Regional violence and electoral politics in Nigeria

There is a increasing tension in Nigeria these days as a number of simmering political dynamics are beginning to give off a few more sparks. Long-standing conflicts in the oil-rich Niger Delta, along with ethno-religious tension in Nigeria's north, appear to be intensifying somewhat as the Presidential elections scheduled for Spring 2011 approach. The latest incident took place on New Year's Eve at the Mami market outside the Abacha barracks in Abuja, and blame has been placed on Boko Haram, the radical Islamist group implicated in the December 24 violence that took place in the Northern city of Jos.

The term "Boko Haram" is of Hausa tribal origin, and it is translated as "Western education is a sin". The group, which seeks the imposition of Sharia law in Northern Nigeria (and possibly beyond) was founded in 2002 and is purported to run out of a base in the Northern town of Kannama (Yobe State). Nigerian security forces have expressed growing concern in recent years over the group's growing capacity to carry out violent attacks.

The future of Nigerian federalism will be very much at stake in coming months, as the discrete, distinct problem sets that mark both Northern and Southern Nigerian politics find their way into an electoral nexus of increasing importance.

I am a Palatine Boor

"Why should the Palatine Boors be suffered to swarm into our Settlements, and by herding together establish their Language and Manners to the Exclusion of ours? Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion."

-Benjamin Franklin, 1751

The "great Palatine migration" took place in the decades following the Thirty Years' War - the early to mid-1700s, in which the people of south-central Germany experienced tremendous economic hardships. They sailed up the Rhine River to Rotterdam and made crossings to the east coast of North America (especially in and around Philadelphia), where they often worked as indentured servants.

The Johann Michale Willhite who settled in Orange County, VA in 1717 was part of this migration of "boors" ,and from the looks of Mr. Franklin's comments above, he and other Anglos were none too happy to see these folks from Central Europe arrive. Apparently, Franklin also referred to the German immigrants as "stupid" and "swarthy".

So between that and the fact that the Gallaghers were among Irish immigrants of the 19th Century who were reviled by the Know-Nothings and other nativist bigots as unsanitary, stupid, papist traitors, I am having a hard time sympathizing with the notion that the US is experiencing a destructive "invasion" of Latinos as some 21st Century Know-Nothings might loudly suggest.

"The responsibility of government for the public safety is absolute and requires no mandate. It is in fact the prime object for which governments come into existence."

- Winston Churchill

So amid my fatigue I am thinking this through and grappling with tremendous fluctuations of how to cope with the election results, and some major points about what happened last night are hitting close to home and exposing some revelations:



THE GIVEN

1) During the recent campaign, we watched our commander in chief allow the reputation of a decorated war hero be slandered on the grounds that he had held independent talks with the North Vietnamese, admitted to and accused his brothers in arms of atrocities and war crimes and, along with Jane Fonda, given aid and comfort to the enemy.....

2) Bush swept the Old South/Confederacy/NASCAR/whatever you want to call it demographic by huge proportions


THE POINT
......are we also to mistrust the traitor to his brothers in arms who is alleged not only to have given aid and comfort to the enemy of the day but who went on to command their army (and came one British Royal nod of the head from destroying the USA - eat your heart out, Bin Laden!) - a man who is (with Dale Earnhardt, George Wallace and Lester Maddox) in the eternal pantheon of conservative southerners:

"...The duty of its citizens, then, appears to me too plain to admit of doubt. All should unite in honest efforts to obliterate the effects of the war and to restore the blessing of peace. They should remain, if possible, in the country; promote harmony and good feeling, qualify themselves to vote and elect to the State and general legislatures wise and patriotic men, who will devote their abilities to the interests of the country and the healing of all dissensions. I have invariably recommended this course since the cessation of hostilities, and have endeavoured to practise it myself...."

Robert E. Lee, letter to Governor Letcher"Recollections And Letters Of General Robert E. Lee"


...or do we ignore the advice of such a scoundrel and embrace our anger and outrage at the summoning of the worst elements of our polity - fear, ignorance, greed, suspicion, laziness, arrogance?
Of course, attempts to draw parallels and derive findings based on facts and historical occurrences have recently become such a quaint notion.

Profound Piece

I read this awhile back and it has stuck with me as instructive, not only in the sense that it reveals the hadrcore mechanics of real-world diplomacy that seldom are covered in mainstream analysis, but also in that it provides an indication that there might actually be a credible, unspoken justification for the Iraq invasion that transcends WMD, democratization and that Son of a Bitch that Tried to Kill My Dad....

I note 2 things, though:

1) The administration could not politically sustain making this argument this way in public, even if it would refute many attacks and serve as strong ammo in the war of ideas. Were the true aims of U.S. diplomats tipped by an administration cowed by short-term domestic political concerns, their menu of options in dealing with militant, radical Islamists bent on disrupting the world economy, etc. would be limited.

2) the administration has been so woefully incompetent in its execution of every tactical aspect of its Iraq mission that, even with the possibility of a valid strategic justification for its actions, it has most likely brought about its own demise and taken an entirely different set of diplomatic tools such as multilateral institutions, world opinion and the possibility of future preemptive action with it. To date, it is a colossal miscalculation and an expensive failure.

Althought I am seen by many of my friends and acquaintances as highly politically partisan, I don't take one iota of pleasure from the adminstration's misdeeds and failure, and to think of the administration's Iraq failures as a boon for Democrats is to ignore the fact that the haunting legacy of the piss-poor 2001-04 Bush "War on Terror" will easily overshadow the outcome of the November election.


Overdoing Chalabi

By George Friedman

[This week,the story of Ahmed Chalabi], accused of being an Iranian agent by U.S.
intelligence, was all over the front pages of the newspapers. The
media, having ignored Chalabi's Iranian connections for so long,
went to the other extreme -- substantially overstating its
significance.

The thrust of many of the stories was that the United States was
manipulated by Iran -- using Chalabi as a conduit -- into
invading Iraq. The implication was that the United States would
have chosen a different course, except for Chalabi's
disinformation campaign. We doubt that very much. First, the
United States had its own reasons for invading Iraq. Second, U.S.
and Iranian interests were not all that far apart in this case.
Chalabi was certainly, in our opinion, working actively on behalf
or Iranian interests -- as well as for himself -- but he was
merely a go-between in some complex geopolitical maneuvering.

Iran wanted the United States to invade Iraq. The Iranians hated
Saddam Hussein more than anyone did, and they feared him. Iran
and Iraq had fought a war in the 1980s that devastated a
generation of Iranians. More than Hussein, Iraq represented a
historical threat to Iran going back millennia. The destruction
of the Iraqi regime and army was at the heart of Iranian national
interest. The collapse of the Soviet Union had for the first time
in a century secured Iran's northern frontiers. The U.S. invasion
of Afghanistan secured the Shiite regions of Afghanistan as a
buffer. If the western frontier could be secured, Iran would
achieve a level of national security it had not known in
centuries.

What Iran Wanted

Iran knew it could not invade Iraq and win by itself. Another
power had to do it. The failure of the United States to invade
and occupy Iraq in 1991 was a tremendous disappointment to Iran.
Indeed, the primary reason the United States did not invade Iraq
was because it knew the destruction of the Iraqi army would leave
Iran the dominant power native to the Persian Gulf. Invading Iraq
would have destroyed the Iraq-Iran balance of power that was the
only basis for what passed for stability in the region.

The destruction of the Iraqi regime would not only have made Iran
secure, but also would have opened avenues for expansion. First,
the Persian Gulf region is full of Shia, many of them oriented
toward Iran for religious reasons. For example, the loading
facilities for Saudi oil is in a region dominated by the Shia.
Second, without the Iraqi army blocking Iran, there was no
military force in the region that could stop the Iranians. They
could have become the dominant power in the Persian Gulf, and
only the permanent stationing of U.S. troops in the region would
have counterbalanced Iran. The United States did not want that,
so the conquest of Kuwait was followed by the invasion -- but not
the conquest -- of Iraq. The United States kept Iraq in place to
block Iran.

Iran countered this policy by carefully and systematically
organizing the Shiite community of Iraq. After the United States
allowed a Shiite rising to fail after Desert Storm, Iranian
intelligence embarked on a massive program of covert organization
of the Iraqi Shia, in preparation for the time when the Hussein
regime would fall. Iranian intentions were to create a reality on
the ground so the fall of Iraq would inevitably lead to the rise
of a Shiite-dominated Iraq, allied with Iran.

What was not in place was the means of destroying Hussein.
Obviously, the Iranians wanted the invasion and Chalabi did
everything he could to make the case for invasion, not only
because of his relationship with Iran, but also because of his
ambitions to govern Iraq. Iran understood that an American
invasion of Iraq would place a massive U.S. Army on its western
frontier, but the Iranians also understood that the United States
had limited ambitions in the area. If the Iranians cooperated
with U.S. intelligence on al Qaeda and were not overly aggressive
with their nuclear program, the two major concerns of the United
States would be satisfied and the Americans would look elsewhere.

The United States would leave Iraq in the long run, and Iran
would be waiting patiently to reap the rewards. In the short run,
should the United States run into trouble in Iraq, it would
become extremely dependent on the Iranians and their Shiite
clients. If the Shiite south rose, the U.S. position would become
untenable. Therefore if there was trouble -- and Iranian
intelligence was pretty sure there would be -- Shiite influence
would rise well before the Americans left.

Chalabi's job was to give the Americans a reason to invade, which
he did with stories of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). But he
had another job, which was to shield two critical pieces of
information from the Americans: First, he was to shield the
extent to which the Iranians had organized the Shiite south of
Iraq. Second, he was to shield any information about Hussein's
plans for a guerrilla

Mac Attack

Words simply fail to convey the horror of this story. I post simply to circulate.

Open Tab

An interesting nugget sent in by Mike O:

The most fascinating fact to emerge from the Sept. 11 commission staff
reports last week is that al Qaeda spent a mere $400,000 to $500,000 to bring
off the attacks [front page, June 17].

The United States has spent more than $118 billion to date on the war in Iraq
and billions more on other aspects of our response to the attacks.

No one would argue against spending money on an effective program to battle
terrorism and deal with its causes. But with the commission staff finding
that Iraq had nothing to do with the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and American
businessmen, tourists and diplomats around the world less secure than ever,
we can rightly wonder whether the Bush administration is spending our dollars
wisely or well.

Contrary to what the administration says, there were alternatives to the way
the "war on terrorism" has been carried out, especially when the war in Iraq
is considered to be a part of it (as the administration insists it is).

Voters should hold the administration accountable for the cost-effectiveness
of the choices it has made.

THEODORE C. JONAS

Washington

The State Dept is in the process of issuing a report (that was embarassingly botched and had to be corrected) that will indicate that terrorism incidents rose pretty dramatically last year. I'm sure we will get some spin about "violent reaction to direct US efforts to interrupt terrorist patterns and cut off their sources of support" - a "stirring up the beehive in order to destroy it" argument.

But the legacy will tell the real story, and it's hard to get a clear picture of what is going on in the Iraq operation. There are lots of indications that it is not going well, though.

Food for thought. I think that the argument can be made that our Afghanistan operation (more easily justified as a response to 9/11) has been stymied by the Iraqi op.

And the thing that kills me recently is that, from a purely Macchiavellian point of view, Iraq was the perfect idea in initiating a Middle East Strategy. But wishful thinking and poor planning - poor tactical execution - has apparently made it damn near impossible that any good that might come of this.

I think that you and I and a small team of technical experts and contract consultants could have fashioned a plan for postwar Iraq that would have far exceeded the plans that were followed - with the 9/11 Al-Quaeda budget.

Scott-Boxing

Had a replay of the WH press briefing on in the background yesterday afternoon and couldn't help but turn up a notch to catch some of the fireworks. A highlight:

MR. McCLELLAN: Well -- and we never said that there was operational ties involved in attacks on the United States. Let's be very clear about that. The President talked about that just a short time ago.

Q What are people supposed to conclude, that they're having lunch with each other?

MR. McCLELLAN: A short time ago in his remarks.

Q You talk about deep, long-standing ties. What is that supposed to mean?

MR. McCLELLAN: Saddam Hussein supported and harbored terrorist groups --

Q Why don't you just say the commission is wrong?

MR. McCLELLAN: All right.

WWAD? (What Would Ari Do?)

Moving Target

This deserves more scrutiny:

Q The Vice President, who I see standing over there, said yesterday that Saddam Hussein has long-established ties to al Qaeda. As you know, this is disputed within the U.S. intelligence community. Mr. President, would you add any qualifiers to that flat statement? And what do you think is the best evidence of it?

PRESIDENT BUSH: Zarqawi. Zarqawi is the best evidence of connection to al Qaeda affiliates and al Qaeda. He's the person who's still killing. He's the person -- and remember the email exchange between al Qaeda leadership and he, himself, about how to disrupt the progress toward freedom?

Saddam Hussein also had ties to terrorist organizations, as well.

In other words, he was affiliated with terrorism -- Abu Nidal, the paying of fam= ilies of suiciders to go kill innocent people. I mean, he was no doubt a destabilizing force. And we did the absolute right thing in removing him from power. And the world is better off with him not in power.

"Zarqawi is the best evidence", huh? Since one could fathom that W is name-dropping without fear of accountability or large-scale scrutiny, let's excercise a little civic duty and dig into this latest golden link between Saddam (I think we can expand that to Iraqi leadership and planners) and Al-Quaeda.......after I do a little "real work"....how duties compete.

Radio Check

...nice input on the blog from some fellow travellers last night....it feels good to share this stuff and I will try to make it worth the click...

Drudge Fudge

Looks like Drudge is about the only "press outlet" that a)didn't put the 9/11 commission's findings that Saddam/Al-Quaeda ties are bogus into a headline or b) Waited longer than 30 minutes to announce "breaking news" on this development.

Does anyone think that this is an oversight?

Significant? Did you already think that we knew that the Al-Quaeda tie was bogus? You get a gold star, but some 50% of the American public thought that there was a connection.

No matter what you think about US Strategy in the region, we now have another important, convincing piece of evidence that there was mass deception in the runup to war.


UPDATE: Check THIS out! Someone didn't get the memo...actually speaks well of the commission's independence from White House message-makers, who would have not allowed this type of wire-crossing.

Passing along a blog entry that has its moments. Reminiscent of W.J. Cash's rather bloodless approach to the subject this old classic. Seems Billmon is turning some of that Scotch-Irish fire on itself. Anybody else find such a phenomenon fascinating?

Colbert Rings the Bell

My favorite quote so far on the "backlash to the backlash" to the prison scandal, from The Daily Show's Stephen Colbert and cited in this provocative piece:

"The journalists I know love America, but now all anybody wants to talk about is the bad journalists--the journalists that hurt America.... Who didn't uncover the flaws in our prewar intelligence? Who gave a free pass on the Saddam-Al Qaeda connection? Who dropped Afghanistan from the headlines at the first whiff of this Iraqi snipe hunt? The United States press corps, that's who."

Tonight's bedtime reading, a Werther chestnut if I ever saw one: The Howling Wilderness of Pseudoconservatism. Reading this felt like speeding down a mountain road - satisfying but precarious at times - and worth a little fist pump at the end. Read and see whether you agree.

Looks like the guy that the CIA claims beheaded Nicholas Berg slipped through the crosshairs of the Administration: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4431601/

From an administration that brands itself with moral absolutes. Is this part of a long term campaign against Islamofascist brigands or is this political expediency? Is it both? Or is it one disguised as the other?

Oh and by the way, while we are fanning the flames of Anti-Americanism around the world, it might be a good idea to watch the ploot a little more closely

Oh and while I am making a bit of a gumbo of this post, I had to share this oh-so-helpful voice into the mix: Falwell: God is Pro-War. The intellectual decay of the right wing continues right before our eyes.

I have been curious for most of the week to read Thomas Friedman's take on the most recent hubbub in Iraq. I have always admired Friedman's ability to blend man-in-the-streets reportage with the "big picture" of global politics (especially as they pertain to the Middle East). As someone who has held a pretty strong sense of skepticism with regard to the Iraq mission (or lack thereof) from the outset, I have followed Freidman's relatively few posts on Iraq with some interest. See, Freidman's writings on this subject have played directly to that part of me that holds out hope that US intervention (whether justified or not) might create a transformation in a region that is marred by authoritarianism and other troublesome social architectures. Friedman (sometimes annoyingly) tempered my anger and distrust of the current administration's Iraq policy through his "realpolitik" support of the war against Saddam, but the part of me that defers to him on the SOP of Middle East politics (he coined the term "Hamas Rules") believed and, hell, I just plain respected him becuase he has operated in an environment characterized by such extremes and yet has never become politically polarized.

His column today, "Dancing Alone" (http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/13/opinion/13FRIE.html?hp), represents what the Bush Administration "Mayberry Macchiavellis" ought to be very concerned about: the disillusionment of an supportive, influential opinionmaker who (and this is significant) has not thoroughly discredited himself by serving as an administration mouthpiece.

Friedman writes:

"It has always been more important for the Bush folks to defeat liberals at home than Baathists abroad. That's why they spent more time studying U.S. polls than Iraqi history. That is why, I'll bet, Karl Rove has had more sway over this war than Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Bill Burns. Mr. Burns knew only what would play in the Middle East. Mr. Rove knew what would play in the Middle West."

If there was ever a doubt that domestic politics drives foreign policy right now, it should be long gone. A rereading of U.S. history confirms that domestic politics almost always plays the primary role in major foreign policy decisions. Look my homeland during WWII: how did FDR persuade isolationist Mid-southerners to go along with his internationalist program of entering the War and postwar international institutions? He electrified the underdevloped Tennessee Valley with a series of federally-funded hydroelectric dams. In return he received a pass on the international agenda. What local leader could say no to such an outpouring of Federal funds?

Ever wonder if this was uttered: "Well Hell, Franklin, when you put it that way, I never liked them Nazis or Japs anyway!"?

The flip side is that while he was providing cheap electricity to a region wracked by illiteracy, flooding, disease and infant mortality, FDR routed a percentage of that electric generation capacity to Oak Ridge, Tennessee - where the government was secretly engaged in power-intensive uranium enrichment for the most profound international dynamic of the century: atomic weaponry. Pure politics: quid pro quo.

This is just one pointed example of how skillful policymakers were able to align the interests of domestic politics with an foreign policy, and American history is full of these deals. This may seem elementary, but I was a bit surprised to learn that TVA was as key to the WWII effort as the Atlantic Alliance.

While there is no doubt that there are current constituencies that stand to benefit from the Iraq mission just as the people of the Tennessee Valley did in the WWII era, moral outrage at shifting rationales and lack of procedure, planning and vision threatens to alienate an American public that is coming to grips with the incompatibilities of "serving as a beacon for freedom and democracy" and "acting as a global superpower". Without the pretext of unprovoked attack at Pearl Harbor, FDR's deal with the South would look less like politics and more like hush money, and if there's one thing that Americans don't like to imagine about themselves, it is that moral complicity can be bought. We need a moral absolute to justify, and the Bushies have utterly failed to provide that, since WMD is a joke and the Al-Quaeda/9-11 connection to Iraq is purely contrived. How on earth can Americans feel good about themselves? How on earth could the administration fail to recognize that, when provided with a solid sense of self-assuredness, Americans are capable of positive, transformational deeds. Without it, we feel contaminated by the ugly compromises of Old World empire - a contamination of spirit that contradicts the strongest fears of those who established and sustained this nation in its most formative period.

What we are experiencing right now has become as much about the American self-image of strength and righteousness (as well as - let's drag this one out of the 19th Century - Manifest Destiny) as it is about fighting terror, liberating Iraqis, taking the battle to the enemy or even the American reputation on the "Arab Street".

I am most disappointed that we have been forced by our leaders to face such profound questions of self-identity in this ugly, ham-fisted context. Timing is everything, and I am afraid that the administration has a pretty poor sense of it.

Although it only assuages the shame of not posting in so long for a brief second, I am choosing to frame the following quote from "Apocalypse Now" as further evidence to my theory that the current Iraq conflict is the first opportunity for Americans to serioiusly revisit the old debate of public discourse during wartime. Ah, that old Vietnam chestnut. Thought we had cracked it in Gulf War I, eh? Or Yugoslavia? So sorry, the clue was....Mogadishu....

Sooo....The Commanding officer told Willard (Sheen) in the "prawn/terminate with extreme prejudice" scene:

"Well, you see Willard... In this war, things get confused
out there, power, ideals, the old morality, and practical
military necessity. Out there with these natives it must be
a temptation to be god. Because there's a conflict in
every human heart between the rational and the irrational,
between good and evil. The good does not always triumph.
Sometimes the dark side overcomes what Lincoln called
the better angels of our nature. Every man has got a
breaking point. You and I have. Walter Kurtz has reached his.
And very obviously, he has gone insane."

As if I needed more proof that that movie pretty much said it all....

So anyway, Rumsfeld uttered the word "digital camera" this week with the same intonation one might utter the term "head lice".

I am most suspicious of his disdain, especially given the timeline of the reports of mistreatment and the arbitrary and willful neglect of the Geneva Convention (I mean come on - - selective interpretation or even temporary disregard with a group of like-minded Pentagon lawyers became something of a sport during the Cold War; blowing your nose with the Convention appears to be the new, more profoundly disturbing game).

But then, as anyone familiar with the tactics and strategy of the Israeli Defense Force knows, reality on the ground is a different universe from the war policy circles and even further from the rarified air of the Geneva negotiations.

But still, isn't this Rumsfeldian approach to international law akin to creating a lack of international norms as a pretext for unmitigated U.S. military intervention? I guess Rumsfeld/the neocons/the Bush War planners are pretty well convinced that the U.S. can monopolize both the use of force and the mass media in any given theater and that quaint "conventions" are nullified by such primacy.

Seems like a pretty risky bet to me, given those pesky angels that we have wrestled for awhile -as well as those pesky digital cameras that we are only just beginning to learn how to REALLY use.

Smile - this image of you will be on the desk of a 60 Minutes producer in a few minutes!

How can I resist the temptation to halting this entry to listen to a passing thunderstorm at my open window? No can do.


PS -
The other quote of the day: "We went to Vietnam thinking that we were better than we actually were and left thinking that we were worse than we actually were."

Off to the window.

Of particular concern is the news coming from Fallujah. As the deadline for transition quickly approaches, there are telltale signs that the situation on the ground in Iraq is not only unfriendly, but also murderously muddled. According to Robert Fisk, there has been a wild proliferation of mercenaries (can we safely say that the KIA "contractors" from Blackwater Security were at the very least flirting with mercenary status?) on the scene as of late: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=15&ItemID=5256

This trend can do very little other that create more violence and suspicion. To what extent do these private armies contribute to a tradition of "rule of law" in the "newly-liberated" Iraq? My guess is very little, even as I anticipate the argument that without a sophisticated approach to basic security, law is meaningless.

I wonder to what extent do these groups coordinate with coalition military planners? To whom are they accountable? Do they operate under the same rules of engagement as standard US military personnel or are these "dirty tricks" teams?

And what about the brave aid workers that struggle for the credibility to bring essential goods and services to a needy population? Do these private/government contractor/security personnel undermine the mission of NGOs and other humanitarian groups by contributing to an atmosphere of dirty tricks? Or are they an effective tactical counter to a similarly unconventional urban guerrilla resistance? Time will tell, but meanwhile, it's tall cotton for the soldiers of fortune....

..... I wouldn't go so far as to say that the Spanish are immune from
the petty partisanship of patriotism (cleaning off the computer monitor) or
necessarily more democratically enlightened than Americans. I think that the
Spanish can be as adept at moral and logical acrobatics as we are, although it
most often plays out in a different arena. For instance, the entire European
response to immigration over the last decade or two has been more reminiscent
of S. Milosevic than MLK, and many of the roots of proliferating
groups of European neo-Nazis are derived from notions of patriotism and
national identity. The cat-and-mouse game with the ETA and the Basques have
also been an exercise in some pretty retrograde concepts of citizenship and
patriotism.

As a junior partner in this effort to stem terrorism (as poorly executed and
wrong-headed as it may be), it's easier for Spain to simply say "we're out"
than it is for us, as the "sponsor" of the initiative to accept less than
total devotion to our cause. Such is the price of being the "big dog", and to
be fair, Spain had a pretty sketchy record of enligtened foreign policy when
they were blatant imperialists 100+ years ago. I don't think that the Spanish
people have changed so much as the geopolitical landscape has.

I think that leadership requires a bond of trust, and the Administration now
sees the price of selective perception and spinning to an audience to which
they don't have direct, nearly unimpeded access. Whether that dichotomy will
register with an American electorate that sees the world as a giant football
game or not, I am not really sure. I kinda doubt it but I guess the
difference begins on this level, yes?

I admire the Spanish electorate's punishment of the scurrilous effort to pin
the attack on the ETA, but I worry about the larger, longer-term effect of
wanton and indiscriminate killing of noncombatants having such a palpable
effect on a democratic process. What happened in Spain is bad news for
Democrats, Republicans, Naderites - all democratically-oriented people alike.
This will happen again.

The Madrid attacks are unfortunately a brilliantly successful episode in an Al-
Quaeda strategy to divide the fragile transatlantic alliance. The Spanish
withdrawal from Iraq touches a nerve in most Americans for 2 reasons: 1) It
looks like our ally is leaving us in the lurch and betraying a sense of
loyalty, and 2)It looks like what Americans ham handedly call 'Appeasement"
(which is a very poor historical analogy to Chamberlain's strategy with Hitler
in the 30s - but it's a "Green highlit" passage in the history book of every
American and unfortunately most Americans' view of international affairs is
woefully naive and myopic).

This is all just raw politics, and there are few easy answers. But it is
certain that our failings and violence beget more failings and more violence.
A hotel just blew up in central Baghdad and Americans are once again readying
themselves to wash their hands of the situation - just like in Lebanon, only
this time with more dire implications. I have seen the mountain villages of
Lebanon that were bombed by the USS New Jersey, which lobbed shells the size
of Volkswagens blindly in an ill-advised effort to deter in a "display of
American strength". And I have met Marines who suffered and saw friends die
in the suicide bombings on US facilities that inspired our withdrawal. If we
fail that way this time it will be more than just a beatiful country that is
rent asunder. It will be the idea that democracy can take root in the region
at all, which I am not prepared to accept.

Why can't honesty and commitment to peaceful solutions triumph over self-
absorption and macho "us vs. them" political calculus - - from the West Wing
to the chambers of the Spanish parliament to the secret councils of Al-Quaeda?
Perhaps it has to do with the deadly combination of natural resources,
religion, heavily armed status quo elements and fanatically devoted insurgents.

I soapox, but I really think that we can do better than the present
Administration's semantic jujitsu. If enough people will hook onto that idea
and stop citing the over-filtered lessons of World War II and viewing the
world like a clique of insecure, egoless high schoolers, then we might see a
change. Sometimes I even catch myself praying.