Canada’s Debate

You throw a war, and a “popular resistance” shows up instead?

Recently I’ve seen a spate of news editorials, letters and blogs calling on Israel to show restraint when engaging in operations in Gaza. Good, fine. I agree that Israel’s policies in Gaza (and the West Bank) are terrible. They are largely designed to delay and weaken the Palestinian movement so that it is unable to secure an advantageous deal for peace in the future.

That being said, they are also designed to minimize Israeli casualties, and I think the great “letter writers” of the world are ignoring a few realities of the situation in their objections. Haroon Siddiqui always makes hay of the fact that the number of Gazans vs. Israeli’s killed always favours the Israelis… Well, yes. As I said, Israel treats the Palestinians poorly. Then again, so do the militants who use civilians as shields… It’s a fact that almost never gets reported, but Rocket Squads are frequently observed closely by adoring young well-wishers. Odds are, if you read about children being killed in an Israeli airstrike, and it didn’t happen in the middle of a dense residential area; they were cheering on the military targets from less than a stone’s throw away.

As Canadians (or Americans, or even some Europeans) we are accustomed to fighting war from a distance. The Palestinians are completely content to specifically target civilians, and use their own as body armour and cannon fodder; and we have the gall to suggest that only one side has lost its moral justification? That’s absurd. In the Israeli/Palestinian conflict there are no clean hands; no winners… only losers. And by claiming that one side’s attrocities are justified by desperation, religion or politics we just further enable the cycle of violence.

I’ve got a quick and easy solution for solving the Israel/Palestine debate. Lets take everyone who has publicly declared one “side” of the issue as at fault, and kick them out of their homes. Every single one… We can then shoe-horn them into Israel/Palestine, and give everyone currently occupying that contentious strip of land their pick of the newly vacated homes. Honestly, I can’t see a problem with this solution…

By my estimates at least half of the Arab world would be depopulated… all those Palestinians who profess piety I’m sure would leap at the opportunity to move into the spacious (and ARAB free) palaces of Saudi Arabia; they’d lose Jerusalem but gain Mecca, seems like trading up to me. The Jews and evangelical (read “mentally unstable”) Christians could integrate into the depopulated cultural centres of their respective faiths and find the infrastructure for their beliefs already built, without the fear of terrorism or death. Lastly, about 1-2 billion idiotic demagogues would have to live in a richly deserved Gideon-esque nightmare. (Continue reading…)

Before anyone takes my post as a criticism of non-western governance/politics, let me just clarify a few things. Blogging at 7:20 in the morning is still a new thing for me, so I may occasionally get sidetracked.

My primary goal was not to criticize the Pakistani (or other non-western) iteration of Democracy; rather it was to criticize the characterization of Musharaf’s crackdown as a “subversion of democracy.” Musharaf was a dictator, however “enlightened” his rule might have been. He came to power by military coup and he manipulated the existing political system through force and legal maneuvering in order to stay in power.

The fact that journalists throughout the world place the word democracy in any proximity to present-day Pakistan is alarming… so much so that I am only able to draw two conclusions: first, that our standards of democracy have slipped so low that any system where people cast votes qualifies; and second, that we take a provincial view of non-western systems and apply a different standard to them when considering politics… the same way we would call a 6-year old’s lemonade stand a “franchise.”

Neither thought is very comforting. (Continue reading…)

Can someone please explain to me how President Musharaf’s recent coup against a government led by President Musharaf is subverting democracy? I’ve seen that phrase all over the web and I don’t get it… Pakistan hasn’t had a democracy to subvert since 1999, when Musharaf launched a coup against Bhuto… you know, the woman who staged a massive public rally for herself despite knowing that it would be the target of attacks, and knowing that the government which was supposed to provide security might be involved. Low intensity democracy indeed…

I know I’m going to take some flak for this, but the time has come for me to say it: democracy cannot really prosper without a foundation of liberal institutions. Please note the small “L” in liberal.

Please note as well that this is not a statement for “western” superiority or a judgement of non-western values. It just seems to me that without a liberal tradition (transplanted or native) of social institutions and public discourse democracy functions about as well as a car running on kerosense; it sputters, makes a lot of smoke and noise, moves a couple of feet (enough to make you think it’s working)… and then ker-plodes in your face, leaving you with a useless frame and smoldering ruins. Perhaps (and this is what everyone accept the U.S. army has been saying about Iraq) you need to develop real non-political social institutions before you even tinker with a democratic system… Controversial stuff eh?

The Taliban has decided to release two sick Korean hostages, and while I am happy for those two people and their families, the news filled me with a sense of dread as opposed to relief, and it should for everyone else. Tony Carson suggests that these people are suffering from some sort of dementia, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. This action suggest to me that the Taliban is once again confident enough to use diplomacy and compromise to further its own goals. From an enfranchised government this is a positive step. From an authoritative militia that seeks to impose itself on a society that doesn’t want them, it is alarming in the extreme.

This means two things. One, they are interested in victory not violence. Two, that they think they can get it.

The debate over the environment (Global Warming, smog, preservation and conservation, etc.) is a large and complicated one, with a new banner issue almost yearly. Trying to condense the “struggle” that is modern environmentalism into easy-to-digest information is tricky… Then again, this story does it perfectly. In fact, it summarizes the state of environmentalism so succinctly that I just had to share it.

Tired of paying as much as $340 per month for gas and electricity at the Cape Cod home here where he has lived for 18 months, Michael Mercurio erected a 35-foot windmill in his backyard last fall that helped reduce his bill to about $114 — a year…

Some of his neighbors say it is also annoying. They say it is too big. They say it is too noisy. And some residents in this middle-class borough on Long Beach Island have gone to court to try to make him take it down, while the township has stilled it since winter.

It is a collision between the ideals of alternative energy and the suburban reality of New Jersey’s notorious not-in-my-backyard culture, casting Mr. Mercurio in the role of a latter-day environmental knight errant and his neighbor and principal adversary as the ecological equivalent of Cruella De Vil.

Normally I find the pap of a journalistic flourish irritating, but this closing is perfect…

“People always say, ‘Not in my backyard, not in my backyard,’ ” he said. “I want to flip it around. It should start in my backyard.”

Afghanistan and Iraq have been in the news a great deal recently (and not without good reason), both in Canada and the U.S., but in every nation where troops are involved in either morass. The word quagmire gets tossed about quite a bit, and in this instance with good cause, and everyone is wringing their hands. Regardless of nationality, the discussion always seems to break down into a discourse of Should I stay or should I go? Equally universal is the response that this discourse generates: conservative types are generally in support of staying, and liberal-minded people are generally in support of going (or at least trying to figure out when to announce last-call.)

The more I watch this debate the more I am compelled to think that this is the real clash of civilizations (to borrow from Huntington, who borrowed from Lewis.) The “West” has always been an amalgam of left- and right-wing influences; dramatically pulling on each other and causing the whole show lurching back and forth, with the momentum carrying everyone forward (for the most part.) People may talk of the culture wars, and it’s not just happening in the States (they’re just losing more visibly) but the real battleground is not gay marriage, nor “reasonable accommodations” or even plain nationalism… (Continue reading…)

I was reading this op-ed piece this morning and several thoughts occurred. First, for a former diplomat Mr. Sterling displays a startling naivety (more on that later.) What really caught my eye though was this idea that repudiating democracy is hyprocrisy and unbecoming of “free” states.

Ironically, the same President Bush who says he wants to promote democracy in the Middle East and elsewhere has declined to hold some of Washington’s closest allies, including Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, to the same high standard.

In the final analysis, it appears that while democracy and free elections are viewed as laudable goals in principle, they shouldn’t get in the way of anyone’s vested interests.

As a diplomat surely Mr. Sterling understands that all foreign policy is a blend of altruistic and self-serving behaviour; so I pretty much ignore any suggestions to the contrary. What does seem galling is this suggestion that “Hamas” (the grist if not the grind of the article) is a democratically elected government, and then should be treated (by the West) as any other… with the implication being that Hamas is not because of a stance which is anti-Israel. (Continue reading…)