The Skeptic الشكاك

96 Keeping it light

More violence in Alexandria this afternoon. Jar al-Qamar has another post worth translating. I’d like to post it here. I’m getting really depressed. I want to go to Alexandria tomorrow to see for myself.

I’m also way past deadline on an article I promised a friend. I might still go. But she’ll kill me if I do…

In the meantime, thanks to Hossam (who always makes me laugh) for sending me this:

King Abdallah (R): Your goatee is Saudi, your passport is Saudi, and you live in Saudi Arabia. How did you become a Lebanese leader?

Saad ad-Din al-Hariri (L): Why don’t you ask yourself, “Your eyes are blue, your mother’s English, and you don’t know Arabic. How did you become king?”

[tags]Jordan, Lebanon, Alexandria, Egypt[/tags]

95 Sectarian Violence in Alexandria

Clashes broke out today at a murdered Christian’s funeral. Alexandrian blogger Jar al-Qamar’s account of the tensions immediately following the attacks provide a depressing window into what sparked them. Here’s a translation:

Yesterday we were a minority, and today I am a minority. Yesterday, [Alexandrian blogger] Solo and I were the only Muslims in a crowd of dozens of friends. We would would laugh from our hearts, share cigarettes, split the bill after dinner, and walk in the streets of Ibrahamiya and Sporting with Imad, Gamaloon, and Mark. Mark made a joke about the way you write the name of the Protestant church in Ibrahamiya. Then he told us about this man who would always refer to anyone he met as “our third brother.” We laughed so hard it hurt.

We said goodbye to them, then I said goodbye to Solo. I decided not to go home straight away. On my way to the seaside, I passed a church next a mosque. I was amazed at how tall the mosque had become, as if it were in competition with the church.

When I returned from the Corniche, I was astonished for the thousandth time by the drawing of a snake curling around an apple, biting it from the opposite direction. One day I had told my friend Socrates about this drawing and she explained it to me.

I remembered two friends who worked 24 hours a day in the church hospital. I used to love how quiet Khalil Hamada Street was, dozing peacefully in the heart of Alexandria. I crossed the street and walked about 50 meters to my home. I burrowed under the covers and went to sleep.

My mother woke me up the next morning. I rose grudgingly, washed my face, got dressed, and went off to pray the Friday prayers. I make a habit of doing this only because I meet my friends there once a week. I always pray in the Al-Shahid mosque. My great friend owns the Naggar Laundry across the street from the mosque. I’d stopped going to pray in Al-Sharq al-Medina Mosque ever since they got a sheikh whose sermons–irritatingly–never seemed to end.

As the prayers ended, I heard shouting and angry babble coming from the length and breadth of the street. I crossed the square toward two buildings side by side: the Al-Qadisine Church and the Al-Sharq al-Medina mosque. As far as the eye could see, people were gathered and a number of women were screaming.

Then things became clear: A youth had stabbed a man who was waiting for his family outside the church after the Friday morning service. Lots of people said that he was wearing a ragged, white t-shirt and track pants and carrying a large knife. This he had plunged into the man’s stomach, shouting “There is no god but God.” The trail of blood led from the church door to the steps of the Mar Marcus hospital attached to the church.

He also attacked two young men who tried to stop him. One of them was taken to intensive care. They say the other is seriously injured.

I know the sweet old security soldier who’s always found living in his small wooden hut next to the two buildings, reading his Quran. “He was in league with the killer and didn’t lift his weapon to stop him. Instead he threatened anyone who tried to stop the killer and told them to let him go, so they did.” This is the story every Christian I met at the scene told me. I heard it from the wife of the victim’s brother, who stood there screaming until she fainted. Even the fruit-sellers, who were waiting until the end of the service to sell their goods, said the same thing.

What is certain is that the killer took refuge in flight. As for where he had come from, some said he had been seen coming out of the mosque. Others said he arrived and left by car. The official story, at least as the government told it early on, was that the young man was a noted criminal and was mentally unstable.

Unfortunately, the story of mental derangement did nothing to assuage people’s anger this time. The main reason was that people started getting news that the same thing had happened in a number of churches in Alexandria at the same time. In his laughable announcement, the governor [of Alexandria] confirmed that there was only one criminal, a young man who worked in a supermarket, involved. He wounded two people in Al-Hadra, then made his way to Sidi Bishr to kill one man and wound two more (you have to go more than halfway across town to get from one neighborhood to the other). At times like this, people don’t like to be lied to or told silly stories. And so it’s only natural that the once sleepy street of Khalil Hamada is now afflicted by bigotry and hatred.

In the twinkling of an eye, Central Security trucks appeared and closed off the street from all directions. The chief complaint was about Security’s statement, which contradicted tens of eyewitness reports and the blood of the victim himself.

A senior figure in the NDP called Mohamed as-Saadani (of course) started talking about national unity, Egypt, and the usual bullshit. The crowd stopped him short, shouting “Persecuted! Persecuted!”

He tried to calm them, saying, “The government is investigating the matter.”

“The government? Tell the government I say ‘hello.’ What has the government ever done for us? Al-Kosha, Qarqas, and Muharram Bik [sites of previous sectarian violence in Egypt]. Where was the government then?”

The bystanders cheered. A youth raised an old, white-haired man on to his shoulders so he could face as-Saadani. He looked like he was a man of the church. He shouted at As-Saadani, “I’ve been teaching for 30 years now. I’m not happy with what’s in the curriculum. I have to calm the students down and stop them from being angry while I myself am not happy with it. And I know that they’re not happy with it. What’s happening here is wrong. The time of the martyrs has come again. We’re like dogs in this country.”

The people applauded vigorously. They seemed to have a lot of respect for the man. As-Saadani, having lost control of the situation, left. A number of thoughts hit me, and I was beset by contradictory feelings: religious anger, anger at the government, anger at the passivity of its leaders, and anger at the privileging of one group over another. The anger of the crowd reminded me of a similar anger I’d seen among Kifaya protesters, with the exception of the religious element. Some were demanding that the governor come forward. Others demanded that the Interior Minister himself should come forward. A woman told me of her frustration at the lack of justice: “If only they’d just get hold of him, and we knew that he’d be held to account, then I could relax.”

Their numbers increased, and so did their rage. One man didn’t like what another had said about calming down and controlling himself so he and his friends started beating him up.

A man called “Engineer Samir” arrived, who seemed to be very popular. He asked them to be calm so they wouldn’t lose their rights. Then he warned them against paying heed to the voice of Satan.

A woman interrupted him, shouting, “It’s you and your type who’ll ruin us all!”

Someone else backed up what she said: “It’s our passivity that’s going to ruin us!”

Samir failed to make any headway. I started hearing calls for everyone to sit down. People refused. Then a man shouted, “Who ever loves Jesus, sit!” Some sat down and some ignored him.

One of the bystanders screamed, pointing toward the mosque: “?? ?? ???? ????? ???? ??????? .. ???? ?????? ??? ??? ??? ?? ???? ?? ???? ??????”

I couldn’t help but be astonished by the logic that both sides in this seemed to be using. I caught some of what the man next to me was saying: “Your enemy is the enemy of your religion. Everyone knows that.”

We all sat down and I felt a powerful sense of brotherhood with those who were sitting next to me. Two of them put their hands on my shoulders and patted me supportively. A man asked what my name was, and I said “Mina, Mina Ibrahim.” It’s the name of one of my friends.

I suddenly realized I was the only Muslim in the circle and that I was sitting the midst of an angry group who were attacking anyone who asked them to keep calm. So what do you think they would have done if they had found an enemy in their ranks? Perhaps I should have gone, but something compelled me to stay and follow the events to their conclusion.

As if fate were conspiring to terrify me, one of them suddenly shouted, “There are Muslims in your midst!”

I surreptitiously pulled down my rolled-up sleeves to hide the fact that I didn’t have a cross tattooed on my arm like everyone else around me did. For the first time, I felt as though I was a minority in a group that wouldn’t accept me on principle. I forced myself to talk to the man next to me to give the appearance of normality.

Suddenly I saw Ibram, an old friend of mine. We were together at school and we took part in lots of activities together at university. He’s my neighbor, and his father owns one of the biggest gold dealerships in the area. Ibram was carrying a gilt wooden cross and shouting at the top his voice, “Kyrie Eleison.” I never imagined Ibram amongst people like this. He was always one of the gentlest people I knew and one of the most respectful of others.

So now I have a problem. On my right is someone who’s calling on people to uncover the Muslims hidden among them, and on my left is Ibram, who’s leading a group of his friends in a chant. He was riding on one of his friends shoulders. He knows me well. Any indication from him about my true identity would make me a dead man.

As luck would have it, at that moment, one of the bishops came out with a priest who was a member of the local Coptic Council. People saw them and fell completely silent. I seized my chance and left the circle to stand by one of the walls of the church.

I watched the bishop as he talked with people and called for calm and civilized behavior. He spoke vehemently. “Don’t forget yourselves! If you really love the church and the people who pray there, then don’t strike in the street, strike inside the church.”

I have no experience of how Coptic churches work, but the calm and respect that descended on the street the moment these men appeared left me totally unprepared for the crowd’s response. The minute the father had finished speaking to the demonstrators, I was astonished to hear accusations of betrayal and treason fill the air. People were shouting that the man was an agent of the government, and that he was selling the blood of the martyr and their rights cheaply, that it was people like him who were putting the Copts of Egypt through these troubled times.

The authority of the bishop seemed terribly weak. Even when he tried to read out a prayer, “Deliver us, Lord,” only a very few repeated the words with him. The rest started screaming insults against him and against those who collaborated with the government and Muslims to persecute Copts.

Now banners tied to wooden polls were brought of the church, with “No to persecution of the Copts” written on them in English and Arabic. Drawn underneath these words, in the blood of the victim that still covered the church floor, was a small cross.

They started carrying each other on their shoulders and shouting together, “Kyrie Eleison, Kyrie Eleison! Hosni Mubarak, O pilot, Coptic security is up in flames! Hosni Mubarak, where are you? State Security is between us and you! The age of martyrs has returned again!”

As I leaned against the wall of the church, I heard people talking. A hysterical woman screamed, “It’s a religion of bloodletting. We don’t kill or do anything. They’re all criminals.”

Another lady shouted “Our God will take revenge on them. They die on the pilgrimage and die in the sea.”

I heard someone else say, “This country is ours, they’re the newcomers. We have to practice our religion in secret, while they’re just for show.”

A middle-aged man said, “They’re the police, they’re all a gang together. What are we meant to do?”

The first woman spoke of the weakness and the stupidity of the Quran and things like that. “If only they could explain just one verse. Just find us one Muslim who could tell us that he’s satisfied and understands the rubbish they fill their ears with day and night.”

Men shouted for them to ring the church bells, and a woman said to her daughter, “Yeah, just as they do to us day and night [with the call to prayer].” Her neighbor asked her about the nearby mosque, and asked what would the Muslims who couldn’t pray their afternoon and evening prayers do.

“Let it stay closed, then.”

I could almost cry. I’m not embarrassed to say that here. This religious bigotry was torture. Seeing Ibram shouting about burning the mosque hurt me deeply. Seeing a woman hit a small Muslim boy, the son of one of the neighboring bawabs, hurt me deeply. “Get out of here, you son of a dog!” she told him. “You’ve destroyed it and now you’re coming to sit on the ruins. [a proverb].”

On the pavement opposite the church, police colonels were sitting and sipping tea and fizzy water. One of them opened the door of the mosque. This incensed the demonstrators. A group of security troops surrounded the door.

Suddenly, Hussein Abd al-Ghani, the Al-Jazeera correspondent, turned up. People rushed toward him in terrifying numbers. He backed off and Security interposed themselves between him and the crowd. People calmed down when they were satisfied Al-Jazeera’s cameras were filming everything: the shouts, the banners, and the numbers.

I heard a man talking on the phone asking that all the Christians from Al-Hadra, Al-Falming, and Abu Qir return to their churches because the media had turned up in Sidi Bishr. Abd al-Ghani returned with his cameraman and tried to enter the church, but the crowd stopped him from entering. “No Muslim is getting in here,” some shouted, before the church custodians succeeded in getting him in by force.

The demonstrators got even angrier and carried on shouting. As they were trying to prevent Abd al-Ghani from entering the church, the demonstrators failed to notice that the police were going to the mosque and taking off their shoes. They ordered the iman to perform the afternoon prayers.

After 100 soldiers had lined up outside the mosque, the imam began the call to prayer and everyone turned around. A sudden silence descended, the silence that precedes the storm. The demonstrators started singing hymns to compete with the call to prayer. It was a terrifying situation… At any moment I feared the mosque could come under attack from Molotov cocktails or even gunshots. But the demonstrators just raised their voices until their throats burned. They tried to stop people from performing their prayers. Some of them asked the church custodians to ring the bells, but the church workers refused. Some tried to lay in wait for those praying inside the mosque, but Security lay in wait for them.

I suddenly felt weak and wanted to leave. Before I collapsed from exhaustion, I found an American journalist trying unsuccessfully to make herself understood. I offered to translate. And while the American lady was asking a young Coptic man about his views, I heard dozens of sick views about how the Muslims were planning to corrupt the joy of Christians this coming Christmas, other theories about Mossad and its role, and a third theory about Mubarak and his vested interests in causing civil strife.

Magdi Girgis, an accountant, insisted that the American journalist write the truth for the world. She must understand, he said, that Pope Shenouda didn’t want to let people know that there was a persecution going on to prevent a real explosion. More than once he said, “We don’t want America to intervene like in Iraq, we just want a fair deal, this is our country after all, and we’re far more worried about it than they are.”

I translated the slogans and the chants for her and then I immediately went to the nearest Internet cafe, where I am sitting now, writing what happened. I still don’t know how it all ended. As I’ve been sitting here, I received the pictures that you see above [he’s inserted some photos from BBC Arabic of the murdered man]. Everything I’ve written here hasn’t been edited or looked over. It’s just impressions of what I saw and I record of what I heard. I might fill you in later on the details, or I might not.

A final word: This country is far more beset by meanness, racism, and hatred than I’d imagined. Of course I understand the Copts’ response. But just because a criminal comes from one religion doesn’t mean you should criminalize all his coreligionists. All this does is foster resentment, persecution, and bigotry—and more importantly, charges of betrayal.

As one of the demonstrators hysterically told me: “For more than 1,400 years we’ve been treated like shit. It’s enough. We’ve had enough of burying our heads in the sand like ostriches.”

And to Mark: There’s no brotherhood in this country, not a third brother, not a second brother, not a tenth brother. Nothing.

[tags]Egypt, Alexandria, Copts, Muslims, Copt, Muslim[/tags]

93 Hamdan v. Rumsfeld

The wolves are circling around U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Great. Hope they eat him. But the swing in sentiment against him makes me tired. Back when most Americans polled thought the war Iraq was a swell idea and sat around the dinner table cursing the French, Rumsfeld was a hero and was even hailed as a sex symbol. The press ate from his hand. The military guys who hated his guts and thought he was lousy at his job held their peace, at least in public.

Now that all but the most psychotically optimistic observers recognize Iraq’s a mess, Amrika needs its scapegoat (in the original, Biblical sense of the word), and Rumsfeld seems perfect for the job.

But the most important case being made against Rumsfeld right now—the one that will affect the world much more and for much longer—is the one in the Supreme Court. Superficially, what’s at stake in Hamdan v. Rumsfeld is the fate of 10 prisoners in Guantanamo Bay scheduled to appear before the military commissions President Bush established in a November 2001 military order. But I think Navy Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift, Hamdan’s military lawyer (and my hero), best summed up what’s really at stake:

Mr. Bush and his lawyers have made it clear that he wants a precedent that says the president, as commander in chief, can arrest any person in the world and then put that person on trial before a military tribunal or commission. They’ve made it very clear that these powers can be exercised against American citizens right here at home. The president talks about the global war on terror and his lawyers have gone into court frequently saying the United States is a battlefield in this war.

I’ve finally finished reading the transcript of the oral arguments. I don’t recommend it. Much better to listen to the MP3. Unfortunately the briefs aren’t available as podcasts, but they’re all available at the extraordinarily helpful www.hamdanvrumsfeld.com.

[tags]Hamdan, Rumsfeld, Guantanamo, United States, human rights[/tags]

92 Poor Mohamed…

This really must be seen to be believed.

(I’m late to this party. Thanks to Forsoothsayer and Cerise for cheering me up. Poor Mohamed Osman. I personally would be very happy if I looked like him.)

[tags]Egypt, Mr. Egypt[/tags]

91 A Tale of Two Cities

N’Djamena
Chad cut ties with Sudan today after Khartoum-supported rebels tried and failed to take over N’Djamena. President Idriss D?by, a Zaghawa of the Bideyat clan (one of the groups against which the janjaweed, with the support of the Sudanese government, have conducted a campaign of ethnic cleansing in Darfur), has threatened to expel the hundreds of thousands of Darfurian refugees who have fled across the border into Chad if the United Nations and African Union don’t act to stop what he called Sudanese attempts to destabilize his government. That’s probably a hollow threat, though thankfully an unnecessary one: I can’t imagine the AU and the United Nations won’t act.

D?by knows too well what can happen in these Darfur-based, Khartoum-supported insurgencies. He came to power in 1990 after a Darfur-based, Khartoum-supported insurgency that overthrew ex-president Hiss?ne Habr?. Darfur?s two main rebel groups were initially dominated by the Zaghawa and received support from Chadian Zaghawa communities, and, unofficially, Zaghawa officers whom D?by brought into the Chadian military.

Reuters has an interesting analysis piece about Paris’ role in all of this. Here’s a taste:

France, which now has 1,350 troops in Chad after bringing in reinforcements, has denounced attempts to overthrow Deby. A French warplane fired a warning shot over the rebel column on Wednesday and its aircraft have flown reconnaissance flights over their positions. But Paris insists it wants no combat role. [Full Story]

Let’s just not forget the refugees.

Alexandria
This seems to be big news internationally. I guess it would have been even if it weren’t Good Friday, but the timing really makes it the perfect story for the international press. Everyone will remember the clashes in Alexandria last October.

Check out the interesting discussion happening in the comments on Forsoothsayer‘s recent (but pre-stabbing) post on the “Coptic question.” Issandr, who wrote that fine Cairo Magazine story last November, has some good dirt on U.S. Coptic lobbyist extraordinaire Michael Mounir’s recent visit (and an entertaining footnote to the Mubarak Shia comments—apparently Baghdad-Cairo flights are cancelled).

I’ve been struck by the crazy Salafi presence in Alexandria the past few times I’ve been there. Lots more unibrowed guys with niqab-draped wives in tow than you find in Cairo. The Friday sermons in the Shaabi areas are a bit more intense, the security guys hanging around outside the mosque a bit meaner-looking.

I’ve long wanted an excuse to talk to people at some of the bigger Salafi mosques. I’m not sure this would be a good time to do it, with everyone’s hair standing up on the back of their necks and with the inevitable swarm of journalists descending on the city. I hope one of them will get to the bottom of the religious zealot scene up there.

What’s there to say? It’s been a bad day for religious violence. Alexandria. Deadly blasts at a mosque in India. Stilll more deaths in Iraq. Of all the stupid reasons to kill each other…

[tags]Chad, Sudan, Darfur, Alexandria, Egypt[/tags]

90 Enemy at the Gates

I’ve been following this for a while, but had gone to sleep while the rebels poured out of Darfur and made it all the way across Chad to the capital N’Djamena. This is huge:

Heavy fighting has subsided in Chad’s capital after breaking out at dawn, between government troops and rebels trying to overthrow the president.

A BBC correspondent in N’Djamena said gunfire and shelling began at dawn and lasted for some two hours.

Speaking on the radio, President Idriss Deby said government forces had destroyed a small rebel column that attempted to enter the capital.

He said that government troops were in “complete control” of N’Djamena.

Only sporadic gunfire could be heard around the capital following his announcement.

More…

[tags]Chad, Darfur, Sudan[/tags]

88 Viva Mubarak

Here’s what President Hosni Mubarak said on Al-Arabiya the other night:

Definitely Iran has influence on Shia. [They] are 65 percent of the Iraqis … Most of the Shia are loyal to Iran, and not to the countries they are living in. [Full Text]

Not his best moment as a statesman. It was pretty clear those comments would come back to bite him, and they have. Iraq’s not coming to an Arab League meeting to try to find a regional solution to the problems in Iraq.

‘Alb Sayed, riffing on the U.S. president’s “Bushisms,” coined the term “Mubarakisms” to describe what’s come out of the president of the republic’s mouth since he started projecting the image of a grumpy hagg.

I, for one, find Mubarak more likeable every day for exactly these reasons. Who can argue that the man–a war veteran, president of the Middle East’s most populous country for two decades, and, at 78, a survivor–hasn’t earned the right to call things as he sees them? Anyone who reads his remarks as state policy? Lebanon? Kuwait? Bahrain? Iraq?

*Sigh* Why do world leaders have to be so responsible and boring all the time? OK, Al-Jaafari was upset, but he’s on his way out. His few months at the helm don’t hold a candle to Mubarak’s decades. Who needs the Iraqis at a meeting of Arab governments to discuss Iraq? The show must go on.

“Time for Mubarak to spare himself the burden of leadership,” Beirut’s Daily Star suggested in an April 10 editorial (I wonder if this one ran in the Egyptian edition, by the way? My understanding was that the Cairo bureau was trying to steer clear of taking controversial stands on domestic politics).

That would be a shame. Part of me would miss seeing Mubarak, beset by whippersnappers a fraction of his age, grumble on television. If he does retire, I hope he’ll make frequent public appearances. Viva Mubarak.

More: Issandr, in his clear comments on the interview at Arabist, picked up on the issue of Shia in Egypt (he’s also noted the release of 950 Gamaa al-Islamiya prisoners at the same time as Muslim Brotherhood members are being rounded up… I can’t figure this one out either). Zeinobia defends the substance of Mubarak’s comments. And Praktike deserves kudos for his partial translation of Mubarak’s interview.
[tags]Mubarak, Egypt[/tags]

87 Muslim Brotherhood: “Screw Egypt”

Update (April 13): Aakef has accused Rose al-Yousef of falsifying the tape and conducting a slur campaign against him and the Brothers. He said he has decided not to sue. It’s holier to forgive. That’s not going to stop Rose al-Yousef from running the full transcript tomorrow.

The weekly Rose al-Yousef, which admittedly is not above making shit up, says it has a taped interview with Mohammed Mahdi Aakef, the supreme guide of the Muslim Brotherhood, in which he says some pretty impolitic things. Among them: “Screw Egypt, screw the father of Egypt [Huh? Who? Mubarak? The Sphinx?], and screw all Egyptians.” Also some politically incorrect and undemocratic talk about the Caliphate, the Copts, and how Copts should never be allowed to stand for president or high public office. It’s all a bit off-message for a banned party trying to win support.

Rose al-Yousef says it had the tape before the elections, but waited to release it until polls were closed because they thought it would be unethical to release it while the election was in progress. This seems a little thin. How it would have been unethical? If the tape’s legit, it would have been a public statement from the leader of a (banned) party running in the elections. If anything, withholding information that might help voters make an informed decision at the polls would seem to be unethical. And when did Rose al-Yousef discover ethics anyway?

Perhaps recognizing that people would think they were making this one up, the newspaper released the tape to Bayt Baytak (Egyptian terrestrial TV’s answer to edgy Al-Jazeera talkshows, except that the guests and the agenda have the government’s approval). Bayt Baytak ran scary pictures of Aakef while what sounded like his taped voice said scary things.

Is the tape genuine? I don’t know. Granted, Aakef hasn’t shown Al-Arian’s skill for making the Brothers seem cuddly or setting secularists’ minds at ease. It’s plausible that he might have said nasty things about Copts or even “screw Egypt” in a moment of weakness (I can’t tell you how many cab drivers I’ve heard say basically the same thing). But that it’s plausible doesn’t mean it’s genuine.

Is it part of the new crackdown on the Brothers? I don’t know. Should be an interesting story over the coming week.

[tags]Egypt, Muslim Brotherhood[/tags]

86 Priorities in the Blogosphere

Consider this: Last week I linked to a Washington Post op-ed attacking an American academic paper published in an abbreviated form in a little-read British publication a month ago and wrote seven oblique words about it. Visitors spent thousands of words repeating the arguments in the Post op-ed. Never mind that some hadn’t read even the abbreviated form of the paper they were attacking. They had strong opinions all the same.

Technorati searches indicate that both articles are still being discussed ad nauseam in the English-language blogosphere.

Now consider this: Since Friday, the Israeli Defense Forces have killed more than 17 Palestinians, including a little girl (Ha’aretz and Al-Jazeera disagree about her age) and a little boy, by firing hundreds of rockets a day into residential areas of Gaza. The shell that hit Hadil Ghabin’s house and killed her injured nearly everyone else in the house–that is, 13 other family members, including toddlers, children, and teenagers.

I just did a technorati search on the Ha’artez article (thinking the Israel crowd would be more likely to read that) and the Al-Jazeera English article and found no posts about either.

Pardon me if I take a preachy tone for a minute. I understand that civilian casualties in the OPT are nothing new and that in Amrika these deaths more often than not appear on page A-13 as brief items written by AP. Still, if you got exercised about the Walt-Mearsheimer article, ask yourself why you are less exercised about the death of 17 people, including a little girl and a little boy. Which is more important to you: an academic paper or the end of 17 human lives?

[tags]Israel, Palestine, Palestinians, Gaza[/tags]

85 “The Long War”

First a confession: I’m a few steps behind. Here in Cairo, a blissful step removed from the U.S. news cycle (but, I like to think, a few steps closer to the events that shape it), I missed this. Only today’s BBC online story alerted me.

The Pentagon’s new 20-year plan seems sensible enough from the Post‘s report. The military has been asked to fight small groups of insurgents and terrorists planning attacks against the United States. The changes the plan suggests seem appropriate to the task.

What astonishes me is this newspeak about “The Long War.” I was living in New York on September 11, 2001. Since then I have supported finding the people who perpetrated the attacks of that day and either shooting them in the head or locking them in some dungeon in Utah for the rest of their lives (the latter option seems crueler). But I’ve been troubled by Bush’s talk of the “War on Terrorism” since he started with it five years ago. You can’t declare victory against an abstraction. And it seems axiomatic that you should never fight a war you can’t finish–particularly if that “war” is used as a justification to suspend or discard the values you’re claiming to defend, or to justify, by some tortured logic, counterproductive moves like invading Iraq.

Keep trying to catch people who want to kill innocent people. Obviously. Foil their plots. That’s what you’re hired to do. But I’m astonished that so many thinking people now seem comfortable enough with the idea of permanent war to edge toward advocating it?and worse, that people are listening. See William Kristol (not to be confused with the equally entertaining Billy Crystal) and former CIA strategist James Harris.

[tags]terrorism, qdr, the long war[/tags]

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