theory implied here is that running for office – with its emphasis on such mundane matters as fixing potholes and providing good schools – will temper Hezbollah and Hamas.

Count me skeptical.

The historical record does not support such optimism. When politically adept totalitarians win power democratically, they do fix potholes and improve schools – but only as a means to transform their countries in accordance with their utopian visions. This generalization applies most clearly to the historical cases (Adolf Hitler in Germany after 1933, Salvador Allende in Chile after 1970) but it also appears valid for the current ones (Khaleda Zia in Bangladesh since 2001, Recep Tayyip Erdog˘an in Turkey since 2002).

The Latest on the Crisis in Kyrgyzstan

Can be found on Nathan Hamm's Central Asian website: Registan.net...

Tony Blair's Revenge...

DG Mark Thompson will sack over 5,000 people at the BBC, says The Guardian:

More than one in five BBC staff now face losing their jobs as further details of director general Mark Thompson's radical revamp emerged yesterday, including the loss of 1,500 jobs in programme-making divisions such as news and sport.

Initial estimates of up to 5,000 job cuts are being hastily revised upwards by broadcasting unions, which are threatening strike action if compulsory redundancies are enforced.

Including jobs that will be lost as a result of redundancies, the outsourcing of some roles and the sell-off of commercial divisions such as BBC Broadcast and BBC Resources, up to 6,000 jobs are now expected to go in the biggest ever cull of staff at the corporation.

Why Dictatorships Fall

The riots in Kyrgyzstan led us to this article. Former CIA operative Herbert Meyer explains why dictatorships fall, in this interesting article I found at Publius Pundit. It is based on his work with Bill Casey in fighting the USSR in the Reagan administration. About current events, he is sanguine. He says Kyrgyzstan will go the way of the USSR because the generals won't shoot their own children. I don't know, there is a lot of regionalism in Kyrgyzstan, and although not a perfect democrat, Akayev really wasn't a dictator. Plus the question of Islamic extremism is a factor that needs to be considered, since instability can open the path to a fundamentalist takeover--viz., the Shah of Iran.

In addition, I saw Akayev on Russian television for the Moscow State University Anniversary celebrations (he's an alumnus of MGU), so I think the Russians might have something to say about what happens next. They didn't do anything in the Ukraine, but that isn't a guarantee they will do nothing now. Do they have the troops? Well, there are 25,000 Russian soldiers in Tajikistan.

It is always hard to make predictions, as Sam Goldwyn might have said, especially about the future...

Jeff Jacoby on Why America Ought Not Torture Terrorists

From The Boston Globe:

THE CONVENTION Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, which the United States ratified in 1994, prohibits the torture of any person for any reason by any government at any time. It states explicitly that torture is never justified -- ''no exceptional circumstances whatsoever . . . may be invoked as a justification for torture.' Unlike the Geneva Convention, which protects legitimate prisoners of war, the Convention Against Torture applies to everyone -- even terrorists and enemy combatants. And it cannot be evaded by ''outsourcing' a prisoner to a country where he is apt to be tortured during interrogation.

In short, the international ban on torture -- a ban incorporated into US law -- is absolute. And before Sept. 11, 2001, few Americans would have argued that it should be anything else.

Catherine Johnson on Terry Schiavo

From Roger L. Simon: Mystery Novelist and Screenwriter: "Terri Schiavo's parents have hope that their daughter's functioning can be improved or perhaps one day cured with treatment, therapy, and emerging knowledge. They may be right, they may be wrong. Or they may be ahead of their time, because one day brain damage will be repairable. That's my bet. In the meantime they choose to love and care for their daughter.

"Her legal husband chooses to starve her to death.

"If he starved his dog, he'd be arrested."

Buckley on George Kennan

William F. Buckley reminds us that not everyone admired George F. Kennan, who died last week at the age of 101. Here's his waspish farewell from National Review Online.

RAND Reports LAX Lines Terrorist Targets

I stood in one of these incredibly long lines at LAX (and finally understood why everyone I met in LA hates Bush). A RAND corporation study and a GAO report confirms what I thought while standing on the side of the road for half an hour, inhaling fumes (luckily it was sunny, a beautiful day in Southern California)--Long lines of people waiting to get to their flights can attract terrorists.

Here's the Los Angeles Times story. Money quote: "Long lines at airports are 'the single greatest vulnerability that we have in the domestic U.S. at the moment,' said aviation consultant Billie Vincent, a former Federal Aviation Administration security chief. The General Accounting Office released a report this week that said heightened screening procedures and truck-sized explosives-detection machines in airport lobbies — added after 9/11 — had created crowds that put passengers at risk. 'In the '70s, gangs in Europe entered airports and machine-gunned and killed people,' said Stephen Van Beek, policy director for Airports Council International-North America. 'Terrorists know if they did that today, it would be highly publicized.'"

BTW, A number of people missed flights due to the long lines and security hassles, so had to try to fly standby, and then one didn't even get on my flight, which was full, so he had to wait for the next one. Not too good for business or the LA tourist industry, I thought. And I wondered, after the humiliation of taking off my shoes, and my jacket, and taking my laptop out, and so forth: Whatever happened to constitutional protections against unreasonable search and seizure, don't they apply to air travellers?

David D'Arcy's Last Moments at NPR

From an account by Tim Rutten in the Los Angeles Times:

A short time later, Rehm again called D'Arcy — this time with a lawyer listening in — and read him a termination notice, which said in part: "In reporting on this subject basic editorial standards of journalism were overlooked such as presenting the facts in a fair and balanced way. In addition the museum was not given an opportunity to respond to the harsh criticism raised in the piece."

D'Arcy's editor at "All Things Considered," Tom Cole, was suspended without pay for one day. Rehm, D'Arcy said, told him that "Cole agreed with all the criticisms and had showed the appropriate remorse."

Wolfowitz on the 60th Anniversary of Victory in WWII

Found something on the web from the US relating to the 60th Anniversary of Victory in WWIIand it is by Paul Wolfowitz!

Elie Wiesel teaches us that we must speak about unspeakable deeds, so that they will be neither forgotten nor repeated. Most of all, he offers personal witness to all humanity that in the face of the most horrific oppression, there is always hope that the goodness of the human spirit will prevail.

That is the larger meaning of why we gather here today. We’re here to reflect on the magnitude of the occasion, how totalitarian evil claimed millions of precious lives. But just as important, the member nations attending today are affirming their rejection of such evil and making a statement of hope for a more civilized future, a hope that “never again” will the world look the other way in the face of such evil.

For if there is one thing the world has learned, it is that peaceful nations cannot close their eyes or sit idly by in the face of genocide. It took a war, the most terrible war in history, to end the horrors that we remember today. It was a war that Winston Churchill called “The Unnecessary War” because he believed that a firm and concerted policy by the peaceful nations of the world could have stopped Hitler early on. But it was a war that became necessary to save the world from what he correctly called “the abyss of a new dark age, made more sinister … by the lights of a perverted science.”

This truth we also know: that war, even a just and noble war, is horrible for everyone it touches. War is not something Americans seek, nor something we will ever grow to like. Throughout our history, we have waged it reluctantly, but we have pursued it as a duty when it was necessary.

America may need more of this sort of remembrance, along with restoration of the WWII alliance, to win the global war on terror.

Will Russia Tilt Towards Israel?

Mark Katz thinks so, writing in Middle East Quarterly, and says Chechen terrorists are one reason for Putin's move:

But what has motivated Putin to make this choice? Putin's history indicates a deep, emotional commitment to defeating the Chechen rebellion. He denies that the Chechen rebels have any legitimate basis for complaint against Moscow and refuses to negotiate with them. Putin does not appear to doubt the rightness of his hard-line policy toward Chechnya, even in the face of international outrage. Sunni Islamists see Russia as being as much of an enemy as the United States and Israel. European leaders criticize Russian human rights abuses in Chechnya. Even at the height of Russian collaboration with "Old Europe" to block United Nations approval for the U.S-led intervention in Iraq, French president Jacques Chirac raised the issue of Russian human rights violations in Chechnya while hosting Putin at a Paris banquet. After the September 2004 Beslan tragedy, the Russian foreign ministry "reacted with outrage" at the implied criticism of Moscow's policy in an EU statement asking "the Russian authorities how this tragedy could have happened." Very few have given the unequivocal support for Putin's Chechnya policy that Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has.

Sharon, who is fluent in Russian, has established a genuine bond with Putin. Both share a similar mindset about their Muslim opponents: they are terrorists with whom there can be no negotiation. Both Putin and Sharon use force against opponents they believe undeserving of sympathy, and both share a bond formed by their resulting vilification in the West.

While Sharon is not the first or only Israeli official to express sympathy for Russia's Chechnya policy, Sharon's key role in the improvement of bilateral relations is suggested by the improvement under his watch. Prior to Sharon's accession, Putin was content to leave the Israeli-Palestinian issue in the hands of the strongly pro-Palestinian Russian foreign ministry. Only after his first meeting with Sharon in September 2001 did Putin's pro-Israel tilt emerge.