Frida Ghitis

Philadelphia Inquirer - Democracy is more than just voting

2006-07-24T03:16:00.000-04:00

Sun, Jul. 23, 2006

It seems a distant memory now, but only a year ago, the Arab Middle East appeared poised for a democratic transformation. Even some of Washington's harshest critics grudgingly conceded that an "Arab Spring," inspired by American support and intervention, had began to flower. Change was indeed coming to the least democratic region in the world.

Lebanon had seen a "Cedar Revolution," with massive popular protests forcing Syria to loosen its grip and pull its troops out of the country in time for new elections. Egypt's seemingly eternal president, Hosni Mubarak, announced he would allow other candidates to compete against him in the next election. Kuwait finally agreed to let women vote and run for office. And Saudi Arabia opened the polls for municipal councils. The world took notice when Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt described what he called "the start of a new Arab world."

"The Syrian people, the Egyptian people," Jumblatt noted, "all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it."

If so, someone quickly rebuilt much of it. Today, such optimism is not much more than a memory. Little more than a year after the Arab Spring, the blossoms are wilting in the summer heat. Israel and Hezbollah trade bombs, missiles and threats of all-out war, while the impotent government of Lebanon looks on, the country's army a sad irrelevance.

Iraq has a parliament but also chaos. In the Palestinian Territories, elections brought to power Hamas, a radical Islamic organization considered a terrorist organization by most Western nations. In Iraq, secular parties barely registered in elections against much better-organized religious parties. There, too, the sword looks mightier than the poll.

In Egypt, a questionable election turned members of the Islamic Brotherhood into the second-largest bloc in parliament. The government has indefinitely postponed the next elections, and repression is again the order of the day. For democracy advocates in Cairo, euphoria has given way to something bordering on despair.

"The country is falling apart in front of our eyes and we can't do anything about it. It's like watching a train wreck." That's the mood according to one progressive Egyptian, known by his blog name, SandMonkey.

Not that pushing for democratic change in the Mideast was itself a mistake. After all, the Mideast's entrenched autocracies produced staggering economic, educational and political stagnation in the Arab world. They turned the region into a lab for extremist ideology spreading around the globe like a toxic oil spill. When government does nothing for its people and forbids participation in any organization except the mosque, fundamentalism by definition becomes the only alternative.

America's mistake lay in stressing elections while ignoring other indispensable elements of democracy. That let sly regimes trick the United States (again) into fearing that democracy would inevitably bring extremists to power.

Instead, America - and the world - should push for the basic requirements of democracy, the freedoms without which elections don't really mean very much: political parties, a free press, freedom of assembly, an independent judiciary, and other elements of civil society and human rights.

Beyond that, no democracy can survive with assorted militias using force to pursue objectives not shared by the elected government. As Lebanon painfully demonstrates, a government needs more than democratic elections to establish its credibility and authority. An essential requirement for a functioning sovereign state, as philosophers and political scientists have long noted, is that the government must have a monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force.

A government that claims to rule, while armed militias it cannot control run amok, risks becoming a bystander in the kind of chaos and instability we now see in Lebanon, the Palestinian Territories and Iraq. When militias take their orders from another government and foreign forces enter the scene, the will of voters becomes collateral damage - no matter how heartfelt the excitement on election day.

Elections alone are not enough. When I asked Alhamedi Alanezi, a Saudi, if he ever participated in political activities, he told me he would do it "only if I wanted a little time to myself, away from the family, in a prison cell somewhere." Alanezi recently moved to London, where he writes the blog The Religious Policeman.

Iraq was unique, since the alternative to elections was keeping an American-appointed government in power. Elections were the only way to begin building a new system. But, just as in the rest of the region, years of political repression meant that only religious organizations have had the chance to promote their views. Hardly surprising, then, that they did so well in the polls.

Arab regimes have long argued that allowing people to vote would bring radicals to power. To prove this, countries such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia made sure any democratic test brought gains only to extremists. The most egregious example was Mubarak's imprisonment of his progressive opponent Ayman Nour. Nour, a liberal who challenged Mubarak for the presidency last year, today languishes in jail on trumped-up charges.

Democracy activists say they value and need America's help. Most - not all - think the Iraqi war was a terrible way to force democratic change. America, they say, should be firm and supportive, but it is the countries themselves that must take the lead.

Despite the reverses, it's not all brushfires and wilted flowers along the path to democracy. In some places, the United States has applied pressure in just the right spots.

I reached Lulwa al-Mulla, a democratic activist in Kuwait, during an unforgettable election day in the emirate. For the first time in history, women could run for office and cast their vote. Exhilarated and proud as she watched women streaming to the polls, she told me, "We fought for our democracy." Americans, she said, proved extremely helpful - not only by freeing Kuwait from Iraqi invaders in 1990, but also by pushing for women's rights and helping with democratic training and education.

The region remains in desperate and urgent need of change. Accepting entrenched dictatorships will not help. Democracy remains the only solution. The last year proves only that achieving it will require much more than simply calling voters to the polls.

San Francisco Chronicle - Arab Blogs Fight for Reform

2006-07-09T08:54:00.000-04:00

Publ Sunday. July 9, 2006

(see the article in the SFChronicle's Site)

For a brief moment this week, two days after Palestinians kidnapped 19-year-old Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit, and just a few hours before Israel launched a major incursion for his release, an item of seemingly promising news flashed across computer screens throughout the world. The radical Islamic group Hamas, the headlines proclaimed, had at last decided to grant ''implicit'' recognition of Israel's right to exist. Hamas, which runs the Palestinian Authority government, had always proclaimed its goal of destroying Israel. Had the extremist group suddenly changed? The headlines wishfully indicated that is exactly what had happened. That interpretation, however, was more than premature: It was patently incorrect.

With developments in the Middle East as distressing as ever, a world hungry for good news latched on to the announcement that Hamas and Fatah, the bitter rivals of Palestinian politics, had agreed to the so-called Prisoners Document, marking a possible new beginning for peace. Commentators called it a major breakthrough, and many, including Palestinian leaders, suggested that international sanctions against the Hamas-led PA could soon end. Perhaps the sides would now tiptoe to the peace table.

Even now, with Israeli tanks in Gaza, one still hears both Western and Arab commentators perpetuating the growing myth that Hamas has recognized Israel.

The document, written by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, offers a stunning display of vagueness on what some perceive as concessions, combined with absolute specificity on points that Israel has consistently rejected over years of negotiations. Nowhere does it announce recognition of Israel's right to exist. The closest it comes is saying the Palestinians seek to achieve freedom, ''including the right to establish their independent state with al-Quds al-Shareef (Jerusalem) as its capital on all territories occupied in 1967.'' That suggests the possibility of two states. But it is not a real departure for Hamas.

Hamas -- whose charter acknowledges Israel by saying, ''Israel will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it'' -- had already offered a long-term truce if Israel would withdraw to 1967 lines. Its wishes to destroy Israel after the truce were never hidden.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah had threatened to call a referendum on the document, unless Hamas agreed to it, while Fatah and Hamas gunmen were shooting at each other and Palestinians teetered on the verge of civil war.

This week, the impending Israeli incursion, and the real threat that Hamas would lose power, persuaded its leaders to sign. But Hamas spokesmen promptly and unequivocally declared that they were absolutely not conceding Israel's right to exist.

The document steps back from negotiating positions that brought Israelis and Palestinians closer in pre-Hamas days. It demands Israel's return to pre-1967 lines, whose strategic vulnerability both sides knew demanded redrawing. And Israel, of course, would never completely withdraw from Jerusalem. Both sides also know that Israel will not fully agree to the so-called right of return to Israel proper by all Palestinian refugees, which the document demands. That would mark the end of Israel as a Jewish state, amounting to demographic suicide. Israelis see this as another ploy to annihilate it. Compromise positions on the issue had emerged at Camp David.

With Hamas -- considered a terrorist group by the European Union, the United States and Israel, among others -- in control of the legislature, foreign donors stopped the gushing flow of cash to the PA. They demanded three conditions before aid would resume. Hamas would have to recognize Israel's right to exist; accept previously signed agreements with Israel and renounce violence. The agreement does little to address these fundamental issues.

Far from renouncing violence, it enshrines the Palestinians' right to continue resistance ''in various means,'' presumably including suicide bombings against civilians. Just days ago, a top European Union official visiting the region described the document as a ''step forward.'' But, she added, it is not enough to satisfy the conditions for renewed aid.

So, as much as we would all like to see a glimmer of hope for peace, this document is not the place to find it. Even if Shalit is released and Israeli tanks roll out of Gaza; even in the unlikely scenario that the situation returns to where it stood before this awful new chapter, the two sides would still have no basis for new negotiations. This document fails on basic points. It does not end the violence. And, most importantly, it does not tell us that Hamas has decided to give up its intention to destroy Israel. Without that precondition, there's hardly a point to peace talks.

Did Hamas Recognize Israel?

2006-07-09T08:52:00.000-04:00

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/
opinion/14944297.htm

Published 7/1/06
For a brief moment this week, two days after Palestinians kidnapped 19-year-old Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit, and just a few hours before Israel launched a major incursion for his release, an item of seemingly promising news flashed across computer screens throughout the world. The radical Islamic group Hamas, the headlines proclaimed, had at last decided to grant ''implicit'' recognition of Israel's right to exist. Hamas, which runs the Palestinian Authority government, had always proclaimed its goal of destroying Israel. Had the extremist group suddenly changed? The headlines wishfully indicated that is exactly what had happened. That interpretation, however, was more than premature: It was patently incorrect.

With developments in the Middle East as distressing as ever, a world hungry for good news latched on to the announcement that Hamas and Fatah, the bitter rivals of Palestinian politics, had agreed to the so-called Prisoners Document, marking a possible new beginning for peace. Commentators called it a major breakthrough, and many, including Palestinian leaders, suggested that international sanctions against the Hamas-led PA could soon end. Perhaps the sides would now tiptoe to the peace table.

Even now, with Israeli tanks in Gaza, one still hears both Western and Arab commentators perpetuating the growing myth that Hamas has recognized Israel.

The document, written by Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, offers a stunning display of vagueness on what some perceive as concessions, combined with absolute specificity on points that Israel has consistently rejected over years of negotiations. Nowhere does it announce recognition of Israel's right to exist. The closest it comes is saying the Palestinians seek to achieve freedom, ''including the right to establish their independent state with al-Quds al-Shareef (Jerusalem) as its capital on all territories occupied in 1967.'' That suggests the possibility of two states. But it is not a real departure for Hamas.

Hamas -- whose charter acknowledges Israel by saying, ''Israel will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it'' -- had already offered a long-term truce if Israel would withdraw to 1967 lines. Its wishes to destroy Israel after the truce were never hidden.

PA President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah had threatened to call a referendum on the document, unless Hamas agreed to it, while Fatah and Hamas gunmen were shooting at each other and Palestinians teetered on the verge of civil war.

This week, the impending Israeli incursion, and the real threat that Hamas would lose power, persuaded its leaders to sign. But Hamas spokesmen promptly and unequivocally declared that they were absolutely not conceding Israel's right to exist.

The document steps back from negotiating positions that brought Israelis and Palestinians closer in pre-Hamas days. It demands Israel's return to pre-1967 lines, whose strategic vulnerability both sides knew demanded redrawing. And Israel, of course, would never completely withdraw from Jerusalem. Both sides also know that Israel will not fully agree to the so-called right of return to Israel proper by all Palestinian refugees, which the document demands. That would mark the end of Israel as a Jewish state, amounting to demographic suicide. Israelis see this as another ploy to annihilate it. Compromise positions on the issue had emerged at Camp David.

With Hamas -- considered a terrorist group by the European Union, the United States and Israel, among others -- in control of the legislature, foreign donors stopped the gushing flow of cash to the PA. They demanded three conditions before aid would resume. Hamas would have to recognize Israel's right to exist; accept previously signed agreements with Israel and renounce violence. The agreement does little to address these fundamental issues.

Far from renouncing violence, it enshrines the Palestinians' right to continue resistance ''in various means,'' presumably including suicide bombings against civilians. Just days ago, a top European Union official visiting the region described the document as a ''step forward.'' But, she added, it is not enough to satisfy the conditions for renewed aid.

So, as much as we would all like to see a glimmer of hope for peace, this document is not the place to find it. Even if Shalit is released and Israeli tanks roll out of Gaza; even in the unlikely scenario that the situation returns to where it stood before this awful new chapter, the two sides would still have no basis for new negotiations. This document fails on basic points. It does not end the violence. And, most importantly, it does not tell us that Hamas has decided to give up its intention to destroy Israel. Without that precondition, there's hardly a point to peace talks.

Iraq and the War of Ideas

2006-07-09T08:50:00.000-04:00

(see the article in the Miami Herald's Site)

Published June 20, 2006

Somebody told President Bush not to gloat about the killing of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, the psychopathic head of al Qaeda in Iraq.

Even as he made his hush-hush trip to Iraq last Tuesday, President Bush kept to the carefully calibrated message of optimism without boasting. It must be hard. You can almost see him clenching his jaw as he tries to hold back the cheers in order to sound thoughtful, sober and restrained speaking of that rare achievement, a desperately needed military and intelligence victory by American forces.

The president, however, should loosen up a bit, and take this opportunity to take another rare and desperately needed move: Throw Donald Rumsfeld a party -- a thank-you and good-bye party.

In fact, the White House should play up the recent victory and celebrate by dumping the secretary of defense and shutting down that gift to al Qaeda propaganda, the shameful and counter-productive prison at Guantánamo Bay.

Send Rumsfeld out under the banner of a new beginning now that Zarqawi's dead and Iraq has an elected government. Claim the world is safer and we no longer need the prison or the secretary. But take action now.

The war against Islamic extremist terrorism and its ideology requires strategic thinking on two fronts. One front is military. There, Zarqawi's death marks an undeniable success. The other front, at least as important as the first, is persuading the masses, the people who are trying to decide whose ideology to support, that the United States stands for something more desirable, more humane, more legitimate than what Zarqawi, bin Laden and their followers are offering. The Bush White House has all but ignored that crucial part of the war.

It's time for America to reclaim the hilltops of human decency.

A military victory like the killing of a man like Zarqawi, charismatic, blood thirsty and operationally ingenious, should be followed by a quick effort to maintain the offensive. American forces, we are told, conducted dozens of raids against other al Qaeda operatives in Iraq immediately after the hit on Zarqawi. The Iraqi people celebrated, and U.S. troops slapped high fives.

It's not surprising, however, that the United States had to quickly deflect any emerging rumors that Zarqawi might have been shot after being captured. That's because many around the globe, and probably the majority in the Arab and Muslim worlds, are ready to believe the worst about America. That is the direct result of policies implemented by the White House and the Pentagon.

Besides the killing of Zarqawi, the other big stories from the war front are the suspected massacre of Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines at Haditha, and the suicide of three prisoners at Guantánamo. The Haditha atrocities, if proven true, trace straight back to Rumsfeld's anything-goes policies. So did the horrors at Abu Ghraib.

At one point, it looked like the American people, and their government, felt that what happened at Abu Ghraib was so outrageous, so intolerable, that the most severe punishment should come upon those responsible. Rumsfeld, grilled in both the House and the Senate, dramatically declared, ''These events occurred on my watch, and I take full responsibility.'' We know what came next: Nothing happened to Rumsfeld. The White House handled the incidents as a fluke, the misbehavior of a few stray individuals. Regardless of what the speeches said, the message to the rest of the world was that America wasn't all that ashamed after all.

America should be deeply ashamed, and I believe the American people indeed are. They also should be embarrassed that an American official called the suicides at Guantánamo ''a good PR move.'' The worst regimes in history have a track record of detaining individuals and imprisoning them indefinitely without charging them or putting them on trial for their crimes. The United States is right to fight against terrorism. But if America continues these practices, it will never reclaim its respect, prestige and dignity.

Congress would gladly write the laws required to imprison and try terrorists with some form of due process.

Winning the war against Muslim fanatics who stop at nothing, and opening the way to democracy in the Middle East, requires showing the millions who are watching that there's a better way than the seventh century Islamic theocracy of Bin Laden, or the king, emir or president-for-life formula that has kept the people of Middle East in a state of tragic, combustible stagnation.

So, Mr. Bush, let Rumsfeld leave on a high note. Tell him, ''Thanks for your work. Time to retire.'' And, for the sake of America's principles, dignity and its standing in the world, shut down Guantánamo. It's a perfect time for a new beginning.

Frida Ghitis writes on world affairs.

Frida on NPR Talk of the Nation

2006-06-14T19:23:00.000-04:00

Click on link below or copy and paste to your address bar to reach the NPR page. Then click on the "Listen" icon

http://http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5479014

Searching for a silver lining

2006-05-29T16:00:00.000-04:00

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/
14670995.htm

By FRIDA GHITIS

While Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert discussed his ''convergence'' plan with President Bush in Washington, and Palestinian gunmen from competing factions fired their weapons at each other in the Gaza strip, an intelligent Dutch observer of international events told me, as part of a torrent of criticism of American policy, ``The mess in the Middle East will take many years to undo.''

That conclusion hardly merits stopping the presses, but let's pause for a moment, anyway, and consider the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Just how far have the prospects for a peaceful settlement retreated over recent months and years? After all, that desert land with only an occasional cloud has a way of concealing its silver linings far in the horizon.

When Palestinians went to the polls in January, it seemed like a hopeful step. Then results brought deep disappointment to the peace camp on both sides. The democratic ideal appeared to have backfired, as Palestinians elected Hamas to lead their government. When it comes to making peace, Hamas says exactly where it stands. According to its charter: ''Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it.'' And just in case this leaves any room for confusion it adds, ``Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time.''

On the Israeli side, a new prime minister has just taken office promising to unilaterally draw the borders of Israel. His plan is to uproot most settlements from the West Bank, as his predecessor Ariel Sharon did in Gaza, but with one major difference. He plans to keep the country's three major settlements, and even add to them some of the population of the smaller ones.

The plan has drawn bitter criticism from all sides. How can Israel set its borders without negotiating with Palestinians, cries one group. Another argues that Israel will make itself less secure by leaving the West Bank open to the chaos that now engulfs Gaza.

The internecine fighting in Gaza, if you listen to the European perspective, is largely the fault of Israel and America. Palestinian tensions, this argument goes, are boiling over directly as a result of the pressure from the unfair cutoff of aid by the West, which has left more than 160,000 employees of the Palestinian Authority without a paycheck since March. Among those employees are thousands of armed men, angrily walking the streets of Gaza with Kalashnikovs slung over their shoulders. The rifles inevitably come off the shoulders.

No silver linings so far.

But consider this: A survey by Near East Consulting showed that 69 percent of Palestinians support a peace agreement with Israel. That stands in sharp contrast to the Hamas vow to never surrender its stated goals. More than 65 percent of Palestinians said that Hamas should not maintain its position on the elimination of Israel.

On the Israeli side, 62 percent of the people in a survey by the British-Israeli BICOM organization said they believe that a majority on both sides holds moderate views but extremist minorities are blocking a solution.

Democracy has not had a chance to take root on the Palestinian side. For now, the rule of the gun carries more sway than the views of the common people. If that changes, however, and if the authorities truly listen to the will of the majority, the government's priorities will look very different. When asked what the priorities of Hamas should be, only 3.3 percent said, ''fighting the occupation.'' Another 3 percent said, ''implementing Islamic law.'' Those two are at the top of Hamas' agenda. The top concerns of the people are ending the chaos and creating jobs.

The fighting between Hamas and Fatah may prove to be nothing more than a dispute over the spoils of power. But it could be much more. Palestinians need to decide what their priorities are. Deciding to accept the existence of Israel is no easy matter, and it may well take Palestinian-on-Palestinian fighting to reach a national decision.

Israelis, too, had to fight each other to make some tough decisions in their history. If Palestinians genuinely decide to negotiate and abandon their dream of destroying Israel, Israeli majorities will force their leaders to make equally tough decisions.

Sure, it may take years to undo the mess in the Middle East. But history slowly laid the crucial groundwork of public opinion. We know what the people want, and the people really are ready to live side by side in peace.

Now, doesn't that merit stopping the presses?

The Globalist: The Dutch PR Problem

2006-05-26T07:26:00.000-04:00

http://www.theglobalist.com/storyid.aspx?StoryId=5337

SQUINT through the thick clouds of smoke in Amsterdam’s Café de Jaaren and you can almost see the anguish floating over the newspaper-strewn tables.

With their foreheads resting heavily on their hands, Amsterdammers are gravely reading the latest news about the Ayaan Hirsi Ali affair.

Hirsi Ali is the controversial Somali immigrant who became a fierce critic of Islam’s treatment of women — and of Europe’s acceptance of repressive and intolerant Islamic traditions in their midst.

Resignation

She became a member of parliament, endured continuous death threats and lived in hiding. Then, last week, she resigned her seat in parliament after the Dutch immigration minister, Rita Verdonk, declared her citizenship invalid.

A television program had brought attention to lies in Hirsi Ali’s asylum application. She had already confessed to those lies years earlier, saying she was trying desperately to flee an arranged marriage.

Citizenship ruling

The citizenship ruling may now be reversed — both Parliament and the Prime Minister ordered Verdonk to find a way for Hirsi Ali to remain Dutch. Even so, she is now moving to Washington, where she is sure to become a superstar.

The latest news for readers in the café comes from the always-bland Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende, who somehow managed to keep a low profile while the nation simmered.

Balkenende has now spoken: He is worried, very worried, he says, about the harm to the Netherlands’ image caused by the Hirsi Ali affair.

Dutch intolerance

Newspapers all over the world have carried editorials mercilessly skewering this manifestation of Dutch intolerance. The time for action has come.

Dutch ambassadors around the world have now been ordered to get to work at counteracting this alarming assault on the traditional Dutch standing as international paragon of all that is good and tolerant.

Avoiding conflict?

Holland has long basked in its self-image as a bastion of tolerance, and it has done an impressive job of spreading that image around the world.

Sure, the Netherlands is the land of gay marriage and legal prostitution and coffee shops listing varieties of marijuana on their menus. But the truth about this country is that, above all, it is a nation that cannot handle conflict.

If people want to smoke a little pot, why fight them? If gay couples want to get married, it’s their lives. If the Nazis want to deport a few thousand Jews, who are we to stand in their way?

Little more than a fantasy

Instead of worrying about the national image, Balkenende would do well to look into the national spine. Dutch values appear to be hiding inside a self-image that is little more than fantasy — a fantasy the world has accepted without challenge.

Consider the story of Anne Frank. The Dutch have somehow managed to shine in the warm glow of the Anne Frank story. A line of visitors permanently snakes around the corner from the house on the Prinzengracht where the young Jewish diarist, a refugee from Germany, hid from the Nazis.

Most visitors think of the Dutch as her saviors. But they forget the end of the story. Anne Frank, like more than seventy percent of the country’s Jews — the greatest percentage in Western Europe — was sent to her death, betrayed by her neighbors.

Seven guilder

The Dutch, who still see their WWII history through as a heroic fantasy of resistance, did in fact resist in small numbers. But they also provided Western Europe's largest contingent of volunteers to the Waffen SS.

The Dutch have not proven particularly brave at standing up for their principles or defending anything or anyone who made them uncomfortable.

When the news surfaced that the Dutch government was stripping Hirsi Ali of her citizenship, turning her into a stateless refugee, my Dutch friend, an adult child of Holocaust survivors, told me, her voice cracking with anger, “Nothing has changed from when they would turn in a Jew for seven guilders.”

Submission

If you think it’s a stretch to conflate the Hirsi Ali saga with the Holocaust ponder for a moment the unspeakably selfish and cowardly behavior of Hirsi Ali’s neighbors.

In 2004, the short film “Submission” was aired on Dutch television. The film, written by Hirsi Ali and directed by Theo van Gogh, was an attack on Islam’s treatment of women. Nothing ignites Hirsi Ali’s passions more.

Dangerous protest

Having herself endured genital mutilation and a forced marriage, she cries out that practices such as these must be stopped, particularly in the West.

The Dutch, who still see their WW II history through as a heroic fantasy of resistance, in fact resisted in small numbers.

The film also ignited her enemies, who promptly assassinated van Gogh, pinning to his body a note warning that Hirsi Ali was next on the assassination list.

The authorities knew the threat was real. She went into hiding, moving constantly and growing miserable in the process. Finally, she found a place in the Hague, where she said she was finally happy, despite having to share the apartment with security personnel and having no personal life.

Eroding property values

Her neighbors protested, saying the presence of a threatened woman eroded their property values. Besides, they argued, they felt unsafe living near her.

After all, someone wanted to kill Hirsi Ali. They felt endangered and inconvenienced. The neighbors went to court and a Dutch judge agreed with them, ordering Hirsi Ali to vacate her home in four months.

The entire nation felt endangered and inconvenienced by Hirsi Ali. That’s why she has to leave. She stood up for the principles of an open, secular, liberal democratic society when other members of that society refused to face them. Then they blamed her for the threat.

Prophetic cartoons

When Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad sparked riots, the media outlets, as most others around the world, decided not to publish the cartoons.

She disagreed. “The cartoons should be displayed everywhere,” she argued. Muslim radicals, she said, constantly say Christians and Jews are inferior. They demean and attack women, gays, and other religions. Then they demand reverence for their beliefs.

The West, she said, must stop turning the other cheek. Hirsi Ali insists that we must “defend the right to offend.” That approach is exactly the opposite of the preferred way of doing business in the Netherlands.

Path of least resistance

Here, the path of least resistance is one of going along, risking as little as possible, not making a lot of waves. Immediately after the announcement that she would lose her citizenship, a poll found 80% approval for the decision.

When the decision raised international criticism, the number dropped to about 50%.The Dutch hold many easy, uncontroversially high-minded ideals and courage-free convictions.

They like to send cash to the poor and help feed the hungry. But they hate conflict. Ayaan Hirsi Ali is a 21st century example of the cold hearts and cartilaginous spine that sent more than 70% of Dutch Jews to their deaths in the 20th century.

Holland’s problem is not one of public relations. It is one of nerve, spine and, most of all, heart.

MiamiHerald.com | 05/01/2006 | Bin Laden, al Qaeda losing support in Muslim world

2006-05-03T13:07:00.000-04:00

MiamiHerald.com | 05/01/2006 | Bin Laden, al Qaeda losing support in Muslim world

It looks like campaign season is in full swing in the heart of the terrorist world. In just the last two weeks we have heard from Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab al Zarqawi and Ayman al Zawahri. Maybe it's election year. Maybe al Qaeda is about to hold primaries, and the ads filling the airwaves come from the candidates with the best fundraising machines, while the other candidates are working on their yard signs, roadside bombs and suicide belts.

Al Qaeda is going through a leadership crisis, and the tapes play a part in a furious political campaign. The tapes all carry the old standards about the evil crusaders. The wicked Zionists and even a Hindu-Zionist-Crusader alliance for a new geopolitical twist. But beneath the jihadist rhetoric, there are ''vote for me'' slogans playing in the background.

For years we've heard from the Bush administration claims that al Qaeda is ''on the run,'' because we're ''smoking them out'' and they're ''desperate.'' Despite being on the run, smoked out and desperate, they have continued blowing themselves up, along with hundreds of children, mothers, fathers and other assorted innocent civilians.

Slaughtering civilians may pass for success in the world of terrorists, whose peculiar theology holds that God rewards those who inflict suffering on the living. Success by the terrorists, however, started turning Muslims against al Qaeda very soon after September 11.

If al Qaeda played by democratic rules, Osama bin Laden would have been elected leader of the Muslim world on September 12. In my travels through Muslim areas in the first couple of years after 9/11, I saw bazaars filled with bin Laden T-shirts and heard Muslims, young and old, rich and poor, speak admiringly of the man. Al Qaeda, however, has not done a good job of holding on to its popularity.

Jihadist attacks against civilians in Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Indonesia, Jordan and, of course, Iraq, left a trail of heartbreak through the Muslim world and started turning Muslims everywhere against the group and its leader. A 2005 survey by the Pew organization showed support for terrorism and for bin Laden dropping precipitously among Muslims from the levels recorded in 2003. In some countries, bin Laden still held sway, but almost everywhere Pew looked it found support for bin Laden and his methods sliding steadily.

Terrorists, obviously, don't rule by democratic mandate. And even if their popularity ratings reach sub-Bush levels, they can still inflict much harm. Terrorist recruiters do extremely well in certain demographics, notably among psychopaths. That helps boost the blood flow, but it turns away popular support. And global jihad does require some degree of popular support. That's where Zarqawi and bin Laden have their problems.

When Zarqawi, one of the top recruits from the psychopath demo, started videotaping himself hacking the heads off his hostages, al Qaeda's popularity in Iraq began declining. Jihadists had hoped Iraq would become the epicenter of their new caliphate. But Zarqawi's tactics turned the Iraqi people fiercely against him and his movement. Bin Laden's deputy, al Zawahri, told Zarqawi to cool it in Iraq. And Zawahri was very possibly demoted.

Word began to spread that Zawahri had lost the leadership of al Qaeda in Iraq. A tape from al Zawahri, released on April 13, has the Egyptian doctor praising the ''beloved brother'' in Iraq; a clear political endorsement. But then came word from bin Laden, who has become so quiet lately that many wonder how much he even matters any more.

Bin Laden knows that his broad popular support comes from portraying the struggle as one against the West. The self-anointed defender of downtrodden Muslims spoke against international efforts to stop the genocide of Muslims in Darfur. An international force to stop the killing, he said absurdly, would constitute an assault on Islam; anything to stoke the party base and fire up the masses against the West.

But the Muslim masses are beyond getting fired up by al Qaeda. Bin Laden ''praised'' Zarqawi for taking a lower profile in Iraq. That sounds like a serious demotion for the man who aspires to succeed bin Laden as the next leader of the movement for a new caliphate.

Campaign season is on. The polls show overall support for al Qaeda dropping. But, as in every primary, the key vote comes from the party base. Even with low poll numbers, these committed activists can -- and will -- set off deadly fireworks.

Philadelphia Inquirer | 04/20/2006 | An 'un-Sharon' response to attack

2006-04-21T08:41:00.000-04:00

Philadelphia Inquirer | 04/20/2006 | An 'un-Sharon' response to attack

The moment a suicide bomber exploded in downtown Tel Aviv on Monday, Israel's government began considering its response. Even as the children of one of the victims, murdered in front of her entire family, were desperately calling out to her dead body, Palestinians began bracing themselves for Israel's retaliation, and world leaders prepared for yet another escalation of the conflict.

Then came Israel's surprising decision: For now, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his cabinet decided, Israel will limit its response and not launch a military attack against Hamas.

Israel has made it clear that it considers the Hamas-led Palestinian government responsible for the attack that killed nine people. Under its international commitments, the Palestinian Authority must do all it can to stop terrorism. Hamas, however, whose stated objective remains the destruction of Israel, declared that the Passover bombing was fully justified. Since Hamas came to power three weeks ago, Israel has stopped scores of would-be terrorists, including 11 caught at the very last minute. Hamas says it will not work to stop Palestinian suicide missions, or "martyrdom operations," as they are known among proponents of that barbaric practice.

Still, an all-out attack by Israel would risk derailing a process that is already in place and could well lead to the collapse of the Hamas government. Perhaps Hamas will manage to hold on to power. But Israel is calculating that the chances of success through different means are worth a try.

If Israel responded as it did in the days of Ariel Sharon, the attention of the Palestinian people and the international community would shift, as it always does, from the terrorist attacks to the suffering brought by Israel's retaliation on the Palestinian population. Governments in Europe and moderate Arab countries would cry out for an end to the "cycle of violence." So, here's the cycle, broken. Olmert is now officially his own man, testing the un-Sharon approach.

Israel is precariously walking a high wire with Hamas. The hope is that the governing party in the Palestinian legislature will collapse without bringing down the Palestinian Authority. The last thing Israel wants is to see the Palestinian Authority disappear and suddenly find itself responsible for all services in the West Bank.

Despite highly publicized announcements that Hamas will receive tens of millions from Iran, Qatar and perhaps Russia, the Palestinian government is in excruciating financial straits. And Israel, for a change, stands with the international community rather firmly lined up behind it.

Already, the European Union has cut $600 million a year in aid. The United States has slashed $400 million, and the list goes on. Japan, Canada, even Norway say they will not give money to the Hamas government, even though all parties, including Israel, say they will continue to provide humanitarian support bypassing Hamas. The Arab world, despite its rhetorical support, has mixed feelings at best about Hamas. Some money has been promised but none delivered.

On the ground, Hamas' grip on the situation is tenuous. More than 140,000 armed men on the Palestinian Authority payroll have not received their March wages. They regularly storm into Palestinian government buildings, shooting their AK-47s. A few leading Palestinians have already called for Hamas to accept defeat, step down, and call for new elections.

Hamas, however, remains defiant. Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh proudly declared: "We will eat cooking oil and olives." The crowds initially cheered, but the truth is that Palestinians don't support Hamas' intransigence. In a recent poll, 78 percent said they want talks between the two sides to resume.

Hamas knows how to fire up the crowds, but its political positions are out of step with the population. More important, its tactics so far have produced discontent and hardship among heavily armed militiamen, and have brought the Palestinian territories to the edge of civil war.

Instead of sending out bulldozers after the bombing, Israel revoked the residency permits of three Hamas members of the Palestinian parliament who live in East Jerusalem. The day after the attack, while mothers, children, husbands and wives of the victims took their loved ones to be buried, one of the Hamas legislators, Ahmed Atoun, reacted angrily to the news that he would have to leave Jerusalem. "This is an unfair, criminal decision," he ranted.

Israel wants the Palestinians, with the help of the international community, to see just how far Hamas stands from the path to peace and a better life for the long-suffering Palestinians. It's worth a try.

Frida Ghitis: Religious text, political agenda

2006-04-16T13:06:00.000-04:00

Frida Ghitis: Religious text, political agenda

What a fabulous coincidence. Or maybe not. Just in time for Easter, Passover and the movie version of "The Da Vinci Code," we learn of a fascinating discovery, an ancient text that could begin to accomplish what no image consultant would dare to attempt: transforming the biblical figure of Judas Iscariot from villain to hero. The text may or may not prove historical or religious "fact." It does, however, present a potent reminder that the powerful started using religion for political gain long, long before Evangelical Christians joined the Republican Party.
Not surprisingly, the so-called Gospel of Judas -- claiming that the much-maligned disciple of Jesus was following his master's instructions when he turned him in to authorities -- has sparked a flurry of criticism and denial.

The more interest the public shows in the ancient story in the crumbling papyrus, the more we will see the church and its minions declare the document is a forgery, an irrelevancy, or maliciously misleading. For a preview of what's to come, look at the shelves of books refuting "The Da Vinci Code," a work of fiction clearly deemed threatening by those who derive power from religious dogma.

The Judas story, as Jews sitting at their Passover celebrations know painfully well, played a central role in promoting a version of Christianity that spawned catastrophic anti-Semitism. The writers, and especially the editors of the Christian Bible, had an understandable interest in discrediting the Jews. And turning Judas into the archetype of the untrustworthy, despicable Jew played perfectly into that plan.

Christian attitudes toward Jews and Judaism have changed enormously in recent decades. But in the early days of Christianity, the mere existence of Jews who refused to accept Jesus as the messiah of the Bible stood as a challenge to the legitimacy of the new faith, especially because Jesus gave his message to the Jews, and his followers believed him to be the Messiah of the Jews.

The power and persuasiveness of the new faith depended on convincing the doubters that the people who insisted on calling themselves Jews were not only wrong, they were evil. And Judas became the character chosen to play that part when the story was told for mass consumption.

When the Romans executed Jesus, the Jews took the blame. Not just some Jews, all of them, for generations to come. That made sense. The perceived threat to the power of Christianity came not from the Jews of the first century, but from the survival of Judaism. The Romans crucified Jesus, but hating today's Italians for it would be ridiculous. Besides, it would serve no useful political purpose.

Instead, the story of Easter and the Passion plays it inspired became the spark that ignited massacres of Jews through the centuries all over Christian Europe. Even Adolf Hitler reveled in the 1934 performance of a Bavarian Passionsspiel, calling the play a "convincing portrayal of the menace of Jewry."

The orgy of mass murder directed by Hitler found willing followers among the millions who had grown up hearing that Jews were "Christ killers." After the European Holocaust, Christianity awoke to the destructive power of that calumny. Gradually, the church has revised its anti-Semitic dogma, and Christians and Jews have forged strong bonds.

With Christianity firmly established, the church itself feels little threat from the existence of a few million Jews. Anti-Semitism, of course, has not died. And the biblically inspired, Qur'an-fortified caricature now thrives in the Muslim world. Again today, political leaders are using religious texts to bolster their political agendas, and again those texts include anti-Semitic rants.

The discovery of this new portrayal of Judas, the loving and loyal disciple, as the experts tell us, echoes the views of the so-called Gnostics, early Christians who had a different view from that promulgated by the political leaders of the church. The editors of the New Testament decided which gospels, which versions of the story of Jesus, to include in their Holy Book. Dozens of original gospels are said to have been written, but only four were chosen to become the foundation of Christian dogma. They became the basis for political decisions over centuries to come.

With Easter, Passover -- and an election year -- upon us, it's a good time to remember that politics and religion have always created a potentially disastrous combination.

Philadelphia Inquirer | 04/09/2006 | With election, it's Peru's turn to stir concern

2006-04-14T11:35:00.000-04:00

Philadelphia Inquirer | 04/09/2006 | With election, it's Peru's turn to stir concern

It's election day in a Latin American country, and once again the leading contender's fiery promises of a new social and economic order electrify the poor and the forgotten, while frightening the business community, the middle class, and American observers.

It's getting to be a familiar pattern in Latin America. This time, it's Peru's turn. And the man at the top of opinion polls is Ollanta Humala, a former lieutenant colonel, who vows to "impose discipline and bring order" to a country only recently emerged from decades of military and authoritarian rule. Humala, like recent winners of many democratic elections throughout the region, is a fierce nationalist and a caustic critic of market policies advocated by Washington. Latin American voters are showing again why Washington's exultations of democracy and free trade fail to inspire this hemisphere. And why speaking up against Washington can win votes.

To anyone wondering just how much change Humala wants, he explains, "The system is the poverty of the people. So, yes, I am the anti-system candidate."

You might think Peru's outgoing president performed poorly. The government of Peru's first indigenous leader, Alejandro Toledo, however, achieved impressive economic growth. Toledo's policies followed free-market rules and scored measurable success. And yet, the shining economic statistics meant nothing to most Peruvians. In the end, there is one problem most Peruvians care about more than any other: poverty.

Despite the impressive growth of the Toledo years, the majority of Peruvians remain trapped in poverty. All the democracy and freedom in the world will not move them enough to outweigh their desperate need to escape economic hopelessness. In their eyes, the free trade and fiscal restraint prescribed by Washington amount to little more than a plan to help the rich get richer. Until Washington and its favored politicians can offer a believable plan to bring tangible results, manipulative politicians will make their election-winning speeches.

Not much is known about Humala, who leads by just a few points over his main contender, Lourdes Flores. The Humala family, however, has an ideological track record that should set no one at ease. The family patriarch, Isaac, espouses a racist ideology holding that "copper-skinned" people are a superior race. He and his wife have advocated the execution of homosexuals, Jews, Chilean businessmen, and Toledo and his wife.

The candidate, like his hero and strong supporter President Hugo Chávez of Venezuela, led a failed coup. Villagers say he committed atrocities during his time in the military. He has expressed admiration for Gen. Juan Velasco, one of Peru's dismal dictators, who abolished press freedoms and confiscated private property. He has promised to rewrite the constitution, has threatened to dissolve Congress, and vowed to nationalize "strategic" industries.

Flores and Humala will likely face off in a second round, since neither one is expected to win a majority. If he wins, Peru's best hope is that once elected, he will follow a less radical path than the one he espouses to fire up the masses, as have other thundering Latin American leftists after taking office. The glaring exception, of course, is Venezuela's Chávez.

Leftist governments come in many shapes. Some have strengthened prosperity, freedom and confidence in their countries, while others are busy sowing the seeds of future economic disasters. The common denominator - the one Washington fails to observe - is that they acknowledge the depth of poverty afflicting their nations, and show genuine determination to tackle it.

Not long ago, Washington dreamed that a democratic Latin America would move steadily into alignment with the United States. With every new election south of the border, however, the United States appears more isolated in the region. Voters, expressing their views with their votes, are saying America's vision of the hemisphere does not match their idea of what's best for their lives and their countries.

America's ideals may have helped persuade its neighbors that democracy - a government of, by, and for the people - is the best system. But each country, within its particular circumstances, gives democracy its own flavor. The flavor of young democracies in the years to come, will likely continue to be one not to Washington's taste.

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Now the president prays for Darfur

2006-04-09T08:41:00.000-04:00

BY FRIDA GHITIS SPECIAL TO THE DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE

Posted on Friday, April 7, 2006
URL: http://www.nwanews.com/adg/Editorial/
151096/

A president cannot choose what challenges history will throw in his path once he takes office. President George W. Bush did not expect the Sept. 11 attacks when he sought the White House, as he has told us, and he had no idea that large-scale massacres of civilians would start in Darfur a few years into his presidency. And yet, as leader of the world’s most powerful country, these challenges are his to face. The world’s worst humanitarian disaster continues to unfold during his watch. Fortunately, America’s determined and idealistic “Wartime President” cannot be deterred. With another 5, 000 people killed every week in Darfur, the president decided he would do something. On April 1, Mr. Bush picked up his pen, lifted a piece of embossed White House stationery, and wrote, “I send greetings to those observing the Week of Prayer and Action for Darfur.” There. Presidential action.

In fairness, the president himself probably didn’t write the letter. One of his aides no doubt came up with the words, “Our Nation is appalled by the genocide in Darfur, Sudan. We grieve for the men, women and children of Darfur, victims of atrocities....” The Week of Prayer—this week, April 2-9—was not his idea. It originated with a coalition of human rights and religious organizations, who claim to represent 130 million Americans. Their aim goes beyond prayer. And receiving “greetings” from the president is hardly their objective. Much like the people of Darfur, what they want is action. If they wanted words, even beautiful, stirring words, they would have long ago been thoroughly satisfied. The world’s leaders have already told us they are outraged, appalled, alarmed and deeply disturbed.

In the meantime, more than two million people have fled their homes, and hundreds of thousands have already been slaughtered. And the situation, according to the United Nations, is getting worse, not better. Despite all the meetings, all the ideas, and all the words, the killing continues, even as you read this, and even as the president adorns that pretty piece of paper with that signature capable of mobilizing armored divisions.

Armored divisions, of course, have not been mobilized by anyone, except the government of Sudan, providing crucial military support to the camel-riding militias, the Janjaweed, who are responsible for most of the atrocities. Military forces in neighboring Chad are also on alert as the strife spills across the border and threatens to become a much larger conflict. If systematic murder and ethnic cleansing are not enough to make the world take decisive action, a war in Chad certainly will. Chad, after all, has huge oil reserves.

For now, the international approach is to try to feed the millions who have fled to refugee camps, and to use the rhetorical flourishes of elegant diplomats as the loudest weapon in their pin-striped arsenal. American and European leaders hope to persuade the Sudanese government to let the UN take over a hapless African Union peacekeeping mission. How successful do you think that strategy has proven ?

This week, as the president hinted that he, too, would join in the prayers for Darfur, Sudan crassly refused entry to the UN’s humanitarian chief, Jan Egeland, explaining that it would not be a good idea for a Scandinavian man to visit a Muslim country in the wake of Danish cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad. Perhaps we can blame the cartoonists for the troubles in Darfur. Or, maybe we’ll just keep on praying.

Instead of praying—or, if you prefer, in addition to praying—the president should put down his pen and pick up the phone and place calls to London, Berlin, Brussels, and, yes, Paris. Because the UN will not impose an ultimatum—China would block forceful action—Washington should call for an urgent meeting of NATO. What could possibly be more urgent than stopping genocide?

Prayers alone, I’m afraid, will not stop systematic mass murder. That’s the lesson other presidents learned when genocide happened on their watch.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs. She is the author of The End of Revolution: a Changing World in the Age of Live Television.

Marching in the Streets

2006-04-05T08:50:00.000-04:00

We doth not protest too much, methinks
By Frida Ghitis
Special to The Star
04-05-2006

What would it take to get you marching in the streets? Think about it: What would stir your soul so much that you would feel compelled to break your routine, join a passionate crowd and publicly shout your beliefs, or your outrage, or the end of your patience? The answer depends on where you live, how old you are and, of course, what principles you hold at the very core of your being. In that order.

In recent days, millions have marched in France and in America, in both cases protesting government efforts to tinker with a system that profoundly affect the lives of millions. Hundreds of thousands of French marchers passionately demand the right to hold on to an employment system grounded on wishes and not on reality. They refuse to relinquish the right to essentially never lose their jobs, even if that condemns millions of others (the protesters who burned cars in France last fall) to remain unemployed.

In California, Texas, Georgia and elsewhere in the United States, tens of thousands reached the end of their passivity when they heard politicians threaten to, among other things, deny health care and make felons out of immigrants who enter the U.S. illegally hoping to earn a living through hard work. In a problem without easy answers, the protesters wanted to put a halt to the worst instincts of politicians seeking to score cheap votes at the expense of human dignity.

If you live in France, protesting would have become a way of life dating back to your student days. If you live in a dictatorship, joining a camera-ready crowd on behalf of a cause you may not believe in is just another hated duty, as Iraqis learned under Saddam, and Cubans still endure under Castro.

Each country and each culture has a different threshold of outrage. While the young are generally quicker than the old to ignite into action, fiery Muslim politicians can easily whip up an anti-American crowd of all ages in Pakistan, for example. The Germans, meanwhile, seem more inclined than the French to negotiate before taking to the streets. Consider that the government in Berlin proposes much more radical labor reforms than the ones that brought the water cannons out in Paris, and yet, potential German marchers have stayed home during the debate.

Still, the Germans flooded the streets in an ocean of outrage over the war in Iraq. The matter of war touches Germany with particular intensity for obvious reasons.

But what about America? Marches on Washington are a revered tradition here. Gigantic crowds, bused from around the nation to rally in the shadow of Lincoln’s gaze, have become more a testament to organizational efficiency than to genuine passion. And yet, any group that can assemble a million people will catch the eye of the cameras and the ear of politicians.

That’s another requirement for a protest. If we feel that nobody will listen, that marching will do no good, we’ll probably stay home.

If "American Idol" can make tens of millions pick up their phones to express their views about a performer, what could make you turn off the TV and make a statement about something that actually matters? Is it genocide in Darfur? War in Iraq? A terrorist attack? Illegal immigration — or the measures to stop it? How about 46 million people without health insurance in the richest country on earth?

If France had 10 million without health coverage, it would have 20 million protesting about it. That’s not because Americans don’t care about the problem. A recent Gallup poll showed Americans worry about health care more than about anything else, with 68 percent of Americans expressing concern about their health-care prospects. There’s something to march about, and plenty of people to do it. What’s missing is someone to inspire the crowd into action, another indispensable element to move the masses onto the streets.

The matters that touch our hearts reveal much about who we are as human beings. The controversies that spark mass demonstrations reveal much about the soul and the character of a nation, and about the way that character may change in the years to come.

Frida Ghitis is author of "The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live Television."

SF Chronicle: Did Iraq doom Darfur by dulling our ability to do right?

2006-04-02T12:05:00.000-04:00

Did Iraq doom Darfur by dulling our ability to do right?: "

Little more than three years after a defiant United States led an invasion of Iraq over the objections of many in the international community, another anniversary has come and gone. In early 2003, few outside the African nation of Sudan had heard of a region called Darfur. Three years on, with a campaign of genocide continuing with full knowledge of the entire world, Darfur has become synonymous not only with genocide, but with the world's astounding ability to do nothing, even while it righteously declares the situation there utterly and categorically unacceptable.

Going to war in Iraq involved many risks not only for the United States but also for the weak and powerless everywhere. If the Iraq campaign turned to failure, would Washington become more reluctant to risk American lives and money to help people brutalized by despots and thugs, as it did in Bosnia and Kosovo? Or would it turn its back on genocidal massacres, as it did in Rwanda? Would disappointment in Iraq turn the American people inward, as Vietnam did, making the public force politicians to refrain from even suggesting the use of force except under the most extreme circumstances?

With Iraq in disarray, the American people have turned against that war, with a majority saying it was not worth fighting.

Does that mean Americans now want to close their eyes to Darfur? Amazingly, the American people have always been willing to see the United States do more to stop the killing in Darfur. In 2004, pollsters learned that more than 60 percent of Americans surveyed backed the use of force to stop the killings. That, believe it or not, has not changed.

Sudan's government bears responsibility for Darfur, where so-called Janjaweed militias, Arab nomads on camelback, armed by the government, have attacked black non-Arab farmers and their families, killing at least 200,000 civilians and displacing more than 2 million. This Muslim-on-Muslim conflict, started after a rebel group in Darfur took up arms against the Arab-dominated government in Khartoum, complaining that the government was shortchanging their people. In response, the government launched this effort to rid the region of all its black population, by murder, fire and terror. Now, millions of Sudanese have walked away to escape the Janjaweed's campaign of mass rapes, poisoned water wells and human bonfires. Every month, another 5,000 people die in Darfur. The survivors live in dismal refugee camps along the border with Chad, and even Chad now looks set to fall into the carnage.

How hard is it to stop marauding gangs of killers riding camels from perpetrating genocide? A decisive effort from world leaders would easily get the job done. Would it be politically risky? Hardly. Consider the situation in Washington. The president's approval ratings are scraping the floor, and Democrats are eager to exploit any weaknesses on an election year. And yet, Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of San Francisco, who recently visited Darfur, joined the ranks of politicians polishing their humanitarian rhetoric. Darfur, she intoned, "is a challenge to the conscience of the world."

"This is the only thing I and the president agree on 100 percent."

The European public and political leaders also agree the killing has to stop. Why, then, does it continue?

The answer is a mind-boggling desire to reach consensus -- with the killers.

Yes, the United States, NATO, and the United Nations agree that a large international peacekeeping force must be deployed to Darfur to stop the massacres. They will send that force, however, only when the government of Sudan requests it. That's like asking Hitler for permission to liberate concentration camps.

A small and mostly useless force from the African Union was supposed to ask for U.N. peacekeeping status, but Sudan kept that from happening. NATO says it will to lend its full support to the U.N. force, as soon as one exists. How inspiring!

Iraq, after all, did not erode Americans' sense of justice. It did, however, appear to have dulled Washington's willingness to do the right thing, even in the face of international paralysis. Without the diplomatic battle scars from Iraq, a more determined United States could easily rally NATO into action, as it did rather easily when it decided to stop the killing in Bosnia -- without U.N. approval.

The genocide in Darfur will end when the killers finish the job or when a courageous world leader makes a decision to lead the world in a cause that is not just urgent, but indisputably just.

Frida Ghitis, a frequent Insight contributor, is the author of "The End of Revolution: a Changing World in the Age of Live Television." Contact us at insight@sfchronicle.com.

MiamiHerald.com | 03/21/2006 | Cartoons -- not for the faint-hearted

2006-03-26T11:56:00.000-05:00

MiamiHerald.com 03/21/2006 Cartoons -- not for the faint-hearted

When Muslims around the world took to the streets to protest Danish cartoons depicting the prophet Mohammed, I kept thinking that they should take a break and watch South Park. Anyone complaining that the West treats Islam without the respect it affords other religions has not seen the outrageous, offensive, hilarious cartoon about the foul-mouthed children growing up in South Park, Colo. If all the groups who have stood at the cutting end of one South Park's jokes went outside to protest, there would be nobody left at home anywhere.

Crossing the line
As it happens, the only notable walkout came from inside the show, when the singer Isaac Hayes, the velvety voice of Chef in the show, decided to quit, saying that South Park has gone too far in disrespecting religion. No kidding. South Park goes too far all the time. Every show crosses the line. That's what makes it so great. You can't watch without cringing, and sooner or later everyone reaches a point when they say, ''Wow, that really was too much.'' And then you keep laughing and you keep watching. South Park is fabulous satire. Nobody is sacred. Trust me, nobody.

As the show's producers noted, however, Hayes never had a problem playing the raunchy, sexually savvy school chef who treats the children with peculiar respect as he imparts the raunchiest adult advice. After nine years on the show, Hayes decided to take offense when his own faith, Scientology, became the subject of South Park's merciless writers. His accusation that the show engages in ''inappropriate ridicule'' of religion reminds me of the cries of Muslim extremists, who still find nothing wrong with insult, ridicule or worse when it comes to Christians and Jews, but demand only reverence and respect for Islam. Special treatment for one religion amounts to bigotry.

Hayes, as far as we know, expressed no objection to the show in which Satan, the long-suffering boyfriend of a sex-crazed Saddam, took on a sad and scrawny Jesus -- who has his own public-access cable show -- in a boxing match. (Jesus won, but only because Satan took a dive to win a bet against himself.)

Nothing is sacred
Hayes did not object when, at the height of the Terri Schiavo controversy, with America torn over the heart-wrenching plight of a woman about to be disconnected from life support, the show took on that subject. A truck runs over the hapless Kenny. God needs his sharp video game skills to coordinate the final war against evil, but his friends want Kenny disconnected so they can inherit his Gameboy toy. That's not him anymore, says one of the boys looking at Kenny hooked up to machines. ``It's a tomato.''

One of the children, Kyle, is a Jew, which makes for incessant mockery that some have called anti-Semitic. Critics have called the show anti-Semitic, anti-Muslim, anti-Christian, homophobic, sophomoric, infantile, inexcusable and very badly drawn. I call it really, really funny.

My favorite episode took on the Katrina disaster. In Two Days Before the Day After Tomorrow, the children cause a massive flood in Beaverton. A journalist standing outside the city limits says he cannot go in and has seen nothing but can report hundreds of millions have died. As Beavertonians stand desperately on their rooftops, South Park residents discuss whose fault it is. Half blame Osama, the other half blame Bush. Then a scientist blames global warming, which he calculates will begin two days before the day after tomorrow.
Freedom makes you cringe

These riotous characters have argued that the Japanese and redheads have no soul, Mormons are not strong enough to fight the devil and God is a Buddhist.

As Hayes rightly noted, the show has no deference for religion. The creators make fun of just about everyone, but they reserve their sharpest penknives for the hypocritical and sanctimonious. I shudder to think what they'll say about Hayes.

Call it the ticklish underbelly of a free society.

For those considering opening up their countries to free speech, look closely. Sometimes that freedom makes you cringe, other times it makes you laugh so hard you can hardly wait for the next episode.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs

SF Chronicle: No more kaffiyehs / Radical Chic confusion among the fashion rebels

2006-03-05T17:23:00.000-05:00

No more kaffiyehs / Radical Chic confusion among the fashion rebels
Frida Ghitis
Sunday, March 5, 2006 Chronicle Sunday Insights

Amsterdam -- As the slave to fashion that I am, it's my duty to report the urgent news from the front lines of Europe's Radical Chic world. The latest developments in rebel fashion, I'm afraid, are rather grim.

Yes, as I push against the North Sea wind blowing frigid air along Amsterdam's narrow streets, I still see some determined fashion rebels tightly wrapping their checkered black and white Palestinian kaffiyehs around their necks.

Sadly, the kaffiyeh, appears to be on its way out, with no visible replacement in the horizon. Perhaps the desert headwear-turned fashion scarf has lost allure as the political winds of the Middle East have blown it out of the corridors of power.

Most will remember the kaffiyeh when they picture its most famous wearer, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, who never faced the public without one neatly positioned over his head and shoulders. Only his closest confidants ever got a glimpse of his uncovered head.

The kaffiyeh was originally meant for covering men's heads in Middle Eastern deserts, but it took the fashion world by storm on the chaotic runways of anti-globalization street protests, with bearded wearers jauntily protecting their faces from tear gas as they threw rocks at the establishment, represented by policemen wearing their hopelessly old-fashioned riot gear.

In a clever juxtaposition -- a geographical and political melange of styles -- the preferred top to go with the black and white scarf was a Che Guevara T-shirt. But the pensive visage of Fidel Castro's revolutionary comrade is strictly summer fashion. In the winter he is mere lining, underwear, really.

Arafat remains a symbol of the struggle for the downtrodden, even if his actions did not always live up to the ideals. Still, when it comes to keeping a fashion trend alive, it is no secret that you need an effective marketing campaign. It's not just style that sells. Whether it's Tommy Hillfiger attire at the Olympics or Giorgio Armani designs on the runways of Milan, style alone does not do the trick. You need models, marketing and a message.

Nike had Michael Jordan and Che Guevara-Wear has Fidel Castro's Cuba promoting him. A stroll down any Cuban street brings you face to face with larger than life images of the man, his message and, above all, his face. Yes, there are those dark eyes staring into space, and that cool beret covering his hair, which is probably messy, what with all that work saving the oppressed.

As for kaffiyeh sales among trendy Western rebels, we have a marketing crisis in the works.

As long as Arafat was alive, it didn't matter what he and his Fatah party did, the kaffiyeh made it to the front pages and the fashionable rebels rushed online to order more groovy black and white scarves. After he died, his heirs in Fatah still ruled the Palestinian Authority, and the black and white still fluttered proudly over televised shoulders in Ramallah. Then came the Palestinian elections on January 25, however, and everything changed. The green was in, the black and white was out.

The Palestinian Islamic group Hamas, the party that won control of the Palestinian Parliament, does not wear black and white. Horrors! Hamas, Fatah's rival, favors Islam's green.
That throws a stylistic monkey wrench into the wardrobe choices of European and North American radical chic. To be truly hip, you must keep up with the message your clothes send. You can still wear one of those "Bush Terrorist" T-shirts. That states pretty clearly where you stand.

You could try the red shirts of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez, or the everyman jacket of Iran's Ahmadinejad. But, when the wind is blowing in Amsterdam, you need more, and an Arafat kaffiyeh runs the risk of confusing your public. Does black and white mean you don't support Hamas? And if you don't support Hamas, does that mean you have forsaken the Palestinian cause? It's so tough being a rebel!

Luckily for radicals in Amsterdam, the shops are full of options. There is the always-popular sweat shirt that reads, "I went to Amsterdam and all I got was stoned." Maybe that will have to do until spring comes and we can all break out those Che Guevara shirts.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs -- and occasionally fashion.

MiamiHerald.com | 03/03/2006 | Reject flawed proposal to create new human-rights panel

2006-03-05T17:01:00.000-05:00

MiamiHerald.com | 03/03/2006 | Reject flawed proposal to create new human-rights panel

UNITED NATIONS

Reject flawed proposal to create new human-rights panel
BY FRIDA GHITIS

The first time you walk into the United Nations, you can't help but get a little choked up. As you approach, a carving on the wall of a nearby park reminds you of the hope-filled prophecy from Isaiah: ''They shall beat their swords into plowshares. Nation shall not lift sword against nation.'' Then, with the building before you, you hear the drumbeat of all the member nation's flags fluttering above. Inside the courtyard, the sculpture of a giant pistol with its barrel tied into a knot is yet another symbol of the world's hopes, not just for the institution, but for itself, for a planet where conflicts are solved without war; where despotism, war and cruelty can one day be banished.

Despites its failings, the United Nations still embodies our aspirations for a better future. The sounds of dozens of languages spoken by representatives from scores of countries still evoke the dream of a place where the world can come together to fight for our highest ideals. And nothing in the history of the world body has ever betrayed those ideals more tragically than the grotesque U.N. Human Rights Commission.

That's why the very flawed proposal for the creation of a Human Rights Council to replace the old commission must be rejected. The proposed council is clearly an improvement over the UNHRC, but it keeps some of the worst aspects of the old body. That's just not good enough. The United Nations is much too important to allow one of its core missions, the protection of human rights, to suffer under the soft bigotry of low expectations.

For years the old Human Rights Commission made a mockery of its sensitive mission. Membership in the UNHRC was the best protection against international censorship for human-rights violations. The membership routinely included countries whose leaders should have been imprisoned, not massaged by diplomatic niceties. Genocidal regimes such as Sudan and North Korea sat around the table with representatives of countries such as Syria, Zimbabwe or Libya.

When Secretary-General Kofi Annan finally put in motion a plan to abolish the commission and replace it with a worthy body, a ray of hope came over the United Nations' horizon. Negotiations to create the new entity have been arduous, and there is no question that finding a formula to please 191 countries is no easy matter. But the solution brought by the General Assembly president last week is simply not good enough. Its number one problem is that it still allows the worst violators to join the rights council. Much has been made of the provision that would allow for a review of the membership, and could potentially suspended violators.

But the reviews will take years. As Hillel Neuer of the monitoring group U.N. Watch noted, ''When the council created by this draft meets, the faces around the table will look awfully familiar.'' Neuer adds that Annan ''had called for radical surgery,'' and the proposal ``offers to give the patient two aspirins and wheel him back into the street.''

There are other problems with the proposal. Everyone acknowledges that. And yet, major human-rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch support its approval. A letter from a dozen Nobel Peace Prize winners, including Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter, also called for its approval. But why approve a plan that is so flawed on a matter that is so crucial?
Perhaps they believe that this is the best we can achieve. Or maybe they think that this is a way of supporting the organization.

This, however, is the time to create the best possible human-rights body for the sake of those who suffer the worst abuses and for the sake of the United Nations. That time will not come around again soon. This is the time to make the United Nations a place that brings a surge of emotions, not for a beautiful dream lost to cynical politics, but for one we may yet bring to fruition.

Chicago Tribune | No more kaffiyehs: Radical-chic confusion

2006-03-01T07:58:00.000-05:00

Chicago Tribune No more kaffiyehs: Radical-chic confusion

AMSTERDAM -- As the slave to fashion that I am, it's my duty to report the urgent news from the front lines of Europe's "radical chic" world. The latest developments in rebel fashion, I'm afraid, are rather grim. Yes, as I push against the North Sea wind along Amsterdam's narrow streets, the checkered black-and-white Palestinian kaffiyehs wrapped around the necks of fashion rebels appear to be on the way out, with no visible replacement in the horizon.

Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat never faced the public without one positioned over his head and shoulders. The desert headwear was originally meant for covering men's heads in Middle Eastern deserts, but it took the fashion world by storm on the chaotic runways of anti-globalization street protests, with protesters jauntily protecting their faces from tear gas as they threw rocks at the establishment.

In a clever juxtaposition--a geographical and political melange of styles--the preferred top to go with the black-and-white scarf was a Che Guevara T-shirt. The bearded Guevara, icon of Latin America's leftist rebels, would be astonished to know how many capitalists have profited from selling his likeness. But the pensive visage of Fidel Castro's revolutionary comrade is strictly summer fashion. In the winter the T-shirts are mere lining, underwear really.

Arafat and Guevara remain symbols of the struggle for the downtrodden, but when it comes to keeping a fashion trend alive, it is no secret that you need an effective marketing campaign. It's not just style or Tommy Hilfiger or Giorgio Armani that sells. You need models, marketing and a message.

Nike has Michael Jordan and Fidel Castro has Che Guevara-Wear. A stroll down any Cuban street brings you face-to-face with larger-than-life images of Guevara, his message and, above all, those dark eyes staring into space and that cool beret covering his hair. As for kaffiyeh sales among trendy Western rebels, we have a marketing crisis in the works.

As long as Arafat was alive, it didn't matter what he and his Fatah party did, the kaffiyeh made it onto the front pages of newspapers and fashionable rebels continued to order more groovy black-and-white scarves online. Then came Arafat's death, the Palestinian elections on Jan. 25, and everything changed.

The Palestinian Islamic group Hamas, the party that won control of the Palestinian Parliament, does not wear black and white. Horrors! Hamas, Fatah's rival, favors Islam's green.

That throws a stylistic monkey wrench into the wardrobe choices of the radical chic. To be truly hip, you must keep up with the message your clothes send. You can still wear a "Bush Terrorist" T-shirt. You can try the red shirts of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez or the everyman jacket of Iran's Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But when the wind is blowing in Amsterdam, you need more, and an Arafat kaffiyeh runs the risk of confusing your public. Does black and white mean you don't support Hamas? And if you don't support Hamas, does that mean you have forsaken the Palestinian cause? It's so tough being a rebel!

Luckily for radicals in Amsterdam, the shops are full of options. There is the always-popular sweat shirt that reads, "I went to Amsterdam and all I got was stoned.

"----------Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs--and occasionally fashion.

Philadelphia Inquirer | 02/19/2006 | A cartoon contest with Iran as loser

2006-02-20T11:39:00.000-05:00

Philadelphia Inquirer 02/19/2006 A cartoon contest with Iran as loser

Posted on Sun, Feb. 19, 2006
A cartoon contest with Iran as loser
Frida Ghitis

AMSTERDAM - "The Jews don't care if you make fun of them," my Dutch taxi driver said as we discussed the rage over cartoons depicting Muhammad. He was telling me about a collection of crudely anti-Semitic cartoons he had seen from a variety of Arab newspapers and from a Muslim European Web site. They don't get angry, he explained, because "Jews are the first ones to make fun of themselves."

When Muslims from Europe to Indonesia reacted with fury at the depiction of Muhammad in a Danish newspaper, two groups, in Iran and in Belgium, decided to fight back by making cartoons attacking Jews (and Christians and gays, but mostly Jews). It's not quite clear what they intended to prove. What is clear is that their plan was fatally flawed.

They forgot that when it comes to laughing at Jews, and at the vicissitudes of their history, nobody outdoes Jewish comics. Over the centuries, Jews have learned that laughing at your difficulties can ease the pain.

It's not quite true that Jews don't bristle at attacks against them, particularly when they come loaded with hatred. European Jews, however, have heard it all before. And claims that freedom of speech in Europe is restricted when it comes to Jews are greatly exaggerated. Granted, denying the Holocaust is a crime in some countries that saw their large Jewish populations exterminated during World War II. But humor is hardly off-limits.

When a Muslim extremist killed and then tried to sever the head of Dutch filmmaker Theo van Gogh in an Amsterdam street, he was enraged because van Gogh - an equal opportunity offender - had made a film criticizing the treatment of women in Islam. But Muslims were hardly the first to be dissed by the artist who thrived on crossing the line.

"Hmm, it smells like caramel," he once said. "They must be burning diabetic Jews today." There were no Jewish riots or assassination attempts.

After the Danish cartoons, Belgium's Arab European League launched its "freedom of speech" campaign. A cartoon in their Web site showed a half-naked Hitler in bed with Anne Frank, the child diarist killed in the Holocaust, telling her, "Write this one in your diary." Not particularly funny. But then, let's face it, most cartoons really aren't. No riots followed, by the way.

Then came the idea from Iran's biggest newspaper of holding a competition for the best Holocaust cartoon. They were so proud of their cleverness. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is on record saying he doesn't believe the Holocaust happened. So this brilliant ploy would hit two Western taboos with one Iranian stone.

Iran thought the West would recoil in horror. (Riots, anyone?) But before the contest could get going, an Israeli cartoonist launched his own competition.

"We will show the world we can do the best, sharpest, most offensive Jew-hating cartoons ever published," said Israeli cartoonist Amitai Sandy. He noted a truth well-known to students of humor: When it comes to making fun of the tragedies that have befallen the Jewish people, nobody does it better than the Jews. "No Iranian can compete with us on that," he declared.

And what about the publication of Iran's contest winners? Tehran's bet that the cartoons would be shunned apparently was a loser. The Iranian Holocaust cartoons are already appearing in - you guessed it - Israel. The cartoons now appear in the Israel News Agency Web site.

There is a difference, however, between what you see in the Iranian publication and the Israeli one. The Iranian publication is in the best tradition adopted by the Arab and Muslim world from anti-Semitic cartoons in Nazi Germany. They are part of an attempt to demonize, and dehumanize; designed to create hatred, not to entertain. While Iran is questioning the Holocaust ever happened, the INA site posts the caricatures with a line explaining, "Six million Jews were gassed, shot and hung during the Holocaust." The INA did one more thing.

Through the use of search-engine-optimization techniques, they made sure that if you try a Google search of "Iran Holocaust Cartoons" the INA site appears at the top of the page, ahead of any Iranian or Muslim extremist site. It conveys a message about the dangers of hatred to anyone who wants to see anti-Semitic cartoons. Pretty funny.

MiamiHerald.com | 02/08/2006 | Clash of cultures and values

2006-02-20T11:35:00.000-05:00

MiamiHerald.com 02/08/2006 Clash of cultures and values: "
Published on Wed, Feb. 08, 2006

DANISH CARTOONS
Clash of cultures and values
BY FRIDA GHITIS

If you listen carefully, you can almost hear the sounds of arguing editors in newsrooms all over the world. To print or not to print, that is the question. What shall news organizations do about the explosion of irreconcilable differences over European cartoon images of the Prophet Mohammed?

News organizations face a choice: Print the cartoons and knowingly offend Muslims, who have told us in not uncertain terms the cartoons constitute blasphemy; or refrain from printing or broadcasting them and, thus, give in to what is an effort to muzzle freedom of the press. The dilemma affects every newsroom because the story has grown so large that it cries out for detailed reporting. When a news organization decides not to show the cartoons, it deliberately chooses to tell an incomplete story.

It is no accident that the raging controversy has not exploded with the same bitterness in America. To understand the actions of both sides, and the fury of the debate, one must remember that Europe today stands at a cultural turning point. A massive wave of Muslim immigration is changing the society. Many Europeans feel their values are under siege. Some think liberal European countries have gone so far in accommodating the values of Muslim immigrants, that they are sacrificing their own secular freedoms, including the freedom to declare nothing is sacred.

Initially, the dilemma only affected Danish editors, who first printed the series of a dozen Mohammed cartoons last September. The controversy simmered on a low flame until a few weeks ago, when the editor of a tiny Norwegian paper decided to reprint the drawings, along with an interview with two local cartoonists who said they felt drawing Mohammed would endanger their lives.

The pictures show the revered Muslim prophet in largely unflattering ways. In one his turban is a bomb with a sparkling fuse, in another he declares paradise is running out of virgins -- an allusion to the claim that Muslim suicide bombers (martyrs in some eyes) are entitled to 72 virgins in heaven. Muslims erupted in a fury. Any depiction of the prophet, they explained, is blasphemous and it brings them pain. When the Danish editor apologized, editors across Europe reprinted the cartoons in country after country. Journalists brandished the images as proud shields in what they view as a dangerous assault against freedom of expression, freedom of thought, and freedom of the press.

The new battle in the clash of civilization was joined. Arab countries -- where viciously anti-Semitic cartoons are daily fare -- recalled ambassadors from European posts. Mobs burned Danish embassies in several countries, police shot protesters in Kabul, and Palestinians threatened to kidnap citizens of the offending countries.

To Muslims, the printing and broadcast of the cartoons looks like a provocation, a transparent effort to hurt and to stereotype. To mainstream Europeans, however, this is a battle over which culture will have to adapt as East and West blend in a shrinking world. While it is true that discrimination against Muslims is on the rise, these cartoons were not part of a systematic effort to degrade and vilify Muslims. And the reprints have clearly been intended as a statement about press freedom, not as racist incitement. That should be the standard by which free societies judge whether offensive material can be permitted.

Editors routinely choose to leave material out. The choice is a cultural one. Profanity is replaced by bleeps, and disturbing images are left out. For Europe, however, the images of Mohammed represent one of today's most pressing questions. Whose culture will determine what is acceptable? The answer to that question will go a long way in determining the values of a fast changing Europe and an ever-shrinking world.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs. She is the author of A Changing World in the Age of Live Television.

JS Online: Palestinians: Welcome to the consequences of your vote

2006-02-05T13:41:00.000-05:00

JS Online: Palestinians: Welcome to the consequences of your vote

Palestinians: Welcome to the consequences of your vote
By FRIDA GHITIS
Sunday Feb 5, 2006

The world's reaction to the victory of Hamas in the Palestinian election provides more evidence of the hypocrisy of Western leaders when they claim to support the spread of democracy. That's the curious view making its way through the streets of the Arab world and the electronic alleys of the Internet.

The argument goes something like this: Since Hamas won the election through a democratic vote, the United States, Europe and the entire democratic world owe it a warm embrace.
An article in the Saudi Arab News charges that the West is being vindictive in demanding fundamental changes in Hamas as a condition for aid, simply because it did not like the results of the election.

A leader of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood calls Western reaction to the elections an "unacceptable double standard."

Aid to the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people, according to this view, should continue unimpeded, and a Hamas-led Palestinian government must be welcomed into the community of nations.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The Palestinian elections earned high marks from many quarters - including from President Bush - for producing a result that the world can recognize as reflecting the wishes of the Palestinian people.

Palestinians deserve recognition for conducting free elections. That is all their fledgling democratic process earns them from the international community.

World leaders, from the American president and European leaders to the secretary-general of the United Nations, agree that Hamas cannot expect support from the democratic community of nations unless it plays by the rules and principles of civilized society.

You don't vow to obliterate your neighbor and then receive hundreds of millions of dollars in aid from the West. The world simply doesn't work that way. (Or, at least it shouldn't.)
Since the Arab world has minimal experience with democracy, it can be forgiven from not having learned one of the key lessons of democracy: Elections have consequences.

Palestinian voters: Welcome to the consequences of your vote.

Since a majority of Palestinian voters cast their ballot for an organization devoted to the destruction of another country, the rest of the world now must decide how to deal with that. The world has no duty to give it financial or political support.

When voters in Serbia elected Slobodan Milosevic, the world did not exactly embrace their choice, either. Milosevic's commitment to criminal violence, militant racism and "ethnic cleansing" led to bombing of his forces by NATO's military. The people who elected Milosevic eventually saw the error of their ways.

Pollsters tell us many Palestinians turned to Hamas as a protest against the corruption of Fatah. If true, their protest appears to have backfired disastrously.

Forget about Israel for a moment. If Hamas achieves its aims within Palestinian society, the future looks bleak for those who elected them, especially women and minorities.

Hamas comes from the extremes of Islamism. In the West, we have seen the handiwork of Hamas in the carnage of their suicide bombings against passenger buses, nightclubs and restaurants inside Israel.

But this organization that claims its religious beliefs justify targeting and murdering civilians in the name of resistance has other ideas beyond its stated wish of obliterating Israel.

Hamas has openly declared it wants to rule by the strictest guidance of the Qur'an. That does not bode well for personal freedoms, for the lives of women and for the status of minorities.
We have seen what Islamic law has meant for quality of life in places like Saudi Arabia, Iran and Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.

The lifestyle choices of most Palestinians, believe it or not, run closer to those of Israel than those of Saudi Arabia.

Hamas officials have already spoken of imposing a special tax on non-Muslims, a throwback to ancient Islamic times, and an affront against the once-large Palestinian Christian community.

And if Hamas has its way, this election could end up marking the beginning and the end of democratic voting. Radical Islamists are not great supporters of democratic politics.
Palestinian voters knew exactly what Hamas stood for when they went to the polls. They knew voting for Hamas risked turning their back on the international community.
Like voters in other places, including many in the U.S., Palestinians may start having second thoughts about their choice at the ballot.

Unfortunately, they will have to live with the consequences of their decision. That's not a Western double standard. That's what happens when you elect a government.

Their best option now for Palestinians is to exert as much pressure as they can to force Hamas to change. If that does not happen - and if they see their own elected government turning into an oppressive one - they may have to consider redirecting that famous Palestinian resistance.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs. She is the author of "The End of Revolution: a Changing World in the Age of Live Television."

Google, We Hardly Knew You (Int'l Herald Tribune)

2006-01-30T08:47:00.000-05:00

Google, we hardly knew you
Frida Ghitis
FRIDAY, JANUARY 27, 2006

http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/01/26/opinion/
edghitis.php

A few years ago, I walked into an Internet room in Tibet's capital, Lhasa. There were no Chinese soldiers in the room, and no visible government censors nearby. A sign on the wall, however, reminded Web users that even after entering the stateless world of the Web, China's all-seeing eye had not disappeared. ''Do not use Internet,'' the warning instructed crassly, ''for any political or other unintelligent purposes.''

Since then, China's ruling regime has perfected the science of controlling what the Chinese can read or write on the Internet to such a degree that it has become the envy of tyrants and dictators the world over. We might have expected that from a regime that has proved it will do whatever it takes to stay in power. What we never expected was to see Google, the company whose guiding motto reads ''Don't be evil,'' helping in the effort.

Google's decision to help China censor searches on its brand-new Chinese Web site is not only a violation of its own righteous-sounding principles and an affront to those working to bring human rights to the Chinese people. No, Google's sellout to Beijing is a threat to every person who ever used Google anywhere in the world. That means all of us.

That's no exaggeration. Google saves every search, every e-mail, every fingerprint we leave on the Web when we move through its Google search engine, or its Gmail service, or its fast-growing collection of Internet offerings. Google knows more about us than the FBI or the CIA or the NSA or any spy agency of any government. And nobody regulates it. When a company that holds digital dossiers on millions of people decides profits are more important than principles, we are all at risk.

Google will now participate actively in a censorship program whose implications, according to Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet and Society, ''are profound and disturbing.'' The Chinese government blocks thousands of search terms — including censorship. To be fair, Google is hardly alone in its decision to capitulate to Beijing's rulers in order to gain a Web share of 1.3 billion inhabitants. China's tantalizing market has tested the ethics of many a Western corporation — and almost all have failed the test. That is particularly true in the Internet business.

Just last year, Yahoo helped Beijing's Web goons track down the identity of a Chinese journalist who wrote an e-mail about the anniversary of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre — a massacre of thousands of Chinese democracy advocates perpetrated by the same regime whose efforts Google now abets. The journalist, Shi Tao, was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Reporters Without Borders labeled Yahoo an ''informant'' that has ''collaborated enthusiastically'' with the Chinese regime. Microsoft, too, plays by the dictatorship's rules. Bloggers on MSN's service cannot type words such as ''democracy'' or ''freedom.''

Internet users cannot read or write about anything that even hints of opposition to the ruling Communist Party. Even pro-Western commentary can trigger a block. And forget anything about Tibet or the Dalai Lama. Chinese blog gers, incidentally, must all register and identify themselves to authorities. Neither Yahoo nor Microsoft claims to have higher ethical standards than the competition. The often-stated desire to ''do good'' and make the world a better place was one of the traits that endeared Google to the public. It was one of the reasons we trusted them to guard the precious and valuable contents of their thousands of servers. Now Google has become a company like all others, one with an eye on the bottom line before anything else.

The company has decided to help China's censors even as it fights a request for records from the U.S. Justice Department's investigation of online child pornography. Skeptics had claimed Google was resisting the request in order to protect its technology, rather than to protect users' privacy. That explanation now sounds more plausible than ever. We've long known about China's disdain for individual freedoms. But Google, we hardly knew you. It's definitely time to rethink that Gmail account and demand some safeguards from a potentially dangerous company. Perhaps at home, too, we will need to heed the Tibetan cybercafé warning, ''Do not use Internet for any political or unintelligent purposes.''

(Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs and is the author of ''The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live Television.'' This article first appeared in The Boston Globe.)

Madam President

2006-01-23T09:32:00.000-05:00

News Source (various newspapers)

“I am happy, happy, happy, happy, happy !”
That was the reaction of a woman in a Liberian market when asked about Africa’s first elected female president. Jubilation also illuminated faces in South America this weekend, when voters in Chile—one of the continent’s most traditional countries—went to the polls and elected yet another extraordinary woman to lead their nation. And, as if we hadn’t had enough history-making moments in recent days, the first female chancellor ever to lead Germany made her inaugural visit to Washington last week.

A quiet revolution is taking place. Women have slowly made their way to the top spots in governments on all continents. They come from all points on the political spectrum. And in much of the world, the revolution is just getting started.

Once upon a time, women could come to power only if their husbands or fathers cleared the way for them. Then, only “progressive” countries, such as the Scandinavian nations, routinely chose women as leaders. The rest were exceptions, seldom repeated : a Margaret Thatcher in Britain, a Golda Meir in Israel, an occasional prime minister in a Western European country.

This latest crop of women leaders is different. The new leaders of Liberia, Chile and Germany all come from countries that only recently emerged from oppressive dictatorships. Each one of these women came to public view as the result of her own extraordinary efforts. Chile’s Michelle Bachelet, who won the January 15 election, was imprisoned and tortured during the dictatorship of August Pinochet. She is a physician who speaks five languages and was minister of health and defense.

Perhaps her greatest feat of courage and skill, however, was standing up to the voters in a deeply Catholic country as an unabashed agnostic and single mother. And winning.

Liberia’s brand new president, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, takes over a country that just came out of one of that battered continent’s most brutal conflicts. In a war spurred by greedy warlords and fought by teenage soldiers high on drugs and testosterone, more than 200, 000 Liberians died. When peace finally came after international intervention, few would have guessed a nation ruled by muscle and guns would turn to a woman, impressed by her brains and her heart. The candidate almost everyone expected to win was George Weah, a world-renowned soccer superstar. The retired child-soldiers rallied around the footballer. But Liberians looked closely at their choices, and they made the smart choice. Weah is charismatic and probably well intentioned. But he is a high school drop-out with no government experience.

Johnson-Sirleaf holds a graduate degree from Harvard. She was finance minister in her country and she held a top development job at the United Nations. When she talked of working to bring clean government and development to her country, voters realized she may just know how to do it.

She promises to bring smiles to the faces of Liberian children once again, but she’s not your typical grandmother. Not for nothing, she’s known as the Iron Lady.

Angela Merkel comes to the top job in Germany by way of the East. She grew up in Communist East Germany, in the home of a Lutheran pastor in a country under a government that viewed religion with a combination of disdain and suspicion. She holds a doctorate in physics, but she moved into politics, becoming involved in the democracy movement. After the fall of the Berlin Wall and reunification, Merkel worked with Chancellor Helmut Kohl, gaining his trust and confidence, and gradually rising through the Christian Democratic Party. Lest anyone think all women are pacifists, Merkel took a strong stance in the lead up to the Iraq war. While most Germans—and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder—strongly opposed U. S. plans to attack Iraq, Merkel spoke out in favor of strong action to depose Saddam Hussein.

Once upon a time, idealists spoke of women leaders as the answer to the world’s problems. Women would be soft and smart. No testosterone, no war. As democracy takes root, the reality is proving a little different. When women stand for office, voters have more choices. Different women hold different points of view. These three new leaders face enormous expectations and they will be judged much more harshly than their male counterparts when all does not go according to plan.

Still, their election shows how much voters are missing in countries where women are still excluded from the political process.

One day, celebrations will come to places like Saudi Arabia and Syria and to the many countries where the thought of a woman-led government seems unthinkable today. There, too, the people will one day look at a leader they elected and find reason to smile.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs.

MiamiHerald.com | 01/17/2006 | 'Patience' allows Iran to win the game

2006-01-17T08:02:00.000-05:00

MiamiHerald.com 01/17/2006 'Patience' allows Iran to win the game

Allow me to suggest a new game for our times. Simply go online and Google the words Iran and patience. The first thing you will discover is that the world is ''running out of patience'' with Iran's nuclear games. Next you will notice that the world's patience was already running out years ago.

When the world is at the end of its rope, it appears, what comes next is a lot more rope.

If the situation with Iran were not so dangerous, the world's handling of the growing crisis could earn a place in the diplomatic comedy hall of fame.

After the diplomacy debacle that preceded the Iraq wars, negotiators are hard at work on the issue of Iran. Since late 2002, the international community has worked together to stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Iran insists its atom program seeks only energy, but the discovery of enormous secret nuclear facilities and Iran's on-again off-again cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency have fueled fears about Tehran's true intentions.

As far back as June 2004, the IAEA's Mohammed ElBaradei declared sharply that Iran's lack of cooperation was ''less than satisfactory'' and the world was, you guessed it, losing its patience. The matter was dragging, so ElBaradei, who has since won the Nobel Peace Prize, declared that the matter should be concluded in the ''next few months.'' That was almost 20 months ago.

In September 2004, a high-ranking British Diplomat told the London Times that Britain, France and Germany were, yes, losing patience with Iran's reluctance to curb its nuclear program. According to the unknown official, November (2004) was the deadline for Iran to stop nuclear activities and fully cooperate with the international community. Otherwise, the matter would be sent to the United Nations Security Council and Iran would face tough sanctions.

Washington has called for U.N. sanctions since the early days of the world's perennially dwindling patience. But Europe, ever devoted to talking, has managed to persuade the United States to give it time.
Iran continued talking, making and breaking promises. By August French President Jacques Chirac announced that he, too, was running out of patience. Iran must have shaken in its boots when Chirac warned that the Security Council might censure Iran if it didn't start cooperating.
Sanctions stalled

By then, Iran had elected a new president. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad made a name for himself as the first president of a U.N. member state to call for the destruction of another member. Calls for Israel's annihilation make the diplomatic follies over Iran's nuclear plans much less humorous.
Efforts to bring U.N. sanctions have stalled partly because Russia and China, with multibillion-dollar oil deals, don't want to antagonize Tehran's petroleum-soaked theocracy. The situation is complicated by Iran's location next to Iraq. Tehran could make life even more difficult for American forces there. Turning up the pressure on Iran carries risks for all sides. But the current strategy is an embarrassing and dangerous failure.

Diplomats seem impressed with themselves. They have managed to work together, just like in the old days, Europe and America on the same team. Only Iran does not seem to be playing well with others. That's why Iran is winning the game.

Last month ElBaradei declared that patience was ending. And last week, when Iran broke the seals of its uranium-enrichment plant in brazen defiance of the international community, Britain's Tony Blair expressed ''real and serious alarm.'' Russia's foreign minister spoke of ''deep disappointment.'' But Russia also said that Iran's actions were not illegal. Russia, it seems, does not fully share Europe and America's view on the danger posed by a nuclear-armed Iran.

Security Council

Back in August, when Chirac threatened the very scary censure, Iran's chief nuclear negotiator told an Iranian television interviewer, ''Thanks to our dealings with Europe, we managed to continue the work for two years.'' That's enough time, he said, to complete the uranium conversion facility in Isfahan.
European foreign ministers have met again, and again spoke of sending the issue to the Security Council. The time for talking and stalling and negotiating, without taking action, has to end some day. The nations that believe Iran must be sanctioned have waited long enough. Full sanction by the entire world would be ideal. But if some countries continue to stall, the moment is long overdue for ''sanctions by the willing'' as a first step.

More patience could prove catastrophic.
Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs.

A tragedy for Israelis and Palestinians | The San Diego Union-Tribune

2006-01-06T09:16:00.000-05:00

A tragedy for the Israelis and Palestinians | The San Diego Union-Tribune

January 6, 2006

Hours after the news that Ariel Sharon had suffered a devastating stroke, I received a message from Israel, quoting one of those expressions the Yiddish language has forged from centuries of despair. Mensch tracht und Gott lacht: Man plans and God laughs.

Palestinians in Gaza celebrated the news that their old nemesis, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, was unconscious and unlikely to recover. They have long despised the implacable foe that stood up to them for decades, often using the harshest of means in his unapologetic quest to protect Israel, whatever the cost. And yet, conceiving of the end of the Sharon Era – at this precise moment in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – is a tragedy for both the Israelis and the Palestinians.

Sharon has always had a deep respect for the cruelties of history. That explains his extraordinary transformation. The general who led his armies across Israel's borders rose to the top job in Israel and discovered that military victories alone could not protect his nation from disaster. That's when the once champion of the settler movement decided it was time to uproot Israeli settlers from Gaza.

Sharon had made a dramatic move from the extreme right wing of Israeli politics to the center. In the process, he gave Palestinians sovereignty they had never in their history had. Land that had been ruled by Romans, Turkish Ottoman, British and other empires throughout history, was for the first time in the hands of Palestinian Arabs. Sharon, the man they despised, had made it happen at a time when nobody else could have pulled it off. And that bit of history came to pass just last year.

Had Sharon remained in power, there is little doubt he would have made other bold moves, without waiting for consensus on either side.

Not all Arabs are celebrating the news about Sharon. Some Arab leaders expressed the acceptable diplomatic sentiments. But more importantly, many Arabs, who understand and even share the bitter feeling against the old general, realize the cost to Palestinians. One Palestinian analyst, Ghazi al-Saadi, told al-Arabiya television that despite the suffering he inflicted on Palestinians, "A living Sharon is better for the Palestinians now." In Beirut, the managing editor of the As-Safir newspaper, Sateh Noureddine, worried that without Sharon the already unstable security situation could worsen.

With the Palestinian side in chaos, Sharon had decided Israel would take the "painful" steps required for peace. Nobody knew exactly what he meant. Eventually, we discovered he meant moving out of Gaza. But the next steps were his own personal secret.

Sharon came to dominate Israeli politics because the public trusted him. His muscular military background gave him the credibility that may prove indispensable for any future leader, as long as Israelis feel their country's very survival is still threatened.

The vast majority of Israelis believed Sharon when he said Israel could survive after narrowing its borders by giving back occupied territory.

When he pulled out of the right-wing Likud Party he helped build to put together the new Kadima (forward) Party, he immediately drew the support of major political and military figures. He also gained the backing of a plurality of Israeli voters. He never spelled out exactly what he planned to do. And, in the campaign to prove he was still in charge after his first stroke three weeks ago, he failed to name his choice for a successor.

The acting prime minister, Ehud Olmert, is nominally the second in command at Kadima. Olmert is well liked and respected. But he does not bring the charisma or the military credentials that made it possible for Sharon to lead a nation that feels threatened.

In Israel more than anywhere, politics is much too important to be left up to mere politicians. Israel, indeed the entire Middle East, needs real statesmen.

And yet, one of Sharon's great accomplishments, one that the younger warrior Sharon would have never believed, was moving the country to the political center.

If, after all, God is not laughing at the plans made by Sharon and his followers, somebody will step in and fill the void. Israelis will now have to find someone they trust to protect them and lead them to a safer future. Without that person, peace for Israelis and for Palestinians will have to wait.

Ghitis writes about world affairs. She is the author of "The End of Revolution: a Changing World in the Age of Live Television."

Forum: Peace (almost) on Earth. Really.

2006-01-01T09:18:00.000-05:00

Forum: Peace (almost) on Earth. Really.

Forum: Peace (almost) on Earth. Really.
Strange but true, the world is less war-torn than you might think, reports Frida Ghitis
Sunday, January 01, 2006

Is it me, or has the holiday season taken on a gloomy tone in recent years? Among the New Year's wishes I received this year came some that sounded downright apocalyptic. If the world survives, the well-wishers seemed to suggest, then we can consider it a happy new year. The prevailing view, it appears, is that the world is on the wrong path, and headed for probable destruction. Wars everywhere, massacres, bombings, killings. Things have never been worse.

As it happens, exactly the opposite is true. The world, believe it or not, has never been a more peaceful place.

Turn on the television or read the newspaper. Death and destruction fill the pages and the airwaves. Take a step back from the explosions and the funerals, and scan the entire horizon beyond the soldiers and the war zones, and the picture is quite different.

That's what researchers of all stripes have been doing in recent years, and virtually all of them are discovering the same thing: peace on Earth. That's the trend in this troubled world of ours: less war, more freedom, more peace.

One of those studies, released a couple of months ago at the United Nations, concluded that the number of armed conflicts has declined by 40 percent since the end of the Cold War. And last year had the lowest number of civil conflicts in almost 30 years, according to the 2005 Human Security Report. That includes not only wars between countries, but civil wars and all forms of violent political conflict. Only terrorism is on the rise.

And in perhaps the best news of all, the study (funded by the governments of Sweden, Norway, Canada, Britain and Switzerland) found that the number of deaths per conflict is plummeting along with the decline in the number of wars.

This is all hard to believe when your own country is at war. When civilians, soldiers and journalists are dying in Iraq or Afghanistan; when terrorists are killing tourists in London, Bali, Madrid and Jerusalem; when genocidal armies are slaughtering civilians in Darfur, it doesn't sound like a world at peace. Death and war are resisting stubbornly, but peace and democracy have clearly gained the upper hand.

The U.N. report from last October, conducted by researchers working under Andrew Mack at the University of British Columbia, corroborates the findings of other studies. This spring, Monty Marshall of George Mason University and Ted Robert Gurr from the University of Maryland arrived at similar conclusions. The number of wars, they found, is trending down from a high of 49 at the end of 1991 to just 25 at the end of 2004, the lowest number since 1976. Ah, you say, but the number of wars is not what matters. It's the kind of war. Mr. Marshall and Mr. Gurr say fighting in many of the remaining conflicts is "low-level and de-escalating."

Many people will find it disturbing to even acknowledge the decline in armed conflict at a time when wars still rage. The authors are quick to point out the remaining -- and very serious -- risks, such as the possible emergence of new genocidal conflicts and the upsurge of terrorism. But ignoring what is a reversal in one of the most horrific practices in human history can blind us to the ways in which progress has been achieved. Mr. Marshall and Mr. Gurr warn against underestimating the progress as a disservice to those who have made the changes possible.

Diplomats, politicians and scientists offer a range of explanations for the astonishing drop in the level of worldwide conflict. Diplomats say it was diplomacy. The United Nations likes to highlight its peacekeeping operations. And many political scientists argue that the so-called unipolar world that came after the Cold War, with the United States left as the sole and overwhelming superpower, may be the key factor reducing the level of conflicts. No longer do we have proxy wars, with the two superpowers arming their satellites as adversaries. The United States has the muscle to persuade nations (say India and Pakistan) to hold their fire. And no nation has the strength to take on America one on one, even while Washington sends its soldiers to faraway lands.

Democracy, say many scholars, is the key factor in bringing peace. When the public has power, the public (eventually) pushes for peace.

The most encouraging explanation for the outbreak of peace comes well documented by Freedom House.

The non-partisan group has just published its 2005 global survey "Freedom in the World." The survey examines the status of civil liberties across the world, looking at indicators such as freedom of the press, the rights of women and the rule of law. Freedom House concluded that, "the past year was one of the most successful for freedom since Freedom House began measuring world freedom in 1972." The group's researchers found the most significant improvements in the Arab world, which still lags the rest of the globe in freedom, but is showing measurable movement.

Sure, there's a long way to go. To the families of the dead, surveys and global charts mean little. For the people of Darfur, still facing genocide, the improving global picture provides no protection. Freedom is a most personal matter. And yet, there is reason for optimism.

When people of all political persuasions agree that the world has become a more peaceful place, perhaps it's time to turn off the all-news networks just for a moment and contemplate what is happening: Truly, we may be moving towards peace on Earth.

Frida Ghitis, an international television journalist for over 20 years, is the author of "The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live Television" (fghitis@yahoo.com).

Herald.com | 12/23/2005 | Sharon's Stress Level

2005-12-23T12:41:00.000-05:00

Ariel Sharon's doctors have advised him to try to reduce the stress in his life. That's a good one.

Let's see: Not only is the Israeli prime minister starting a new political party and running a campaign for elections coming in less than 100 days, but he has the kind of job that most of us get palpitations just thinking about.

While world leaders worry about how to answer Iran's efforts to build a nuclear bomb, the 77-year-old Sharon, who just left the hospital after suffering a mild stroke, knows exactly what Iran would like to do with a bomb if it had one. Sharon knows many in the region nodded in agreement when Iran's president said Israel should be ``wiped off the map.''

Iran is just one of the many matters on Sharon's presumably sharp mind. The man who has been told to cut back on stress has to worry about another election besides his own. The Islamic group Hamas, whose charter calls for the destruction of Israel, and whose members are champions in the competitive field of killing Israeli civilians in suicide bombings, is moving up in the Palestinian polls. When Palestinians elect a new parliament early next year, there is a real possibility that they could choose an organization whose reason for being is not just taking over what is widely known as the Occupied Territories, but bringing an end to the state of Israel.

New party
Despite the lull in news reports, Israel is still facing attempted suicide bombings on a regular basis, and Palestinian militants are repeatedly launching missiles across the border into Israeli cities. But Sharon's doctors say he should ease off the bagels and cut back on stress.

That, of course, is reason for the entire Israeli public to check its blood pressure. That's because now everyone is thinking the thought that was too frightening to contemplate just a few days ago.

What would happen if Sharon suddenly died?
Israel is a democracy. That means there are institutions and mechanisms in place to replace a sitting head of government. But Sharon has just decimated his old Likud party to form the new Kadima. The new head of what's left of Likud is Sharon's old nemesis, Benjamin Netanyahu. And the former leader of the rival Labor party, 82-year-old Shimon Peres, is now also with Kadima. The new party has no rules, no membership list, no platform. The party, let's face it, is all about Sharon.

Netanyahu hopes that a weakened, faltering, or dead Sharon would mean the prime minister's office for him. But Netanyahu's Likud is third in the polls, trailing Sharon and Labor's new leader Amir Peretz. Kadima was topping the polls before the stroke and is showing even stronger numbers now. That means that Israeli voters want what Sharon offers. It means that, in Sharon's absence, the Israeli public will look for a leader offering the two elements of Sharon's new political persona: the prospects of a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the vow to reach that solution without diminishing Israel's strength.

A real chance to achieve peace with strength and security: That's what Sharon means to Israelis. And that's what Israelis want.

Two-state solution

Once upon a time, Sharon was the champion of Israeli settlers and of those unwilling to give an inch to the Palestinians. No more. Sharon knows that to survive, Israel will have to live side by side with a Palestinian state. If it holds on to the Territories, Israel will cease to be a democracy.
Acceptance of a Palestinian state used to be the province of the Israeli left. But it is now in the undisputed mainstream of Israeli politics. Israelis -- not unlike most Palestinians -- see the two-state-solution as the new Promised Land. When (not if) the two sides agree on the borders, there will be peace -- at least with some of the Arab world. In the meantime, there are Iran, Hamas, Syria, Islamic Jihad, suicide bombers, missiles and elections. Not even Moses could handle that much pressure. But maybe Sharon -- and the stressed-out Israeli voters -- can pull it off.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs.

Iran's Lectures on Tolerance

2005-12-19T09:22:00.000-05:00

Iran’s Lectures on Tolerance
By Frida Ghitis

The new government of Iran has launched a campaign for more tolerance, open-mindedness and freedom of speech in the West. Yes, Tehran now argues that, "The Europeans should get used to hearing other opinions, even if they don't like them.” How refreshing.
Fortunately, those close-minded Europeans will have none of it.
The call for more tolerance for differing views in Europe and the United States came from Iran’s foreign ministry following the furious response from the West to claims by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that the Holocaust – Nazi Germany’s slaughter of six million Jews -- was a “myth.”

The Europeans called Ahmadinejad’s Holocaust denials “Wholly unacceptable,” and the US declared them “Outrageous.” Iran thinks they overreacted and says its time for an “academic debate.”
Some may still wonder why the West does not want to engage in a debate about history. What are we afraid of? The answer is that we have played this game before.
Europeans heard this kind of rhetorical Jujitsu many times before; an attempt to use the West’s own values against it.
As always, the calls for open-mindedness on the Holocaust come from individuals and groups with a track record that shows little tolerance and respect for other views, not to mention other races and religions.
If it weren’t so troublesome, it would be almost be funny to hear Iran, of all countries, call for open-mindedness and tolerance. This is a regime that imprisons journalists, assassinates opposition figures and executes gay teenagers. It won’t even tolerate Western music on state radio and television stations. According to Human Rights Watch, Iran’s government has closed down more than 100 opposition newspapers just since 2000. The revolutionary regime has executed thousands of real and perceived opponents since taking power. HRW says members of President Ahmadinejad’s new cabinet, particularly the Ministers of Information and the Interior should be investigated for crimes against humanity, including the assassination of dissidents in and out of Iran.
It is no coincidence that the same regime that suppresses dissent now calls for more tolerance on its views about the events of World War II.
Iran is not alone in its efforts to deny the Holocaust. It joins a long list of racists and demagogues who have tried to say the Holocaust never happened. And Iran did not invent the strategy of calling for more openness in discussing the issue.
As Emory University’s Dr. Deborah Lipstadt has described in convincing detail, Holocaust deniers use a strategy of distorting the truth in order to further their ideological objectives. The key point to examine when one listens to their exhortations for academic freedom is that theirs is not an argument in pursuit of learning the truth. They are not seeking to enhance the world’s body of historical knowledge. Their denial that the killing of six million Jews ever happened is a key element in a political effort to distort the truth in order to achieve political goals.
Hitler’s almost successful efforts to exterminate the Jewish people have been studied and documented to such a degree that no legitimate scholar any longer questions them.
The evidence of a one of the greatest crimes in history is overwhelming, from the eye-witness testimony from victims and perpetrators, to the physical evidence from gas chambers used to kill and the ovens used to dispose of bodies, to mountains of documents from the Third Reich and bits of information about the lives of millions of people killed in Europe’s death camps during World War II. True scholars now focus not on whether it happened -- which was conclusively answered decades ago -- but why.
Deniers, however, persist. That’s because claiming the Holocaust did not happen is a useful tool when pursuing other objectives. And those objectives always involve some form of intolerance, from anti-Semitism to generic racism.
Take Iran, for example. When the country’s new rabble-rousing president called the Holocaust an “invention,” he had already called Israel a “tumor” that should be “wiped off the map.”
Iran’s president now joins a group of Holocaust deniers, many of whom, incidentally, would refuse to sit in a room with an Iranian, a Muslim, an Arab, or a Jew.
We already know about the Holocaust. The matter still open for debate is what to do about the danger Ahmadinejad and his regime pose to the world.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs. She’s the author of “The End of Revolution: a Changing World in the Age of Live Television.”

Herald.com | 12/16/2005 | Hurricane Katrina's impact on Iraq

2005-12-16T09:06:00.000-05:00

Hurricane Katrina's impact on Iraq

BY FRIDA GHITIS

As with virtually every new political step in post-Saddam Iraq, Thursday's vote by millions of Iraqis choosing a new government brings enormous expectations. Iraq's brave and determined voters present a powerful counterattack against extremist jihadists who would turn the country into an oppressive theocracy. And then, there's that other challenging goal, the need to recover from the damages wrought by Katrina on Iraq. Yes, that Katrina.

Of all the threats the Iraqi nation has faced in the last few decades -- wars against Iran and Kuwait, an American invasion, waves of suicide bombings, an incipient civil war -- none came more unexpectedly than Hurricane Katrina. The storm that battered the U.S. Gulf Coast more than 7,000 miles away from Baghdad didn't spill a drop of water on the Iraqi desert. And yet, it broke apart the leaking levees that had precariously held back the doubts of the American public about its government policies in Iraq.

When the structures collapsed, the White House found itself drowning in a sea of plummeting approval ratings. For Iraq, this meant the enormous danger that Washington would make decisions based more on boosting ratings than on improving the chances of success for their fledgling democracy.

To be sure, support for the Iraq campaign had been on a steady slide before Katrina struck in late August. But the floor collapsed after the calamity that followed the hurricane. For millions of Americans, Katrina left a nearly indelible impression that this administration is incompetent, unreliable and duplicitous. If it couldn't be trusted in New Orleans and Mississippi, it could not be trusted in Iraq.

Support for the war crumbled along with President Bush's overall approval ratings. In the weeks after Katrina, a Gallup poll showed a jump of almost 10 percent in the number of Americans disapproving of Mr. Bush's job in Iraq. The number of people saying they believe the administration deliberately lied about the presence of weapons of mass destruction also jumped. As the mold grew on the walls of devastated New Orleans homes, pessimism about Iraq became rooted in the American psyche.

Ironically, the Iraqi people have remained extraordinarily optimistic about the prospects for their own country. A recent poll conducted by Oxford Research International on behalf of five media organizations from Japan, Germany, the United States and the UK, found more than 70 percent of Iraqis saying their lives are good or very good. That's unchanged from a similar poll last year.
Iraqis, most of whom said they personally feel secure in their own neighborhoods and in their own lives, expressed concerns for their country; but two-thirds of those polled said they believe life will improve next year.

And, with incomes up an average of 60 percent in the last 20 months, 70 percent said their economic situation was good. Not surprisingly, a majority (65 percent) of Iraqis said they oppose the U.S. presence there, but only 26 percent said they want the troops out immediately. Iraqis, like many Americans -- including many who opposed the war -- know that a departure by U.S. forces now, with only a semi-trained Iraqi army in place, would bring disaster.

Perhaps most encouraging of all were the political preferences reflected in the poll. Some 57 percent said they want a democracy, versus just 14 percent who want an Islamic state. That's a drop in support for religious regime from the last time the question was asked. A ''strong leader'' was the choice of 26 percent.
Of course, in a war situation the bullets can prevail over the wishes of the majority. If the 14 percent who want an Islamic state win on the battlefield, the 57 percent who want democracy may never vote again.

Is that likely to happen? A poll by the Pew Research Center and the Council on Foreign Relations showed two different views in America.

The survey, released a few weeks ago, showed that 64 percent of U.S. military officers believe the United States will succeed in establishing a successful democracy in Iraq. When pollsters asked journalists and academics the same question, fewer than one third of them said Iraq would become a stable democracy.

Who's right -- the Iraqi people, the military officers or the journalists and academics? That will depend, in large part, on what the United States does. In the end, it may all depend on whether Iraqi voters succeed in recovering from the effect of hurricane Katrina.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs.

The music that plays in Mexico's background

2005-12-09T12:45:00.000-05:00

Star-Telegram | 12/04/2005 | The music that plays in Mexico's background

PUERTO ESCONDIDO, Mexico - If you travel through the villages and towns of Mexico asking people about their lives and about the idea of crossing their country's northern border, you discover that the siren song that has brought immigrants to the United States over the centuries never stops calling, its unsettling sounds inviting and threatening at the same time.

The prospect of an odyssey across the desert beckons like a mirage of opportunity and danger. Every single person I have asked, without exception, has told me about relatives who have gone to the United States.

Everyone, without exception, has talked about having at least considered going to the country where there is money to be made, but only for those willing to go through terrifying dangers to reach an unknown land.

Noe Silva, who works in this fishermen's town on Mexico's Pacific coast, told me he makes about $4,000 a year working a variety of odd jobs. He's a waiter when the tourists come, a carpenter when they leave. And he even moved to work in neighboring Chiapas for a few years. That's where the rebel Zapatista army a few years ago declared an old-fashioned leftist revolutionary war on behalf of the poorest of the poor.

Silva has considered the trek to the United States many times. But the fear of dying in the desert keeps him from trying it. Besides, he says, this is the land he knows. This is where he walks on the beach every morning, where his father took him out fishing as a child. Where he knows everyone and everyone knows him.

For the millions who make it to the United States, a life of relatively high earnings does not mean a life of comfort. Mexican migrants send so much of what they make back to their families that remittances have become the second-largest source of revenue for Mexico, second only to oil exports.

Mexico needs the cash, but the belief that America would simply stop functioning without Mexico's millions of undocumented workers is almost universal here.

The concept was most undiplomatically expressed by the country's President Vicente Fox, when he said Mexicans do the jobs that "not even blacks will do." The statement rightly enraged African-Americans, but the thought that the United States needs Mexicans is widespread.

One conspiratorially minded Mexican explained Washington's policy this way: The United States needs Mexicans, so it makes it illegal and dangerous for them to come. That way, only the most talented and strong and determined end up making it. That's how Americans want it.

The conspiracy takes it a bit far, but the view from a man who, like many Mexicans, resents and mistrusts Washington holds the key to the Darwinian secrets of immigration.

One of the reasons that the United States has become one of the most successful countries in history is that it was built by immigrants, a self-selected group that has always included some of the most determined, driven and hard-working people from around the world.

As long as the United States needs workers and Mexico has more people than jobs, as long as Mexico remains so much poorer than the United States, Mexicans will give in to the call and seek to make their fortune in America. And as long as there is no viable legal option to enter the United States, an illegal infrastructure rather than legitimate immigration authorities will control the border.

That will make the Mexico-U.S. frontier one that will open America to anyone willing to pay cash and take the risk.

Toronto Star - Europe casts wary eye on France

2005-11-19T11:30:00.000-05:00

TheStar.com - Europe casts wary eye on France: "Europe casts wary eye on France
Nov. 18, 2005. 01:00 AM
FRIDA GHITIS

The Paris fires are turning to white smoke, doused by emergency laws but giving off enough steam to keep nerves on edge and still capable of flaring again to those furious yellow flames that shot fear through Europe's heart. Still, after weeks of rioting, many in France, including President Jacques Chirac, now recognize that much explosive fuel remains.
France and the rest of Europe face a problem that politicians will not simply solve with emergency laws and hordes of tough cops.
For a while, clever European politicians thought they had found an elegant way to dodge the continent's long-running dilemma of a shrinking 'white' population, a need for more young workers, and a not-so-secret wish to keep away immigrants from non-white countries.
The plan was to enlarge the European Union. By opening Western Europe to the less prosperous resident of the old Eastern Bloc, the new workers would flood in, blonde and blue-eyed, from countries like Poland and Hungary.
Although millions of easterners are coming, economic growth back home is limiting the exodus. Besides, there is another detail: Millions of Europeans are the children and grandchildren of immigrants. Most of the rioters may have dark skin and non-European sounding names, but they are European-born. Europe is their home and they're not going anywhere.
When the Paris suburbs exploded, Europe looked on with the creeping dread of recognition. A frightened consensus emerged that it is probably just a matter of time before the children of immigrants from the Middle East and Africa � Europe's new underclass � bring m"

Herald.com | 11/12/2005 | Attacking a Hyatt, killing Arabs

2005-11-12T05:15:00.000-05:00

Bombing a Hyatt, Killing Muslims

BY FRIDA GHITIS

fghitis@yahoo.com

Among the scores of families who felt their hearts stop in awful foreboding at news of terrorist bombings in Amman were the relatives of an Israeli, a 40-year-old husband and father of three, who had just traveled to the Jordanian capital.

Fearing the worst, they called his cellphone. It rang and rang. He was dead.

Killing an Israeli civilian might be construed as a propaganda coup for al Qaeda. Except, the Israeli was Husam Fathi Mahajna, an Arab and a Muslim. The three suicide bombings also killed the Palestinian West Bank intelligence chief and a number of other high-ranking Palestinian figures.

Observers have rushed to describe the targets of the Amman attacks as ''Western.'' But anyone who has witnessed the joyous ululations of wedding receptions in Amman hotels knows the guests are almost all Muslim Arabs, probably Palestinians, who make up the majority of Jordan's population. The bombers who killed at least 57 people knew they were not killing scores of Americans.

The reality is that, as with most operations by al Qaeda and its affiliates, the overwhelming majority of the victims were Muslim, and that was not a fluke.

No democratic aspirations

If Islamic extremists hired a public-relations firm, the first advice they would hear is to stop slaughtering fellow Muslims. Killing other Arabs, especially Palestinians, is no way to make friends in the Muslim world. Mahajna's uncle told an Israeli journalist, ``I have no answer for such crazy people who choose to hurt innocents.''

While some have predictably rushed to blame Washington and the Iraq intervention for the terrorism, millions of Arabs are revolted by the barbarism of these attacks.

In fact, many of the same experts who explain that the bombings were directed at ''Western targets'' also said al Qaeda's action would turn people against it. What they fail to see is that al Qaeda is not waging a popularity campaign. Al Qaeda has no democratic aspirations.

If killing Muslims is such a counterproductive tactic, why do they continue to do it? And if it is so counterproductive, why is al Qaeda surviving, maybe even thriving?

Attacking an American brand such as Hyatt or Days Inn may provide some faint political cover, legitimizing the claim that the attack aimed at the American ''crusaders'' and their allies. But the real objective is to undermine and ultimately depose the secular Jordanian government of King Abdullah II.

When suicide bombers can blow up three hotels, the regime looks weak and vulnerable. The people may initially rally around their leader, but in their eyes the government loses a little luster. A major attack -- killing scores of people, as this last wave of bombings did -- inevitably brings about a massive drop in tourism and frightens potential investors. It hurts the economy and helps foment discontent. It also forces the government to crack down. Crackdowns against terrorism are usually harsh and tend to become deeply unpopular after patience with security wears off.

The Jordanian regime is one of the Arab systems that has made noticeable -- if small and slow -- moves towards democracy. Each day, Jordan steps a little farther from the ideal society envisioned by Islamic radicals. Every day it looks a little less likely to resemble the Taliban's Afghanistan, a nightmare for most who lived there, but an earthly Nirvana for advocates of a return to the 7th century Caliphate, the bizarre dream of al Qaeda's time-travel dreamers.

Ease off on beheadings

Whether or not the people of Jordan love al Qaeda is a secondary concern. More important is the strength of the existing secular government in a relatively progressive Muslim country; a government al Qaeda would like to overthrow.

That, at least, is the calculation of some in al Qaeda. It is a gamble, of course, and there are indications that some in the organization's hierarchy worry about the impact of killing Muslims. An intercepted letter, believed written by al Qaeda's number two, Ayman al-Zawahiri, to Zarqawi in Baghdad, urged him to ease off on the beheadings and the mass murder of Muslims that were disgusting the Islamic nation. But Zarqawi has proved unstoppable.

We could conclude he is a poor tactician, but judging by the success of his efforts to undermine the Iraqi regime, he just may have it horribly right.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs

The Dutch, Too Tolerant for Their Own Good?

2005-10-29T11:45:00.000-04:00

WASHINGTON POST --

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/28/AR2005102802437.html

The Dutch, Too Tolerant for Their Own Good?
A Country Caught Between Tradition And Terrorism

By Frida Ghitis

Sunday, October 30, 2005; Page B04

AMSTERDAM

"Why would religious Muslims choose to come here, of all places," a city resident wondered as we discussed the tense debate over Islamic radicalism in the Netherlands. Within a few blocks of where we spoke, near the modern Opera House and the painter Rembrandt's historic home, tourists walked across quaint canal bridges into coffee shops where varieties of marijuana fill the menu, and gay couples stepped into Amsterdam's City Hall for wedding ceremonies that government officials have been conducting here for years without controversy.

Over the centuries, the Netherlands has come to see itself as the world's champion of tolerance, much as America considers itself the world headquarters of individual freedom. That proud self-image, however, has abruptly given way to an angst-filled identity crisis leaving the Dutch struggling to figure out how to deal with the very real risk of terrorism, wondering how to persuade Muslim immigrants to embrace their tradition of tolerance.

The Netherlands is a country torn between its efforts to preserve a cherished identity and the need to protect itself from murderous fanatics. That's an experience familiar to practically every democracy faced with a terrorist threat. But nowhere I've been is the tension between security and tolerance as plainly visible as it is here. What the Dutch are discovering is that protecting their way of life may require undermining some of the very values they are trying to protect.

First to fall was the taboo against criticizing other cultures. The man to smash that taboo was the iconoclastic Pim Fortuyn, whose controversial statements against Islam and immigration ended when he was murdered (by an animal rights activist) in 2002. But his argument -- that the only way to protect Dutch tolerance was to be less tolerant -- was embraced by other politicians. Fortuyn, who was gay, was incensed when he heard Muslim clerics in Holland compare homosexuals to pigs and dogs. Tolerating this kind of speech from immigrants, said Fortuyn, would eventually lead to the destruction of the society the Dutch so carefully constructed.

While the Dutch are worried about the threat to their culture, they are terrified of what they believe is an impending terrorist attack. Polls show that it's the top concern of the population. Recent events have given the Dutch reason to worry. A few weeks ago, news reports here announced that the Dutch parliament building had been sealed and that there were police activities in several cities. Anxious moments later, word got around that police raids had netted seven people suspected of plotting terrorist strikes. Just days later, authorities in Baltimore stopped all traffic for almost two hours in a major tunnel under the Baltimore Harbor, responding to a tip about a possible attack that reportedly came from a man held in custody in the Netherlands.

One of those arrested in the Dutch raids was Samir Azzouz, a baby-faced 19-year-old who had already faced Dutch justice a few months earlier. Azzouz went to trial last spring after police allegedly found he had links to theHofstad terror group. In his apartment they found explosives and maps of the Amsterdam airport, the parliament building and a nuclear power plant. But the progressive Dutch system, which does not even allow the media to reveal a convicted criminal's last name, ruled some of the evidence inadmissible and acquitted him of the terrorism charges but convicted him of illegal arms possession.

The latest wave of arrests came after authorities said they found a video of Azzouz in which he said goodbye to his friends and family and, speaking in Arabic, referred to a certain "act" he was committing. Police claim he had been trying to buy explosives, and they believe he was planning a suicide bombing.

Many here expect an attack soon, perhaps to commemorate the anniversary of the day that changed everything. The day that so thoroughly traumatized Holland, not unlike America's 9/11, was Nov. 2, 2004, when a Muslim extremist killed and nearly decapitated the filmmaker Theo van Gogh in broad daylight on an Amsterdam street.

Van Gogh's own story captures the conflict over tolerance. The talented filmmaker had made a career of stirring controversy in a country that thrived on the unconventional. He had insulted just about every segment of society, and they put up with it. But when his film "Submission" offended some Muslims, extremists decided he, along with a number of politicians, must die. The killer, Mohammed Bouyeri, turned to van Gogh's mother after his conviction and said, "I do not feel your pain." He also vowed he would kill again if he were freed.

A telling commentary on the killing comes from Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali-born member of the Dutch parliament who made the contentious movie with van Gogh and who describes herself as a "former Muslim." She has been sharply critical not only of Islam but also of the tolerance of Dutch society for certain aspects of Islamic culture. Hirsi Ali, whose life has been repeatedly threatened, believes the Dutch have allowed Muslims, particularly extremists, to keep traditions that simply should not be tolerated in the West -- such as their oppression of women. We can call it respect for another culture, she says, but they are human rights abuses. She sees that oppression as part of a subculture that calls for enforcing one's will, often through violence, in the name of an extreme interpretation of Islam.

One response to van Gogh's killing was a display of intolerance. Dutch youths took to the streets and burned Muslim schools and mosques. Most in Holland were horrified by the violence. The attacks have ended, but there is still a sense of confusion in the country. A year later, the atmosphere is the kind that helps extremists on all sides thrive. A number of politicians are living under police protection, even as they continue to receive death threats from Islamic radicals.

The immigration minister, Rita Verdonk, "Iron Rita," is spearheading a number of reforms that strike deep into the hearts of Dutch liberals. New immigrants, particularly from Muslim countries, are being required to take courses in Dutch language and society and they will have to pass a test to show their proficiency in Dutch culture in order to immigrate to the Netherlands. The latest proposal includes banning the burqa -- the head-to-toe cover worn by some Muslim women -- in public places. And a new plan would have foreigners expelled from the Netherlands for committing even minor crimes. Some politicians, like the flamboyant Geert Wilders with his bleached blond bouffant hair, call for a complete ban on immigrants from the Muslim world. Wilders, also facing death threats and living in hiding under police protection, says Islam is simply incompatible with democracy.

Defenders of immigrant rights and other liberal groups worry that a climate of discrimination is spreading through the deceptively placid and sedate Dutch landscape. Others say the Netherlands has always had a nasty streak hidden beneath the charming facade of quaint canals, tulip gardens and its everything-goes society.

The atmosphere, as they say, is ripe for abuse by extremist politicians. The threat, however, is not a political fabrication. The danger from extremism is real, and the presence of a radicalized core of Muslim extremists requires action. There is every reason to believe that some of the actions the government takes will create more resentments and, at least to some degree, undermine the freedoms and tolerance that the Dutch have valued as the core of their national identity.

The Dutch system, say people like Hirsi Ali, assumed all sides would practice tolerance. In a world in which the ways of one culture can prove so deeply offensive to others, and in which some of those who take offense express their objections through murder, those rules simply have to change.

Author's e-mail : fghitis@yahoo.com

Frida Ghitis, a frequent visitor to the Netherlands, is the author of "The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live Television" (Algora Publishing).

Herald.com | 10/28/2005 | Take Iran leader's threat seriously

2005-10-28T21:54:00.000-04:00

So, another Muslim fanatic has just called for the destruction of Israel. Big deal. Another day, another genocidal anti-Semite. That might have been the reaction of some at news of the Iranian president's declaration on Wednesday that Israel must be ''wiped off the map.'' Look more closely, however, and this is not your everyday spewing of poisonous extremism. Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has shown his cards and the world may live to regret its passivity if it fails to take him seriously.

The statement did not come from some masked teenage radical or from a fringe shadowy group. And the call to arms did not urge forcing Israel to withdraw from occupied territories or even for regime change. This was the president of a country, the man who recently represented his nation at the U.N. podium, urging his followers to obliterate another country from the face of the Earth.

As it happens, Ahmadinejad is not just the president of any country. He leads a nation that much of the world believes is actively working to arm itself with nuclear weapons.

For those who find solace in his threat to destroy only Israel, the Iranian president predicted, ``We shall soon experience a world without the United States.''

Palestinian state

The Iranian president also issued a veiled threat against the growing number of Muslim countries now seeking to improve relations with Israel, warning that nations moving to recognize Israel will ''burn in the fire of the Islamic nation's fury.'' Now that most Arab countries demand the creation of a Palestinian state, rather than the destruction of Israel, and even the president of the Palestinian Authority speaks of two nations living side by side in peace, Iran stands with the extremist rejectionists, who would accept nothing but the annihilation of Israel. The Iranian president has become more kosher than the rabbi, to use an expression he might not appreciate.

Ahmadinejad's speech comes a couple of days after the respected Jane's Defense Weekly reported details of an agreement between the governments of Iran and Syria. According to Jane's, Iran will work with Syria to help it establish four or five facilities dedicated to the production of chemical weapons.

Iran could hardly find a more suitable partner. The Syrian regime of Bashar al-Assad has just been found guilty by a U.N. investigator of plotting and carrying out the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister. While the rest of the world cheerfully speaks of something it optimistically likes to call the ''Community of Nations,'' the two repressive regimes behave like members of an international mafia, taking out contracts on troublesome politicians, deciding which countries deserve to be wiped out, building up their deadly arsenals and encouraging killers in the region.

Just a few hours after the speech, a Palestinian suicide bomber detonated himself at an outdoor food stand inside Israel, killing five people who just happened to have walked up to get something to eat.

While Iran and Syria act, the international community mostly talks.

To their credit, Western governments did react promptly (with words, of course) to diplomatically protest Ahmadinejad's statements.

The West, however, has shown little backbone in standing up to these thoroughly thuggish and extremely dangerous regimes. European leaders continue to insist on negotiating a deal to end Iran's illegal nuclear projects, even with Iran calling for the destruction of other countries and actively arming militia groups dedicated to turning its vision of doom into reality.

Last August, the chief Iranian negotiator in the nuclear talks told an audience on Iranian television: ``Thanks to the negotiations with Europe, we gained another year, in which we completed the (nuclear reprocessing plant) in Isfahan.''

For Europeans who may take comfort that Iran's vision only includes a world without Israel and the United States, Ahmadinejad had another little hint of his worldview, saying he sees relations between the two sides as part of the ''historic war'' between Islam and the West.

Iran's cards are now plainly open and on the table. The West has the next play.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs.

Star-Telegram | 10/24/2005 | Justice in Baghdad

2005-10-25T18:30:00.000-04:00

Posted on Mon, Oct. 24, 2005

Justice in Baghdad

By FRIDA GHITIS

Special to the Star-Telegram

AMSTERDAM - In cafés throughout the Netherlands, Iraqi refugees clustered around TV sets, watching the start of Saddam Hussein's trial in Baghdad's Green Zone. In the smoky gathering places of their adopted land, they stared nervously at the shaky images and strained to make out the barely audible sound of proceedings against the man whose agents had snatched their relatives in the middle of the night, the man who turned their country into a land of dread, torture and perpetual war.

Then they heard the Western commentators argue whether Saddam would get a fair trial, or whether the proceedings should be dismissed as political theater or "victor's justice."

As survivors of the Iraqi dictator heard the commentators expound on the flaws of Iraq's efforts to try Saddam at home, prosecutors at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, in The Hague, dealt with their own tribulations in the trial of another deposed president.

The day before Saddam faced his judges, the prosecutor in the case of Slobodan Milosevic, the former Yugoslav president, warned that the trial, which began in early 2002, could take another four or five years.

Milosevic, charged with 66 counts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, is believed to have orchestrated mass murders and other ethnic cleansing as Yugoslavia came apart in the 1990s. He has turned his trial into a high-level international charade.

The U.N. tribunal, presumably the model that the Iraqis should be following, has scrupulously protected his rights, and the cunning Milosevic has exploited the rules to absurdity.

Legal scholars argue that The Hague is creating a treasure of useful jurisprudence. But the endless trial is hardly one that Iraqis would wish to emulate.

Undoubtedly, the Baghdad process is highly flawed. But Iraqis had every right to resist sending Saddam to the Netherlands. No matter how flawed their trial, the Iraqi judges -- who traveled to the Netherlands, Britain and Italy to train in international law -- are trying to make this an example of justice rather than revenge.

This is no kangaroo court, and it is certainly nothing that the Arab world has ever seen. Until now, the very concept of a living "former president" was almost unheard of in the dictator-ridden Middle East.

The many regimes in the region where dictators still rule will try to discredit the proceedings, as will many in the West who deplore America's Iraq war.

Iraqi refugees watching from the Netherlands or anywhere else in the world are not the ones rushing to dismiss the importance of this trial. They are quick to remind anyone who will listen just how much they suffered under Saddam's rule, in a regime that killed so many of its citizens that it needed bulldozers to dispose of the bodies.

That was back when Abu Ghraib was a place infamous for the torture inflicted on countless thousands of Iraqis by Saddam's henchmen, before the infamy that came later, when American soldiers became the torturers.

Human Rights Watch conservatively puts the number of Iraqis in Saddam's mass graves at almost 300,000. Saddam's Iraq was a country that launched wars that killed more than a million people. It was a regime that killed 5,000 of its own with chemical weapons, long before such weapons became synonymous with bad U.S. intelligence.

When the trial resumes Nov. 28, Iraqis deserve to see the man who turned ancient Mesopotamia into a modern killing field stand to face justice. They deserve to tell the stories from a generation of sorrow to a world that will not dismiss their suffering simply because it inconveniences current political goals.

And if Iraq is ever to move forward, Iraqis of every sect and tribe should see the incontrovertible record of how each segment of their society suffered the brutality of Saddam's sadistic rule. The wounds from Saddam's rule are infecting today's conflict. They must be lanced and cleaned. And Iraqi judges, in the end, may prove better surgeons than the robed ones in The Hague.

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Herald.com | 10/18/2005 | Mother Nature -- Unforgiving, devastating

2005-10-23T17:52:00.000-04:00

If nature were a politician, would he (she?) get trounced at the polls, or would we lavish it with support, awed by its power?

Consider some highlights of its accomplishments over the past 12 months: One quarter of a million people washed away to their deaths in December's Asian Tsunami; a major American city destroyed by a hurricane; entire villages in Central America declared mass graves after mudslides; more than 30,000 people buried in an earthquake along the Pakistan-India border.

Every one of these events -- in addition to a host of other floods, famines and assorted tragedies across the globe -- destroyed countless lives beyond the actual death count. Each one brought a pain so intense to so many people that even watching the stories on television could prove unbearable. And yet, we insist on proclaiming our love for ''mother'' nature. Disaster survivors routinely credit God (nature?) for their good fortune in living through their ordeal, but we seldom hear anyone criticize it for our misfortunes.

Sure, much of what nature wreaks is made much worse by man. And often the devastation could have, should have, been eased by man. Recriminations fly freely when it comes to our own misdeeds and those of our politicians after natural disasters. The levees of New Orleans should have stood stronger. The government's response should have come faster. A tsunami warning system should have been in place. Both of these tragedies could have been much less lethal had fewer people lived along low-lying areas. Earthquakes would kill fewer people in better-built structures. And we can only fathom what hell we are unleashing as we heat up the Earth and melt the glaciers.

Yet nature has been callously slaughtering humans like so many ants under a careless giant's boot for as long as life has existed. From Noah's flood to the plagues of Egypt, we've looked to ourselves to place the blame. After all, even the most arrogant of politicians might just respond to criticism a little better than nature ever would.

The catalog of death from the whims of nature dwarfs most, though not all, of mankind's excesses (mankind scored high in its ability to kill during the 20th century.) A third of Europe's population died of bubonic plague in the Middle Ages. Smallpox, drought, cyclones, earthquakes. Nature's casual cruelty spared no continent long before SUVs revved their greenhouse-gas spewing engines. And the killing is far from over.

That strange custom of calling that most unmaternal force ''Mother Nature'' brings to mind the kind of mother that raises terminally disturbed children, condemned to a lifetime of therapy. (Perhaps that's where we learned our bad habits, from that not-so-loving mother.)

And yet we persist, claiming that we love nature and arguing that we should love it even more, no matter how many millions of lives nature destroys, no matter the warnings that a new flu pandemic will likely kill millions more.

The reality is that much of what we call human progress is a record of humankind struggling to defend itself from the indiscriminate cruelty of forces we cannot quite understand.

Floods that killed tens of thousands in the Netherlands spurred the construction of sea walls that allowed the nation first to survive and then to thrive. Science came to the rescue after centuries of plagues, flu and pestilence that devastated entire continents throughout the ages.

So, what if nature really were a politician? My guess is that it would receive enormous support from awed and frightened voters.

And there lies a lesson for environmentalists. Is it any wonder more people don't embrace the message that we should protect the environment and love nature, even as nature batters and assaults us?

The secret to their future success is to turn their message around. Instead of telling us to protect nature from man, they would gain more followers if they told us to protect ourselves from nature. It sounds less cuddly than hugging trees and showing us fluffy panda bears. But taking a page from the politically popular war on terror, they could remind us how much pain we have already endured, and how much more we will suffer if we don't take all the necessary measures -- whatever they may cost -- to protect ourselves from the madness and cruelty of nature.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs

Herald.com | 10/18/2005 | Mother Nature -- Unforgiving, devastating

2005-10-18T09:16:00.000-04:00

Herald.com | 09/26/2005 | Pacifist dreams need international backing

2005-09-26T11:53:00.000-04:00

Herald.com 09/26/2005 Pacifist dreams need international backing

Some of my best friends are pacifists. Some are even militant pacifists. Truly, I respect their conviction and their idealism. I must confess, however, that I am less than impressed with the results that their methods have been producing.

A few years ago, I had the unforgettable privilege of visiting two nations, Tibet and Burma, whose people have spent decades struggling for freedom by following the spiritual and political guidance of their pacifist leaders. The leaders of the quest for freedom in Tibet and Burma (renamed Myanmar by its despotic military rulers) are two of the most extraordinary human beings alive today. The Western world has recognized their cause and their integrity, honoring Tibet's Dalai Lama and Burma's Aung San Suu Kyi with the Nobel Peace Prize. They have gained worldwide fame and have brought attention to the suffering of their people. And yet, they and their followers have failed miserably in achieving their goals.

The Dalai Lama, Tibet's religious leader and the head of its government-in-exile, has spent more than four decades trying to muster diplomatic support in his quest to secure Tibet's independence from China. By now, he doesn't even ask for independence, having lowered his demand to mere autonomy for Tibet under Beijing's rule. We still call them demands but, even as he travels the world with a popularity that eclipses major rock stars, his political muscle has faded along with the bleached Tibetan flag bumper stickers on American cars left over from more optimistic days.

China represses Tibet

As China pushes ahead, quickly becoming an economic superpower, the people of Tibet endure under Beijing's repressive rule, and Tibet's culture within its traditional Himalayan highlands shrinks, making way for China's mighty economic engine. The Dalai Lama, it seems likely, will have to wait until his next incarnation before achieving his and his people's dream of a free Tibet.

The situation in Burma is even more depressing. The country was once the rice-basket of Asia. Today, after decades of despotic military rule, poverty, hunger and disease -- especially AIDS -- are rampant. The country is now one of the poorest in the world.

The remarkable woman who has led her people's determined push to break the shackles of dictatorship, Aung San Suu Kyi, is the only Nobel Peace Prize winner in the world currently under arrest. Fifteen years ago, when Burma's generals inexplicably allowed elections, Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy won 80 percent of the seats in parliament. The generals immediately rejected the result and placed Suu Kyi under arrest, where she has spent most of the time since the election, as have many of her supporters.

As the Burmese people languish under a regime whose well-documented practices include forced labor, rape, torture and execution of opponents -- even for nonviolent activities -- the world has attempted a number of strategies to bring about change. After multiple special envoys, scattered sanctions and many, many speeches, the result, according to a recent State Department, is that the prospects for reform continue to decline.

Last week, two men who've had more success with nonviolence, South Africa's Desmond Tutu and the Czech Republic's Vaclav Havel, released a report urging the U.N. Security Council to take action on Burma. They argue that Burma -- a major exporter of drugs, refugees and disease -- has become a regional threat. These men of peace correctly conclude that, ``Binding Security Council intervention [is] necessary to return to democratic rule.''

Havel and Tutu are absolutely right. Nonviolence is a beautiful theory, but bumper stickers alone don't overthrow dictators.

Last January, when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice listed Burma among the world's six ''outposts of tyranny,'' many Burma activists allowed themselves to believe that perhaps now the world would put some muscle behind its rhetoric. So far, however, Burma's generals have grown stronger -- and its people poorer and weaker -- because action against the regime has been inconsistent. China has helped arm Burma, while the United States, Europe and Asia each have a different policy to bring about change.

Burma has lived under military dictatorship since 1962. Beijing's soldiers entered Tibet in 1949. It would be nice if the long wait for freedom would come to an end.

Generals and despots, it appears, do not yield to nonviolent means as quickly as democratic societies do. More effective and unified international pressure is required. If there is any chance that nonviolence will help these millions of oppressed people, then supporters of freedom in Tibet and Burma urgently need to redouble their efforts and rethink their strategy.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs.

Herald.com | 09/17/2005 | Summit produced parade of missed opportunities

2005-09-17T08:17:00.000-04:00

The parade of world leaders was enough to take your breath away. Kings, emirs, presidents and prime ministers smiled for photographs, shook hands, and rose to the podium at this week's historic United Nations summit in New York. Stirring speeches and memorable phrases loftily gave the impression that the organization and its member nations are moving with unstoppable determination to make the United Nations -- and the world -- a better place.

And yet, this week's gathering celebrating the 60th anniversary of the U.N.'s founding had already become a failure of historic proportions even before it began.

You could already smell the whiff of hypocrisy rising from midtown Manhattan as more than 170 nations' leaders began arriving for the anniversary extravaganza. Once the General Assembly agreed on the document signed at the summit, it took all the diplomatic skill of politicians and civil servants to put a positive spin on the final agreement: a monument to under-achievement.

The United Nations began with much promise and optimism at the end of World War II. Today, however, there are few who disagree that the world body is in desperate need of reform and revitalization. For a moment it seemed we got lucky. An intersection of events produced the perfect opportunity to achieve meaningful change. The anniversary summit would come only days after the Volcker Report, which not only pointed a bright spotlight at endemic corruption and mismanagement in the U.N.'s Iraq Oil for Food program, but also produced credible and specific recommendations for improvement.

On Tuesday, delegates reached a last minute compromise on a summit document, producing little, if anything, of substance. Kofi Annan, barely restraining his disappointment, said the 35-page agreement was not all bad. And U.S. Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns called it, ''a good beginning.'' But I would bet they didn't quite believe their own words and found more truth in the statement of the Amnesty International U.N. representative, who called the entire exercise, ``a squandered opportunity.''

Even Annan, the world's top diplomat, called failure to agree on the issue of disarmament, ``a real disgrace.''

Once again, the United Nations let down those most in need. Some felt most disappointed by the watered-down language on improving the lot of the poorest of the poor. ''By any stretch of the imagination,'' declared a despondent representative of the charity Oxfam, ``they failed on this point.''

The delegates could not even agree on a definition of terrorism, even though they say the problem is urgent, global, and requires international cooperation.

So, if you're one of the billion people who struggle to live on one dollar a day, the United Nations let you down. If you fear becoming a victim of terrorism, the United Nations let you down.

You won't be surprised, then, to hear that the victims of human rights abuse were also let down.

The U.N. Human Rights Commission is the rare U.N. organ that everyone agrees is a shameful travesty. The Commission became a membership magnet for the worst regimes on earth. If you are a despot, you jockey for a seat on the Commission, thus managing to protect your regime from criticism. The fox-in-the-hen-house membership usually includes regimes guilty of the whole catalog of human rights abuses. Members usually include countries such as Sudan, Syria, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Cuba, Sierra Leon, Zimbabwe and other such well-known ''defenders'' of human rights.

Replacing the commission with a new Human Rights Council was one item on the summit's agenda that seemed a fairly sure bet. The Council would include only countries that respect human rights, and it would sit year-round, allowing it to condemn abuses with authority and without having to wait for its annual session.

Instead of creating this new body, negotiators decided to defer the issue to the ineffectual General Assembly until some time in the future.

There is plenty of blame to share on this debacle, along with a multi-national effort to paint the meeting as a success. Once again, world leaders have failed to muster the courage and skill to turn the United Nations into an organization that would make a real difference in the lives of those who most need its help. They have failed to move resolutely in a direction that would take the organization closer to the goals its founders envisioned 60 years ago. And they have again betrayed the most urgent needs of the weak, the impoverished, and of those who want to see the nations of the world work together for the common good.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs.

09/07/2005 | In Europe, bewilderment at America's suffering

2005-09-08T15:04:00.000-04:00

Published Wed, Sep. 07, 2005

In Europe, bewilderment at America's suffering

By FRIDA GHITIS

AMSTERDAM - The world has long seen the United States as a towering giant, a muscular nation of great wealth, efficiency and might.

To some, it stands as a generally benevolent power, using its strength in positive ways. Others maintain America is an arrogant and selfish nation.

Until now, however, all sides had seen America as largely invincible.

Then came Katrina: nature's wrath compounded by government incompetence -- and the agony of the American giant.

The suffering that came in the hurricane's wake exposed a new side of America.

Wrenching images of despair from New Orleans broke hearts the world over. But they also produced a confusing swirl of emotions among critics and admirers of the United States. The reaction from America's friends and foes everywhere shared one common element: bewilderment.

That's why so many reports about the chaos and sorrow chose to drench their narrative in irony, repeatedly reminding us they were showing America, "the world's only superpower."

The sight of America -- the efficient, the powerful, the mighty -- now anguished and overwhelmed has left the planet thoroughly perplexed.

The undeniable reality is that nature's unfathomable wrath was made infinitely worse by a combination of gov-ernment negligence, incompetence and wishful thinking.

In addition to profound sympathy for the victims, the most commonly expressed sentiment I hear in the streets of Amsterdam is disbelief.

"I ask myself," 52-year-old Hans said simply, "why?"

An avowed admirer of America, he winced, visibly pained by the suffering he saw on television and the astonishing disorganization that made it so much worse.

"I'm really disappointed," he said with a sigh.

The feeling was repeated in every conversation.

"Such a big country; so much money," said 29-year-old Hiske, shaking her head. "How could this happen?"

While many were quick to note the power of nature, others also rushed to point out the now-exposed underbelly of American society.

Europeans have long had a fascination with the more threadbare patches of America's social fabric. That fabric tore precisely in those places, and that's where the critics focused their attention: When the call for evacuation came, the government did nothing to help the poor leave.

Most of the desperate in the Superdome were impoverished African-Americans. Then came stories of armed gangs shooting, robbing and raping in the toxic waters of apocalyptic New Orleans.

Poverty, racial inequality, cities awash in weapons and a society that emphasizes self-reliance, leaving the poor and the weak to their own inade-quate devices: That is the image that America's critics like to emphasize.

And that is exactly what floated to the surface in the immediate aftermath of the Katrina catastrophe.

The joyful celebration with which al Qaeda greeted the disaster -- "answered prayers" members called it -- was not openly repeated in Europe, not even by America's sharpest critics. But some politicians rushed to score points.

In Germany, where voters are about to go to the polls, the environment minister blamed Washington's inattention to global warming even before the hurricane had moved away.

There was no shortage of comments bitterly contrasting America's readiness to go to war with its lack of readiness to prepare for this disaster.

For the millions who live below sea level in Europe, however, the New Orleans disaster brought a special unease.

Two-thirds of the Dutch population lives below sea lev-el, and reassurances from water management officials have only partially allayed fears awakened by Katrina.

Holland, which spares no expense keeping out the sea, has a long and painful history of deadly floods.

Sitting outside his home by an Amsterdam canal, Jan Eisinga, 78, remembered the 1953 Zeeland floods that killed 1,800 people. He spoke proudly of his country's state-of the-art anti-flood barriers, but warned that everywhere, in the United States and in Europe, we abuse nature, heightening all dangers.

In some quarters, the agony of America may have brought some secret joy. Here, however, the most powerful emotion, after sympathy for the victims, was the shock at seeing a once-mighty United States unprepared and overwhelmed.

Beyond that, America's vulnerability makes everyone feel a little less safe.

Venice, London and the Netherlands are rushing to check their defenses.

"If it can happen in America," mused Patrick, a muscular Dutch window washer preparing to climb his scaffold, "maybe it can happen here."

He looked at the water flowing in the canal a few feet away and confessed, "It's terrifying."

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Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs.

From Gaza, to Baghdad, to Crawford

2005-08-31T07:25:00.000-04:00

Comment: Compromise is an essential building block of peace
Web Posted: 08/25/2005 12:00 AM CDT

Frida Ghitis
Special to the Express-News

AMSTERDAM — The scenes played out around the world in recent days seem only vaguely related: Israeli soldiers dragging tearful Jewish settlers from their homes in Gaza; Iraqi politicians wrangling over a draft constitution; a bereaved California mother and her supporters setting up camp in front of the President's ranch in Crawford.

The events, however, have more than media coverage in common. They all show societies going through the most wrenching, dangerous and crucial moments of their political life: trying to survive disagreements.

They have something else in common: the stifling summer heat that makes conflicts even more explosive.

There is almost nothing as politically incorrect as saying that one culture is superior to another. But there is little question that societies that develop peaceful ways to disagree are more successful than the rest.

And before we get overly puffed up about America and the West's highly civilized manner of protest, let's not forget the many wars fought before disobedience, peaceful protests and the voting booth became the preferred method of expressing discontent and settling disagreements in North America, Europe and much of the rest of today's world.

In Europe, it is the fear of an emerging inability to disagree peacefully that has thrown the continent into crisis. When a Muslim extremist in Amsterdam slashed the throat of the controversial filmmaker Theo Van Gogh last November, the first reaction here was utter disbelief. Most people had long ago taken offense at some of the statements from the deliberately provocative Van Gogh. But killing someone whose ideas you opposed went against the very foundation of modern Dutch society. The terrorist attacks in London last month created just the same kind of crisis. Europeans are right to worry. Killing people because one disagrees with their views carries a cost beyond the loss of human life.

Saddam Hussein's Iraq boasted beautiful buildings and lovely parks. But challenging any aspect of the regime all but guaranteed death. The country reeked of political pathology. It was an ailing nation. If Iraq is able to find a way to establish functioning channels of constructive disagreement, it will stand a chance of building a successful society.

Societies that know how to allow their own members to settle their differences peacefully also develop ways to deal with those who refuse to play by the rules or with outsiders who threaten their existence. The right to use force is given only to one player: a legitimately chosen government.

Ariel Sharon's decision to remove settlers from their homes was met with street protests, legislative debates and, ultimately, the use of force by soldiers and police. And, before long, Sharon will also have to face the voters.

In the United States, protesters will continue to express their opposition to the war and their deep disagreements with the government. Members of Congress will ask questions and criticize the White House, even as they are critiqued and questioned. And voters will have a chance to pass judgment on their representatives' answers at the polls.

As for Iraq and Gaza, it is still too hot to know how they will turn out. Palestinian and Iraqi leaders are trying to decide what kind of nation they want to build. With both lands awash in weapons, the easy way out is to shoot your point of view across.

In Gaza, with dozens of armed militias roaming the streets, the government of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has limited authority. That means that controversial but necessary decisions simply cannot be implemented. The coming months will show if Palestinians in Gaza are capable of establishing the rule of law, to be enforced only by those elected to represent the people, not by those who have strength by virtue of owning and using weapons.

Iraq, for its part, still needs to devise a system for settling what are sure to be years of disagreements, primarily between ethnic and religious groups, over the important issues that have and will continue to arise.

In the end, the essence of successful politics is making choices and managing differences without tearing society apart. America was unable to reach that point without a devastating civil war. We may soon find out what it takes for Palestinians and Iraqis.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs

Katrina mesmerized, then stuns the world | The San Diego Union-Tribune

2005-08-31T05:53:00.000-04:00

Star-Telegram | 08/15/2005 | Eyes on the Gaza Strip

2005-08-15T11:25:00.000-04:00

Star-Telegram | 08/15/2005 | Eyes on the Gaza Strip

Herald.com | 08/01/2005 | Optimism over post-Hussein future

2005-08-01T07:30:00.000-04:00

Herald.com | 08/01/2005 | Optimism over post-Hussein future

No more fooling the Arabs - Editorials & Commentary - International Herald Tribune

2005-07-30T03:45:00.000-04:00

No more fooling the Arabs - Editorials & Commentary - International Herald Tribune

Terrorism in London: The Secret Double Standard

2005-07-20T09:41:00.000-04:00

BY FRIDA GHITIS

Philadelphia Inquirer

Miami Herald

Montreal Gazette

etc

We have all learned the ritual. First come the explosions, the grief, the unbelief. How could anyone do such a thing to innocent men and women? Then, as predictably as the sound of emergency sirens follows a terrorist blast, come the calls for Muslim leaders to condemn the bombings. When will Muslims rise up against terrorism, righteous Westerners ask on both sides of the Atlantic. This will end, we are told, only when Muslim leaders make it clear to their people that suicide bombings constitute an affront to their humanity and their God.

All true, no doubt. But there is a secret about terrorism that nobody dares to mention: Westerners themselves, for all their sound and fury, have not wholeheartedly condemned terrorism. Not really. Not with the unequivocal conviction that they now demand of Muslims.

Home-grown bombers

The secret is that until now, terrorism, in its most frequent guise -- against Israelis and Iraqis -- is analyzed and all but forgiven by Europe's mainstream. Terrorists are absolved as long as they are seen as weak or desperate, and their enemy is viewed as a cruel Goliath.

How could a young British Muslim growing up in Leeds, England, come to believe that a suicide bombing is an appropriate way to express a grievance? Very simple. He would watch the news. He would listen to the way that British thinkers respond to bombings of Israeli civilians by Palestinian terrorists and to how terrorist attacks in Iraq are described.
In much of Europe, suicide bombings targeting Israelis do not receive anything remotely resembling the blanket condemnation demanded of Muslims after July 7.

This is not to argue that Israeli tactics must be embraced or that the objectives of Palestinians must be rejected. But if the British want to tell the world -- especially people living within their borders -- that terrorism is wrong, they have to declare without nuance and equivocation that attacks designed and executed for the deliberate purpose of murdering civilians for political goals are morally wrong and completely unacceptable -- always -- no matter who the victims, the perpetrators, or the political views of either side. That is plainly not what has happened until now.

Sympathy for Palestinians

When a wave of suicide bombings slaughtering Israelis reached its most gruesome depths in 2002, the British took to the streets -- to condemn Israel and express their sympathy for Palestinians. The terrorist bombings, by all appearances, were a huge success.

One year later, Mohammed Sadiq Khan traveled from London to Tel Aviv and helped organize a nightclub bombing that killed three Israelis. Then he returned to London and blew himself up in the July 7 attacks.

After the London bombings, British Home Secretary Charles Clarke told an emergency meeting of European ministers that the right not to be bombed to bits outweighs any other civil liberty. That's now. But in April 2002, when Israelis were going out of their minds with grief and fear, Europeans reacted with massive street demonstrations condemning Israel's admittedly Draconian efforts to stop the bloodshed and demanding that Israelis give in to Palestinian demands. Condemnation of anti-Israel terrorism was not high on the agenda.

What message would a young impressionable Muslim glean from such an event? If you feel strongly about a cause, blow yourself up. People will pay attention. They will agree with you, and your cause will benefit.

A terrorist is a terrorist

The writer Paul Berman has a theory about the demonization of Israel in the face of the terrorist slaughter. For those who believe a rational logic governs the world, he argues, the only way to make sense of such acts is to portray Israel as deserving the punishment. And so, terrorism is explained and forgiven.

The British, and much of Europe, have grown so tolerant of terrorism that they refuse to call it by its real name. The policy of the BBC and London-based news agency Reuters is not to use the word terrorist unless quoting someone else.

Even if you don't label it, bombing a train full of commuters is terrorism. And if you want to tell the world that terrorism is wrong, you have to say exactly that -- without nuance, without excuse. Otherwise, you'll find yourself wondering, how could it happen here?

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs. She is the author of The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live Television.

Frida Ghitis: London calling

2005-07-18T20:39:00.000-04:00

Frida Ghitis: London calling

The New Republic Online: Maul of America

2005-07-18T20:38:00.000-04:00

The New Republic Online: Maul of America

MySA.com: Commentary

2005-07-18T20:37:00.002-04:00

MySA.com: Commentary

Herald.com | 06/24/2005 | Regimes use Arab-Israeli conflict as pretext to avoid reform

2005-07-18T20:37:00.001-04:00

Herald.com | 06/24/2005 | Regimes use Arab-Israeli conflict as pretext to avoid reform

Protesters pick wrong target | ajc.com

2005-07-18T20:37:00.000-04:00

Protesters pick wrong target | ajc.com

Herald.com | 07/05/2005 | America gets real about Iraq war

2005-07-18T20:36:00.000-04:00

Herald.com | 07/05/2005 | America gets real about Iraq war

How America Changed (in June)

2005-07-05T09:25:00.000-04:00

America gets real about Iraq war

Miami Herald, July 5, 2005

By Frida Ghitis

We've all had the experience. We don't see someone for a long time. Then come home and feel that awkward shock of noticing how much they aged during our absence. It's not polite to say it, but I will: America, you really changed while I was gone.

I'm shocked because I wasn't gone very long. In just five weeks, the shift in the nation's mood is clearly palpable.

Perhaps I expected to come home to a country getting its beach towels and picnic baskets ready for summer vacation. Instead, with the arrival of summer, Americans appear to have awakened and suddenly discovered that the United States is at war. In little more than a month the sentiment over the Iraq war seems filled with doubts and anxiety. I don't mean that the country is divided for and against the war. That does not seem much worse than before. But on both sides, for supporters and opponents, uncertainty and worry have seeped into what used to be more of a cold political calculation.

Maybe that's not all bad.

One of the changes that I hear is in the tone of the discussion. Before, the arguments over Iraq sounded much like the debates over Social Security, taxes or any other political issue. But now, opponents of the war sound as if they've come to realize that any political gain their side would accrue from failure in Iraq would come at too high a cost not only for America, but for much of the world. And supporters of the Iraq campaign, who once sounded defensive and dismissive of their critics, now seem to realize that there are grounds for legitimate criticism. Supporters of the war and the president are starting to discover that anyone who questions how well things are going is not automatically unpatriotic or anti-Bush.

Sure, opinions still stand divided to a large degree along party lines. But I sense that in the anxiety over Iraq there is a new element of national unity.

A country that works together to win a crucial campaign stands a better chance of success. Without suspecting ulterior political motives in every comment, there is a better chance that good ideas from all sides will be identified and implemented.

I noticed big shifts in America's mood over Iraq after other trips. After traveling for much of January and February this year, I returned to a country enjoying a mild case of euphoria. After all, the sight of Iraqis defying death threats to exercise their right to vote on Jan. 30 had stirred the hearts of Americans and inspired millions the world over. Support for the president soared then, even more than it has plunged now. The same was true after Saddam Hussein's capture in December 2003.

Sentiments will undoubtedly shift again. The carnage in Iraq clearly is cause for worry. Still, violence has not derailed a political process that has so far proved astonishingly successful. Iraqis of all ethnic and religious groups are working together to craft a new political system, even as the car bombs and the suicide bombers explode all around them. And the people who are carrying out the bombings are increasingly seen as the enemies of Iraq. That bodes well for the future.

Still, there are no guarantees in war. That's why the worries about Iraq that took hold during these last few weeks are a sign of realism. At a time of war, we should think about more than what to pack for the beach. That was the old America, the one from five weeks ago.

Fixing the Middle East - A European Panacea

2005-06-25T11:10:00.000-04:00

By Frida Ghitis

(various papers)

(Stockholm) As Condoleezza Rice winds up her Middle Eastern tour and a much-anticipated summit meeting between the Israelis and Palestinian leaders finally materializes, Europeans are watching America’s work in the Middle East with a mixture of skepticism and reluctant approval. Hearing Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice astonishingly blunt call for political reform in Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Europeans question America’s intentions and wisdom in trying to democratize the region. But when they listen to America prodding Israelis and Palestinians to the bargaining table, they hear echoes of their own prescription for solving everything that ails the Middle East.

The unchallenged conventional wisdom in Europe is that the key – the indispensable prerequisite -- for solving just about every problem in the Arab and Muslim world, and perhaps even the way to end Muslim extremism and terrorism throughout the world, lies in ending the Arab-Israeli conflict. Reality, however, is much more complicated.

A new survey of Arab – rather than European -- opinion shows that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is nowhere near the top of the list of reasons given by Arabs for what’s wrong with their countries.

The views of Arabs, obtained in a rare moment when propaganda efforts where temporarily set aside, marks a sharp contrast with views like that of Eric Bratberg of Sweden’s Uppsala University, who recently wrote, “If the U.S. is ever to form a more democratic Middle East, it first has to solve the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.” The supposedly unbreakable link has become a firmly planted figment of the European imagination and, in fact, of many on the other side of the Atlantic. If only America would do as we say, they argue, we might not have had a September 11, and young Arab men would not stand caught between the lack of economic opportunities and the temptations of religious extremism. Arabs themselves disagree with this view.

No question, the bitter dispute in the heart of the Middle East has made life for Palestinians and Israelis painful and difficult. It has certainly added to the tensions in the region and given propaganda material for extremists. But the claim that the suffering of Palestinians is the principal cause of international terrorism, Islamic extremism and Arab political instability is as false now as it was on September 12, 2001.

The real causes of extremism are political repression coupled with economic stagnation in much of the region. They create festering resentments and seething anger without legitimate outlets. Other than providing an excuse for these problems, the Arab-Israeli conflict has little connection with the larger troubles in the region.

In the Middle East, where anyone can criticize Israel and the US on a street corner, but no one can criticize the government in the public square, true public opinion emerged anonymously, via satellite, as part of a survey conducted by the Arab television network Al-Arabiya. The people said their problems come from the ruling regimes, the same governments that have received support from Europe and the United States.

When asked, “What is stalling development in the Arab World?” viewers responded unequivocally: Only eight percent blamed the Arab-Israeli conflict. More than 80 percent blamed, “Governments that are unwilling to implement change and reform.”

When asked what governments should do to improve economic conditions, more than 90 percent wanted better conditions for investment, education and health care, as well as complete freedom for the private sector. Ask Arab leaders, or their European friends the same question. They would insist the key to all progress lies somewhere in Jerusalem.

A number of regimes have used the Arab-Israeli conflict as a pretext for their unwillingness to reform. They have a perfectly simple reason for refusing to change: they want to stay in power. What is surprising is how many “experts,” particularly in Europe, have bought into their calculations.

The Arab-Israeli conflict must be solved. And efforts by the US to push the process along are excellent news. But anyone who believes solving the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians will automatically bring an end to all forms of instability, extremism and terrorism will be deeply disappointed.

To Burma -- and to Aung San Suu Kyi

2005-06-18T10:58:00.000-04:00

June 19, 2005 marks the 60th birthday of one of the most remarkable leaders of our time: Aung San Suu Kyi, the icon of Burma's non-violent struggle for freedom. Suu Kyi remains under house arrest. And her country, and virtually all its people, continue to languish under the brutal repression of a military dictatorship that has withstood the passage of time.

This is the article I wrote half a decade ago, after returning from Burma.

-----------------------------------------------------------------
August 2000
The Woman Who Would Save a Nation

By Frida Ghitis

(Rangoon) The taxi driver was suddenly refusing to accept the fare we had agreed on. I would pay 400 Kyat to University Road, that was the deal. But, as we approached the area, I told him my exact destination: I wanted to go to Aung San Suu Kyi’s house. Visibly frightened, he looked at me in the rear view mirror, pulled over to a side street, and stopped the car. “I can’t go there,” he said, “big problem for me.” Then he pulled his umbrella from under the seat. “It’s starting to rain," He said. "Take it.” I declined, and reached over with the 400 Kyat trying to pay. “No,” he shook her head, “No pay. Please take my umbrella. You go see our leader. No charge.”

Like everyone to whom we had mentioned Suu Kyi, the leader of Burma's gasping democracy movement, his face had brightened at the sound of her name. And then, also like all the others, he had looked over his shoulder, visibly frightened, making sure no one had heard. The crumbling streets of Rangoon, renamed Yangon by the military dictators of the nation of Burma (itself renamed Myanmar by the same generals)are teeming with beggars who seem to have lost even the energy to beg. And yet, there is a name that appears to electrify the despondent. It's the name of their hero: Aung San Suu Kyi.

A few weeks after my visit to Burma, Aung San Suu Kyi left her home with 14 members of her National League for Democracy (NLLD) party, headed for a meeting outside the capital. Their journey came to an abrupt stop when uniformed men blocked their way. The air was let out of her tires and a nine-day test of wills ensued. The group camped by the side of the road in sweltering heat, refusing to give up their efforts. The military finally took them back by force to Rangoon. The party leaders -- including Suu Kyi -- were taken to their homes, locked up and placed under heavy guard. NLD offices were ransacked, and what is perhaps the final crackdown on Burma’s efforts at democracy was set in motion.

For the impoverished and frightened people of Burma, and for the international community who supports them, the critical time has arrived. What strategy, if any, will allow Burma -- the once prosperous land -- to join the world in the global march to open, responsible government?

In a country where millions live in the military’s two-handed strangling grip of wretched poverty and vicious repression, Suu Kyi, the leader of Burma's democracy movement, and winner of the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize, is a figure of hope --- fading hope. She is revered by malnourished mothers sleeping under bridges with their emaciated babies, by taxi drivers eking out a living in cities with stagnant economies, and by students kept by the military from attending classes and forging a better future.

But Suu Kyi, the winner of a landslide election victory in 1990 has spent most of the time since winning the election living under house arrest or confined to such restrictions by the ruling military junta as to have virtually no possibility of affecting her country’s future. Ten years after her electoral victory, life could hardly be more painful for the people of the legendary land of towering teak forests.

The taxi, by the way, left me a few blocks from Suu Kyi’s home. I walked until I reached a military roadblock. After a low-key discussion with a soldier and an officer in plain clothes, it was made clear I would not be allowed to walk down the wide thoroughfare in front of the deserted university. No explanation given. Rangoon’s traffic is completely disrupted to keep it from passing in front of the 55 year-old-woman’s home.

After the nine-day standoff, nobody was allowed in Suu Kyi’s home. Not diplomats, not supporters, not servants. Food was passed to her over the padlocked gate, allowing for some sustenance. That’s more than can be said of the pro-democracy movement.

A leading member of the military junta has vowed to “crush” the party.

Demands by diplomats to see Suu Kyi and other NLD leaders were futile. The junta dismissed calls by Bill Clinton, Tony Blair, and other world figures for their release. Officially known as the State Peace and Development Council, the ruling military conclave maintains its rule is needed to keep the peace and maintain the nation united in the face of ethnic divisions. The government accuses the NLD of planning terrorist activities, and insists the matter with Suu Kyi and her party is an internal affair. The international community, it says, should stay out of it.

Internal affairs in Burma are resolved through intimidation, incarceration and worse. The junta routinely uses the population, especially members of tribes seeking independence as slave labor for unpaid road construction and other grueling projects. People who resist the brutal forced labor are routinely shot. Gross violations of human rights are commonplace. Freedom of the press is such an alien concept in Myanmar that the local version of newspapers and television news could easily pass for comedy in the West.

The streets are filled with billboards describing what the government audaciously calls “People’s Desire,” a litany of government objectives aimed at maintaining the junta’s tight leash on society. Among the so-called People’s Desires: “Oppose those trying to jeopardize stability of the State and progress of the nation; “Crush all internal and external destructive elements as the common enemy.” It is clear that such “destructive elements” include Suu Kyi who is regularly referred to in the press as a prostitute, a stooge of the West and a number of other disparaging labels.

In 1997, the United States imposed a ban on new trade with the country. But the same year, Asian countries welcomed Yangon into the regional South East Asian association, ASEAN, sending conflicting messages to the Junta. The European Parliament has urged EU members to refrain from trading with the generals and Suu Kyi has urged foreigners to stay away from Burma; to keep their money from flowing into the coffers of the supremely corrupt military regime.

All international and domestic efforts to persuade the military to negotiate with the winners of the 1990 election have proved either useless or counter-productive. Life for the people of Myanmar has descended from purgatory to hell.

In frustration, some former allies of Suu Kyi have called for an end to the sanctions, hoping an increase in trade will bring a trickle of money for the impoverished Burmese.
And yet, it’s hard to see exactly which strategy has failed. Is it the isolation brought by countries like the US, or is it the engagement policy of Myanmar’s neighbors?

The key to the destruction of Myanmar and the survival of its military’s power may be found in Beijing and in Southeast Asia. China has supported and armed the junta, providing it with the resources to keep the people under its heel. The influence of Asia neighbors carries the moral authority of cultural understanding. According to the SPDC, all criticism of the regime is based on the colonial aspirations of the West. Incidentally, neither China nor India – the other Asian power aiming to gain ascendancy in Myanmar – made any open complaints about the junta’s recent displays of despotism.

Isolation by the West will accomplish nothing without pressure on China, the behemoth of human rights violations. Beijing may not want to relent on its atrocities against Tibet or against religious minorities in China, but it might consider interceding for a political solution in Burma, as a concession to western powers continually harping on human rights.

Whether economic sanctions are effective or not, one thing is clear. Sanctions followed by silence achieve nothing. If the United States and Europe want change in Myanmar, simple economic isolation is not sufficient. The generals urgently need hard currency to keep their country from a total economic collapse. They should know that any possibility of trade or assistance will not come without political change. Show them a carrot and remind them of the stick. The United States, with the exception of the last couple of weeks, has been much too silent on the tragedy of the Burmese people.

For the people of Myanmar, options appear to be running out. Suu Kyi’s latest effort achieved success on the international front. Major world figures chose to shine a spotlight on her plight. But within her country’s borders, the situation is now even more critical. For the people of Myanmar, the struggle may be reduced to a simple desperate gesture: not charging taxi fare to a foreigner hoping to visit Aung San Suu Kyi.

Frida Ghitis, Copyright 2000

2005-06-18T10:55:00.000-04:00

Surviving in Burma Photo F. Ghitis

Michael Jackson: American Soft Power

2005-06-16T14:26:00.000-04:00

(Various Papers)

By Frida Ghitis

(Amsterdam) Watching the reading of the Michael Jackson trial verdict from Europe, I found myself bracing for more of the same. After all, every time the world turns its collective eyes and stares intently at America these days, you can predict what comes next: criticism, condemnation and ridicule of the United States.
But something rare and remarkable happened this time: The world watched and, strangely, identified with the US.

Reaction across the globe looked much the same as it did in America. Many expressed relief that Jackson would not go to prison, while others wondered openly about his innocence. Jackson impersonators in full King of Pop regalia appeared on Dutch television to praise their beloved icon, and fans from Calcutta to Kuala Lumpur pondered Jackson’s eccentric ways, much the way his admirers did in Columbus or Kalamazoo.

This was a giant departure from that other side of America that consumes withering international attention. It was hard to believe that the acrimonious talk about the treatment of US prisoners in Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib and the Michael Jackson story all dealt with America’s system of justice.

The reaction to the trial verdict brought to mind the ideas of Harvard’s Joseph Nye, who talks about America having two kinds of power: hard power, from its military might, and soft power, from the attraction of its culture and its ideas.

The tribulations of Jackson’s trial spawned an international wave of American Justice 101 seminars in the media. From Al Jazeera to BBC World and channels in a multitude of languages, viewers in every time zone heard scholarly explanations of how a jury trial works in the United States.

Newspapers in Pakistan, Peru and the United Arab Emirates discussed the concept of “burden of proof.” And just about everyone heard of the reaction from the defeated prosecutor, accepting his defeat. The government, the experts explained, simply did not make its case.

The talk may be about the inconsequential trial of one man, but in some places a statement like that is truly revolutionary.

In some countries, the government never loses its case.

How many millions in State Department public diplomacy funds would it take to promote the American system of justice around the globe? How much to talk about the concept of a fair trial, where both sides walk away accepting the ruling?

There were, of course, many cynics, who rightly pointed out the flaws in the system. But most of the criticism came from the US itself. Television stations across the seas carried clips from America showing man-in-the-street interviews, where some noted dismissively how in the US the rich can always buy justice. Then there were the deadpan quips, that if Michael Jackson had been black, he would have been convicted, and the one about Saddam Hussein now wanting his trial moved to Santa Maria. Those came from Leno and Letterman, respectively, both shown on Dutch television.

Newspapers around the planet devoted massive space on their front pages to the Jackson verdict. And everywhere readers complained that at a time of war, hunger and disease, paying attention to the trial of one man, even if he is Michael Jackson, is some kind of a news atrocity.

Jackson, of course disagreed. As reporters from Soweto to Berlin reported, barely containing their amusement, Jackson, judging by his website, apparently views his acquittal as a major historical milestone, such as the fall of the Berlin Wall and the release of Nelson Mandela from prison. So, maybe Michael thinks a little highly of himself.

This was an interlude of minor importance, albeit high public interest, during a turbulent time in history. But even Michael, who crowned himself the King, might be pleased to know that in all his 100 pound heft, for a moment at least, he was projecting the power of a nation. And it was, perhaps appropriately, America’s soft power.

Outraged!

2005-06-14T07:54:00.000-04:00

*EXTREMISTS GET A FREE PASS TO DO AS THEY WILL - FRIDA GHITIS (CHICAGO TRIBUNE, JUNE 12): Yes, we all agree that insulting Islam is wrong. Now if we could just persuade the outraged to start respecting other people's beliefs. (Full Article from Chicago Tribune.)

*(as excerpted by USC Center on Public Diplomacy)

Slowing Down the Europe Train

2005-06-03T03:51:00.000-04:00

Miami Herald, June 3, 2005

EUROPEANS
Losing faith in the EU
BY FRIDA GHITIS

AMSTERDAM -- Europeans had not quite come out of the weekend shock they received from France when the Dutch hopped on their bicycles and pedaled over their picturesque canal bridges to their voting places.

Wednesday was the Netherlands' turn to vote on a proposed new constitution for the European Union. And, like French voters, the Dutch sent a sharp jolt through the establishment. The Dutch refused to accept this new Basic Law for the slowly morphing entity known as Europe.

Like France, the Netherlands is one of the six original founders of the European project. The country has always supported the ideal of a unified Europe. That's why its refusal to approve the absurdly complicated -- almost 500-page -- document, comes as a second shock in three days to an establishment that can hardly believe its Utopian train came off the rails somewhere short of Nirvana.

Global competition

The message from France and the Netherlands may sound alike, but the Dutch have very different concerns from those of their neighbors to the south.

Voters in both countries offered dozens of reasons for voting against the draft constitution. In France, however, it seems that the predominant fear came down to economics. The mythical ''Polish plumber'' came to symbolize the danger of low-wage workers threatening the delightful French life of well-paid 35-hour workweeks and leisurely six-week vacations in Provence. The French, with their message of ''Stop the world; we want to get off,'' mistakenly think that they can resist global competition.

In Holland, the fears look quite different. Over recent years, the Dutch have awakened to discover that their country is not the idyllic land they believed. A series of politically inspired high-profile murders shook the nation to its core. The assassination of filmmaker Theo Van Gogh by Muslim extremists filled the Dutch with confusion and anger.

A way of life

Near the top of their concerns is what to do with a wave of immigration from Muslim countries. Like many here, Lynne De Jong, a 63-year-old Amsterdam therapist, opposes the draft constitution not because of what it says, but because this government has endorsed it. The politicians told the people, she says, ''Let them (the immigrants) come in, and we'll all get along. We'll tolerate them, and they'll become like us.'' Many here believe that the political elites were wrong about this and now have no idea what to do about it. The country is suffering a profound sense of uncertainty. It no longer knows what it is or where it's going.

Jorgen, 38, said that he would vote against the constitution. When I asked him what he thought was wrong with it, he answered candidly: ''I have no idea. I don't know.'' Then he explained his vote. ``I don't trust the government.''

But the Dutch have lost trust in more than the government. They, like others in Europe, feel they are losing control of their way of life. Some say they fear the European Union will bully the Netherlands to change its liberal laws. They fear a threat to social values that calmly make room for gay marriage, legalized prostitution and legal euthanasia. The Dutch want to reclaim the country they recognized until a few years ago.

Team U.S./Europe

Unlike the French, the Dutch don't seem obsessed with turning Europe into a power center rivaling the United States, and some resent Paris' anti-Washington stance. One man told me he wants Europe and the United States to be on the same side. But he would like Europe to have more influence over what Team U.S./Europe would do in the world.

There is a common thread running through the many and confusing arguments offered by opponents of the Basic Law in the Netherlands, France and the rest of Europe. There is a sense that the world is changing, perhaps too fast and in the wrong direction. Europeans want to slow the EU train.

In reality, however, it may be the entire movement of history changing their world. Voting No in the referendum is not just a way of saying the constitution is wrong. It's a way of saying, ``Slow this train, I want to get back on my old bicycle.''

Tolerating Intolerance

2005-06-01T13:06:00.000-04:00

Intimidated by extremists
Frida Ghitis

International Herald Tribune, published with the New York Times

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/05/31/news/edghitis.php

Intimidated by Extremists - One day, when historians study this first major war of the 21st century, they will scratch their heads in disbelief, wondering how it came to pass that Muslim extremists managed to intimidate moderates of every religion - including Islam - on every continent on earth.

The whole planet, it seems, twisted itself into knots trying to untangle the forces at work behind the retracted Newsweek story about desecration of the Koran. Journalistic practices came under attack, while experts on Islam tried to soothe the less erudite, not quite justifying, but more than thoroughly explaining why desecration of the Holy Book leads to mob rampage and murder in a Muslim society.

No question, insulting any religion is beyond reprehensible. It appears, however, that nothing is more reprehensible than insulting the Muslim religion. And the extremists now decide what constitutes an insult.

In Pakistan, a Muslim nation whose president Muslim extremists have twice tried to assassinate, Islamists have decided that women's sports constitute a grievous offense to Islam. Some women, it turns out, find the idea of using Islam to repress them itself quite offensive. So, when the government of President Pervez Musharraf, which lately bends to the will of extremists, placed bans on women's rights, women decided to stage a protest

A leading Pakistani human rights activist, Asma Jahangir, was brutally attacked by the police during the peaceful demonstration. Participants in the "mini-marathon," a kind of sports event/political protest, came under violent police assault. This from a key U.S. ally, a government presumably fighting to defeat Islamist extremists. A fine way to strengthen the moderates!

And speaking of moderates, and of respect for religion, consider the official sermon on Palestinian Authority television, which is financed largely by the contributions of democratic countries in the West, shown to viewers on May 13. Sheik Ibrahim Mudeiris explained that "the Jews are a virus resembling AIDS." This man of God told the faithful that "the stones and the trees will want every Muslim to finish off every Jew," and he predicted that "the day will come when we (Muslims) will rule the entire world again."

With the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, on his way to the United States, the authority did not want such notions to dominate the headlines, so it took a stand against the imam. But this kind of rhetoric by religious figures goes unchallenged every day in much of the Middle East, including so-called moderate countries friendly to Washington.

Even in Africa, moderate governments behave timidly before mob-stoking Islamists. Muslim radicals in Nigeria a few years ago whipped the masses into a murderous frenzy days before the scheduled Miss World Pageant, all because a newspaper columnist speculated, tongue in cheek, that the Prophet Muhammad might have taken the winning contestant as his wife.

Frenzied Muslims killed 220 Nigerians to defend Islam from such an insult. Nigeria's moderate president accused the media of insensitivity and blamed the riots on "irresponsible" journalists. We can add the 220 to the hundreds who have died in protests against other affronts to symbols of Islam.

While Muslim moderates get swept away by the tide of extremism, unprotected by so-called moderate governments, the rest of the world frets in well-intentioned angst. Moderates everywhere now seem terrified of making missteps that might upset the extremists, while they obsess over the question, "What can we do to avoid offending Muslims?" Standing Pentagon orders instruct those touching the Koran that "clean gloves will be put on" and that "two hands will be used at all times."

Let me say it again: Disrespecting the Koran or Islam or any other religion is contemptible behavior. If American soldiers do it, it is particularly egregious because the United States self-righteously argues for more tolerance in the Muslim world. But tolerance must be demanded from all sides.

The views and life choices of moderate Muslims must be respected, as must those of people of all religions, by members of all religions. The demands fall on Muslims, too. And the requirement of standing up against intolerance falls on all governments. Only intolerance is undeserving of tolerance.

A Victory for Women - and Democracy

2005-05-23T08:34:00.000-04:00

Before the Vote: Kuwaiti Women

(...and Frida)

Kuwaiti women fight - and win - the right to vote and run for office. But their struggle is not over.

Women in Kuwait: Free at Last?

2005-05-23T08:23:00.000-04:00

(various papers)

A Step Towards Democracy in the Middle East

By Frida Ghitis

When I first heard the news, I thought someone made a mistake. Did Kuwait's parliament, on a day when almost no one expected it, really grant women the right to vote? Could it be true?

Oh, yes, it is true. But the political confrontation is not over.

The ammunition to stop women's rights was written into the law that grants them political freedom. And the next battles will be watched closely throughout an anxious Middle East.

Since it happened on May 16 -- a date democracy advocates say will live on in the country's history -- I've been talking to Kuwait's indefatigable women's rights activists. The Gulf's passionate suffragettes sound like they're walking on air. If you could radiate joy over the phone, if you could send a smile over an old-fashioned landline, we might all get a true sense of what this means to the women of the tiny Gulf emirate, who have spent more than 40 years pushing this political rock up the steep hills of their male dominated world. For now, at least, their voices beam with excitement.

And yet, you can already feel them bracing for what comes next. We have so much to do now, is what they all tell me. There's no time to rest. My friend Lulwa al-Mullah, the secretary general of the Women's Cultural and Social Society, said the activists are rushing to produce information about democracy for the until-now excluded female half of the country.

''Women have to learn about the law,'' she said, ''How to use it. How to be more active.'' Kuwaiti women already held influential positions. The country is no Saudi Arabia. But men had locked them out of the political process. Some analysts predict female voters in traditional families will simply follow the dictates of their husbands, strengthening the hand of Islamists. But al-Mullah disagrees. Women, she says, will prove themselves. Another brilliant activist, Massouma al-Mubarak, also dismisses claims that this is ultimately a victory for Islamists. It's a victory for Kuwait she said. And for democracy.

Strangely enough, the news that democracy took a giant step in Kuwait did not strike the West with the same impact of other democratic stirrings, such as recent events in Lebanon or Egypt. But Kuwait's parliament has shaken up the Gulf's political structures to their foundation, and we would do well to keep a close eye on what happens next. Kuwait's is no Jeffersonian democracy, but the Parliament more than doubled the number of voters from one day to the next. Nobody knows exactly where this will lead. And more than a few powerful men are unhappy with the decision.

The tiny Emirate, rescued by an America-led coalition from Saddam Hussein's grip in 1991, stands wedged between a changing Iraq and a militantly Wahhabi Saudi Arabia; between forces battling to determine if the future brings political freedom or theocratic oppression to the Arab world. This is the very conflict that the American government now views as key to stability not just in the Middle East, but in the entire world.

The way the winds blow in Kuwait will tell us much about where the entire region will ultimately move.

Women suffer the greatest indignities in undemocratic societies, that's why this campaign is waged with such passion. But the men who fought to defeat women's rights are also devoted to their cause. When Kuwait's prime minister unexpectedly brought the measure to a vote in parliament, the Islamists, who claim women's political participation goes against the dictates of their religion, suffered a punishing defeat. They went down fighting.

But before falling, they scored a potentially dangerous blow. And there is every reason to believe they will stand up and keep fighting. Anti-women legislators managed to add a clause to the new law requiring that women abide by Sharia, Islamic law, when practicing their new rights.

No one is quite sure what that will mean.

The euphoric celebrations that followed the unexpected victory for Kuwait's women are beginning to wind down.

The vote came too late to allow participation in the June 2 municipal elections. But the activists who made this milestone possible say they're already launching their campaigns to elect and be elected to the next parliament in 2007.

The question remains, what will the opposition do to stop them?

Frida Ghitis, an international television journalist for 20 years, writes about world affairs.

Original Articles here and here

My 5/11 in Washington DC

2005-05-15T19:52:00.000-04:00

A dispatch from the front lines of the Capitol under (false alarm) terrorist attack
Friday, May 13, 2005

(printed in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Miami Herald, Houston Chronicle)

WASHINGTON -- If you live in Washington, D.C., Wednesday looked like your standard spectacular spring day. To me, however, the day carried a tint of unreality long before the echoes of 9/11 reverberated through the Capitol and the White House, sending tens of thousands running down crowded stairwells, across marbled corridors and for several blocks down the streets around Capitol Hill. For Washington residents, what goes on in and around the Capitol on a standard day looks normal. To me, however, Washington remains a slightly unreal place. The "normal" sights on the Hill amaze me every time.

In just a few minutes I had already come across numerous members of Congress, high-powered lobbyists and other every-day Capitol characters. I climbed in an elevator just as a cluster of high-ranking U.S. military men escorted out their ramrod-straight uniformed colleagues from some other country -- a page out of Hollywood Central Casting. And I had just bumped into the former speaker of the House, 60-something Newt Gingrich, tenderly holding hands with his 30-something wife. The merry-go-round was only about to start spinning.

I was standing deep inside the Capitol, on the third floor of the House side, about to enter the House gallery, when I noticed a small commotion. Then the frenzy exploded. "Everybody out of the building!" Then the shout that followed me and 35,000 other people for an interminable few minutes: "Run, run, run!" Remember how after 9/11 everyone said it seemed like a movie? Now it looked as though we might have stepped into the same show. Only this time not as spectators.

I had handed my cell phone to security, so I had no immediate way of finding out what the emergency was. We heard rumors of airplanes and attacks as we ran down the street. We snaked through the crowd, thinking about anthrax and dirty bombs, as we passed groups of school children crying, elderly visitors struggling to keep up and anxious officers speaking into their crackling radios. We made way for motorcades and police cars rushing to safety the chosen few selected to run the post-apocalypse government in case our fearless leaders fail to prevent the doom about which they have so thoroughly warned us.

When it was all over, there were congratulations all around. Yes, everything went according to plan, we were told. Only six minutes to evacuate the U.S. Capitol. Bravo.

Of course, when the evacuation started, the suspicious plane was perhaps one or two minutes away. Maybe six minutes to evacuate is a new record, perhaps impressive, but not good enough.

The American tradition of generous praise and abundant self-congratulation eroded a bit in the aftermath of 9/11. But let's hope this 5/11 is used for more than handing out medals. The evacuation was not an over-reaction. How is it possible that an unidentified plane made it to within three miles of the White House and the U.S. Capitol? How is it possible, that more than three years and billions of dollars after Sept. 11, 2001, an incompetent student pilot can send the government of the United States into a state of chaos, emptying both chambers of Congress, the White House and the Supreme Court? And how, how in the world are we to interpret the fact that throughout this potentially catastrophic national emergency, the commander in chief, the self-described "wartime president," was playing on his bicycle on a Wednesday afternoon, and nobody thought he should be even briefly interrupted to learn about the situation?

No, this was clearly not a normal day in Washington. I will remember it, and I am sure so will the jaded Washingtonians who think they have seen it all. What happened on 5/11 should not pass for normal. We cannot wait for another disaster to start the "where-did-we-go-wrong" hearings. If reaction to the violation of restricted airspace went according to plan, then the plan needs revision. We should learn some lessons from this experience.

And just in case the truly important lessons go unlearned, let me pass on a small tidbit I learned watching others suffer through the ordeal: As long as the nation remains under threat, whatever you do, do not wear high heels in Washington.

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05133/503714.stm

Runaway Bride - Global Edition

2005-05-05T14:29:00.000-04:00

Nary a stir around globe

Frida Ghitis

Philadelphia Inquirer 5/05/05
http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/2005/05/05/
news/editorial/11565615.htm

On Saturday morning, when the new pop culture brand "runaway bride" blasted onto the American stage, the New York Times carried a front-page story about wedding pressures felt by women thousands of miles away from Duluth, Ga.

It turns out Jennifer Wilbanks' wedding jitters would have taken her in quite a different direction had she and her groom-to-be lived in Kyrgyzstan. A common way of catching a wife in that Central Asian nation consists of, literally, catching her: setting up a trap and hunting her like an animal in the wild. More than a third of women there go into marriage against their will, via abduction. The hopelessly romantic Kyrgyz men have a good reason for pursuing their soul mates this way. The men "say they snatch the women because it is easier than courtship," the article explains, "and cheaper than paying the standard 'bride price,' which can be as much as $800 plus a cow."

I wanted to see how the runaway bride story was being reported in Kyrgyzstan. Alas, the story does not appear to have captured the Kyrgyz imagination.

With every news outlet in America offering incessant analysis of the legal and psychological ramifications of the busted nuptials in Duluth, it seemed a sure bet the story would make waves around the world. So, I set out to find how the story of love jitters played in other corners of the world.

One country where what goes on in America usually makes news is Kuwait, next door to Iraq. Kuwaitis, however, do not appear to have developed a runaway bride obsession. Maybe that's because while Katie Couric was interviewing just about every citizen of Duluth, the women of Kuwait were anxiously holding their breath. On Monday, the Kuwaiti parliament - all men - held a vote to decide if they would allow women to vote for the first time ever in that country. For years, brave and determined Kuwaiti women have struggled relentlessly to gain the right to vote. They did not win this time, either.

In Saudi Arabia, the bride story also failed to make a splash. No sign of it in the Saudi Arab News. There, coverage focused on a number of other matters. Saudi voters (new adjective-noun pair!) recently went to the polls for the first time in history, to elect half the members of weak city councils; the king and his men appoint the other half. Women, unsurprisingly, were not granted permission to vote by the men. I doubt any Saudi woman would survive running away from her groom. In fact, running away, Jennifer Wilbanks style, is all but impossible. You would never see a woman jogging (forget the shorts - black cover from head to toe is the only public clothing for Saudi women) or riding a bus alone, or flying without a male relative or without official permission from a husband or son or father.

The runaway bride debate will not die soon in America. The question of whether the bride deserves punishment or compassion remains a wrenching, brow-furrowing issue for television pundits. Because the matter weighs so heavily on the nation, I would like to make my own suggestion: Let's put the Duluth wedding on hold for a few months while Jennifer volunteers to work with women in Kyrgyzstan or Kuwait. She'll gain a whole new perspective on what it means to experience pressure as a woman.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs

Northwestern Thailand

2005-05-02T16:42:00.000-04:00

Rushing back from the office

to enlarge click on picture

Frida in Tibet with Friends

2005-04-29T20:27:00.000-04:00

What Israel Needs (Arab Prosperity)

2005-04-22T14:38:00.000-04:00

Miami Herald 4/22/05

Arab prosperity urgently needed BY FRIDA GHITIS

Can Israel become one of the world's most prosperous economies? Finance Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, seldom at a loss for words, has just declared that Israel will have the strongest economic growth in the West over the next couple of years. His goal, he said, is to create the economic conditions to make Israel's standard of living among the world's top 10 in the coming decade.

Perhaps Netanyahu, with his acknowledged political ambitions, can bring about this Holy Land miracle. But what Israel really needs is prosperity to take hold among its neighboring Arab countries.

Israelis should fervently wish for the stagnant economies of the Middle East to prosper; for well-being to reign among their former and current Arab enemies, and for unstable, political pressure-cookers in the region to become free and thriving societies. This wish would not represent some sort of altruistic, New Age or Biblical Age sign of spiritual sacrifice. No. Arab prosperity is the most urgent need Israel has today.

A wealthy nation

Consider the situation: Israel finds itself surrounded by economies that cannot provide jobs for millions of young and energetic individuals. Cross the border from Israel into Egypt, Jordan or Syria, and the standard of living drops precipitously. Per-capita income in Israel approaches $20,000 per year, depending on how it is calculated. That places it well in the range of wealthy nations, comparable to that of Greece, Spain or Portugal. By contrast, Egypt, Jordan and Syria have incomes well below $5,000.
Incomes in the Palestinian Territories amount to a fraction of that.

The enormous disparity is not only a dangerous irritant, creating resentment in the region, but it also acts as an accelerant to the so-called ''demographic time bomb,'' one of the greatest threats Israel faces today.
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon decided to pull out of the occupied Gaza strip in large part because the demographic threat became inescapable. Palestinians have much higher birth rates than Israelis. If Israel continues to hold on to the territories, Jews risk becoming a minority in their own land. And, as long as all the jobs remain in Israel, Palestinians, seething in their impoverished neighborhoods, with or without statehood, will demand the right to -- at the very least -- work in Israel.

But what if suddenly Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and other Arab countries become thriving, prosperous, democratic societies, with well-educated and skilled professionals competing for interesting, well-paying and abundant jobs? Israel would become just another well-off country. And if a Palestinian State, too, became a stable, democratic nation, free of government corruption, prosperity would flourish there, too, with enormous benefits for every country in the area. With regional development, Palestinians and other Arabs would find opportunities to work in different parts of the Middle East. The demands for a return to Israel proper from exiled Palestinians would be eased by the attractiveness of other possibilities for a good life, making a compromise on the issue much more likely. In the midst of these flourishing societies, birth rates, now far higher in virtually all Arab lands than in Israel, would surely drop, and the potential for violent conflict would fade.

Political reforms

Back to reality. This vision of regional bliss barely qualifies today as a mirage in the dry desert. Some argue -- incorrectly -- that peace between Israelis and Palestinians is a prerequisite to real change in the Middle East. Economic and political reforms can, should and are being pushed by idealists in many Arab countries, even as the peace process struggles to get underway.

In Israel, Netanyahu has surprised even his critics with some bold and effective reforms to the economy. Perhaps, in this original land of miracles, Israel will dazzle the doubters and rise to the top echelons of economic success. The government has a duty to try. But what Israelis, Palestinians and all the people of the Middle East really need is prosperity, freedom and well-being for Israelis and Arabs alike.

Frida Ghitis, a television journalist for 20 years, writes about world affairs

John Paul the Not-So-Great

2005-04-10T08:42:00.000-04:00

Posted on Sun, Apr. 10, 2005

John Paul II
A charismatic and flawed figure
By Frida Ghitis

Like millions of people across the globe, I had the privilege of witnessing the charisma of John Paul II in action. I covered some of his international travels and attended at least half a dozen of his gigantic public events. I, too, came away moved by his magnetism and unexpectedly charmed by his sense of humor.

That's why the words I heard only days after one of those events all but knocked the air out of me.

I was on pope duty when a powerful earthquake struck Colombia. I was sent to cover the aftermath and arrived there with John Paul's image still vividly in my mind. Seeing the quake's survivors reach for comfort in their faith, I happened to mention to a local activist that I had just seen the pope.

"The pope?" she repeated, shaking her head only slightly. "That horrible, horrible man."

With commentators today exhausting every superlative to describe the late pontiff's greatness, it turns out there are many who think this was John Paul the Not-So-Great.

The Colombian activist told me stories from her work -- stories of desperate women living in poverty with violent men, enduring pregnancy after pregnancy, beating after beating, and afraid to change their lives because the pope unequivocally said that contraception and divorce went against God's will.

John Paul II mesmerized those who saw him. He spoke forcefully for the dignity of all men. But this champion of compassion also spoke forcefully against the use of condoms, even as AIDS killed tens of millions.
Stop for a moment and picture the lives of 12 million children orphaned by AIDS. Twelve million, and the pope would not relent. Because condoms might encourage sex, and the church cannot countenance sex except to make more babies, no matter how many babies already live without parents or without enough food, clothing or shelter.

When American Catholics discovered to their horror that the church in the United States had become a criminal pedophilia ring, with hundreds of priests victimizing thousands of children, John Paul II expressed his "sense of solidarity" with the victims -- and proceeded to protect the perpetrators.

The pontiff deserves praise for his achievements. He spoke in favor of the powerless and the dispossessed; he atoned for some of the church's sins, and he played a key role in ending communism.

But this champion of human rights also warmly, inexcusably, welcomed Saddam Hussein's deputy, Tariq Aziz, to the Vatican, lavishing attention on a key member of a regime that tortured and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of its citizens and started wars that killed more than a million people.

This was accepted as a symbol of the pontiff's opposition to the Iraq war. John Paul II also tried to stop NATO's intervention in Bosnia, even as millions of civilians there pleaded for help.

The pope rightly apologized for some of the actions -- or inaction -- of the church during the Holocaust.

But he praised Pope Pius XII's immoral silence as the leader who said nothing while the Nazis systematically murdered millions. And he bestowed honors upon Kurt Waldheim, the former Austrian president and U.N. Secretary-general, an active accomplice to that genocide. The honors came years after the discovery of Waldheim's past as a Nazi officer who participated in massacres of civilians and deportations to Nazi death camps.

The mild criticism of the pope that we hear usually centers on philosophical issues, such as his opposition to stem cell research, women in the priesthood or gay marriage. But his impact was felt in the mundane.
Like other masterful politicians, he could charm even those who disagreed with his policies and the impact of his actions.

As John Paul's unstoppable apotheosis proceeds, many who despise his views still venerate him, as if somehow the man and his actions could be separated.

Centuries from now, however, another pope propably will offer apologies for some of the church's actions during the reign of the charismatic -- and imperfect -- Pope John Paul II.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs

UN Human Rights Charade

2005-03-27T14:44:00.000-05:00

Boston Globe
FRIDA GHITIS
The UN charade on human rights
By Frida Ghitis March 27, 2005

IT IS TIME once again to mock the victims of human rights abuse. Yes, it is time for the yearly session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, the group that describes itself as the ''world's foremost human rights forum" and, with no trace of irony, dares to declare that it ''continues to set the standards that govern the conduct of states."

In reality, the commission has become the clearest symbol of the UN's need to change. Today, it represents little more than a gruesome caricature of what started in the earliest days of the United Nations as an earnest effort to ensure respect for the rights of every individual on the planet.
To get an idea of the panel's moral authority, picture a project to combat crime featuring Jeffrey Dahmer and Charles Manson on its top commission.

And yet, this 61st annual session presents the world with the ideal opportunity to take constructive action. The UN Human Rights body is such a travesty that even the UN's staunchest supporters know it cries out for reform. Critics and supporters of the UN must seize this moment, with the spotlight on this preposterous organization, to work together on a solution. And the solution must include minimum standards for membership.

During the six weeks from March 14 until April 22, members of the 53-country commission will gather in Geneva and pretend to protect human rights. Those seated at the table, looking serious and committed to the cause, will include a Who's Who of perpetrators of large-scale crimes against their own people.

The commission this year includes countries like Sudan, whose government, much of the world agrees, is complicit in the murder of tens of thousands and the forced displacement of millions of the country's citizens. A UN report found the government and its allies guilty of carrying out a policy of murdering, raping, torturing, and destroying the villages of non-Arab Sudanese in the Darfur region of the country. The world can't quite agree on whether Sudan's government is guilty of genocide or crimes against humanity. Yet Sudan's representative will help ''set the standards" for human rights around the world.
God help us all.

Sudan will receive presumably invaluable help in its efforts to protect human rights from the government of Zimbabwe, whose president used battalions of thugs to intimidate the opposition, destroy freedom of the press, and successfully destroy the country's economy, plunging most of its population into poverty. They will work shoulder to shoulder with that other defender of freedom, equality, and tolerance: Saudi Arabia.
Monarchs, despots, and dictators of all stripes will contribute to the commission's work, with regime representatives from such paragons of human rights as Cuba, Nepal, Egypt, Pakistan, Swaziland, Bhutan, and China, among others, helping craft the agenda to defend human rights and individual freedoms around the world.
Oh, yes. We could hardly be in better hands.
Just wait until you see their work. They will attack the actions of democracies and they will do their best to prevent any resolution that tarnishes the image of the panel's members or their friends.
The commission is an insult to the millions of people who have fled their homes running from slaughter and now live in squalid refugee camps in places like Chad, Sudan, and Congo. It is an affront to the hundreds of millions of women treated as second-class citizens and abused with the consent of their governments in dozens of countries around the world. It mocks the struggle of millions in the Middle East and other parts of Asia, Africa, and even parts of Europe, who want to share the freedoms others take for granted in much of the world.

The gathering of what is supposed to be the world's principal body for protecting human rights should bring hope to the oppressed around the world. Instead, it sinks their spirits. What could be more discouraging than seeing your oppressors treated as honorable members of that, of all commissions?

The time is long overdue for the UN's human rights charade to come to an end. How best to honor the victims than to do some thorough spring-cleaning? Scrub the UN Human Rights Commission of human rights violators and other despots.

Membership on the commission should constitute a high honor. Only those who deserve it should have a seat at the table.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs.

Lebanon, Syria, and Israel

2005-03-04T08:44:00.000-05:00

Posted on Fri, Mar. 04, 2005

Refusing to take the bait

By Frida Ghitis

Pay close attention to what is taking place just below the major headlines in the Middle East, because something extraordinary has just happened -- or, more precisely, not happened.

For possibly the first time since 1948, since the creation of the state of Israel, an Arab government's principal -- indispensable -- method for manipulating and controlling its people has stopped working. The well-known political sleight of hand consists of deflecting popular anger against the regime by shifting attention and blame onto an outside enemy: Israel.
The trick always worked -- until now. This is no small development.

The people of Lebanon have joined together to face their own government and the foreign dictator who controls it from the Syrian capital. This week, they scored one major victory when their Damascus-backed prime minister and his Cabinet resigned in Beirut. But the push against entrenched anti-democratic powers is far from over.

The turning point came after the Feb. 14 assassination of Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in a massive explosion along Beirut's waterfront that killed 16 other people. When Hariri, an influential advocate for the removal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, was murdered, the Lebanese people grieved. Enraged, they quickly blamed Syria, the country that has controlled Lebanon for more than 15 years. And they turned on their own Syrian-installed government.

The reaction from the leaders of Syria and Lebanon was as predictable as the results of a one-man presidential election: They blamed Israel.
Immediately after the blast, Tishrin, Syria's government newspaper, accused Israel, saying it "continues to work to sabotage Lebanon's achievements to try to bring anarchy to the country." Another government mouthpiece, the Syria Times, blamed Israel and the United States, saying the killing was the work of "the Arabs' enemies." And Syrian Vice President Abdul Halim Khaddam charged bluntly, "It was Israel which did that."

The government of Lebanon echoed its Syrian bosses' words. Officials in Beirut blamed the murder on "a campaign of intimidation" by the United States and Israel. The very day of the explosion, Ahmad Sweid, a pro-Syrian member of Lebanon's parliament, also accused Israel, urging Lebanon's politicians -- who have now called for a peaceful uprising against Syrian occupation -- to drop the subject of Syria's military control of Lebanon and look at what Israel had done.

The idea that Israel would have killed Hariri is patently absurd. Although Israel has in the past launched "targeted assassinations" of terrorist leaders, the last thing it needs is chaos in Lebanon. Hariri was much more useful to Israel alive than dead -- partly because Israel would like to see Syria, the sponsor of the Hezbollah militia, withdraw from Lebanon.
Imagine the surprise of the governments in Beirut and Damascus when, after their cries of "Israel and the U.S. did it!," the masses did not immediately reach for Israeli and American flags to light their bonfires. They simply refused to take the bait.

Opposition leaders scoffed at the crude manipulation. One of them told Beirut's Daily Star, "Every time [the Syrians] commit a crime, they accuse Israel intelligence of having a hand in it."

The accusation is not new. A Cairo University professor, Mohammed Kamal, described the same phenomenon in 2002 while discussing a U.N. report critical of Arab leaders. "The Arab-Israeli conflict," he said, "is used to deflect attention from domestic problems, including the lack of democracy."

By the time that Hariri's funeral began Feb. 16, the push to get Syria out of Lebanon had gathered such force that hundreds of thousands of Lebanese poured into the streets, turning the procession into an anti-Syria protest march.

Officials did not give up their efforts to blame Israel, and the effort probably will continue. But there is little doubt that the people will stand their ground and maintain the pressure on their own leaders, backed by the crucial support of the United States and parts of Europe.

The prime minister and his Cabinet stood down in the face of massive street protests. If and when Lebanon's Syrian-sponsored president, Emile Lahoud, loses his post and Syria loosens its grip on Lebanon, it will mark the first real victory for a "people power" movement in the stubbornly undemocratic Arab world.

After that happens, Arab leaders will have been warned that the world as they once knew it will never be the same.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs. She is author of "The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live Television."

Tsunami: Where Was God?

2005-02-06T12:06:00.000-05:00

CHICAGO TRIBUNE

WHEN DISASTER STRIKES: A THEOLOGICAL DILEMMA
FATE, KARMA, BAD LUCK OR GOD'S HAND?
Why weren't victims' prayers heard?

By Frida Ghitis who writes about world affairs

Published February 6, 2005

KOH KAU KHAO, Thailand -- On the day the sea rose up and wiped most of the village, along with hundreds of people, off the face of this tiny island, 44-year-old Sakorn Deudon was doing what she always did on Sundays.She and her family had gone to the Buddhist monastery to light incense and offer prayers. Despite their many years as devout Buddhists, despite their efforts to gain merits or boon, that day brought tragedy. The sea, as if possessed, rushed onto land and rose inside the monastery. The high-water mark remains 8 or 9 feet above the floor. Sakorn managed to escape the building and climb up a tree, something she says she could never do under normal circumstances.In the swirling waters, her 23-year-old daughter Sawanee smashed her head on a monastery wall. She died near all the Buddha statues and altars where they had placed their offerings.

Sawanee lived on the mainland, far from the sea. She had come to the island to visit her mother, who now sits in the monastery kitchen, looking as if a smile will never again grace her face.Religious devotion did not save Sawanee, or the many other Buddhists who died in Thailand. It did not save the many Muslims who live--and died--side by side with Buddhists in this part of the country; and it did not save the hundreds, perhaps thousands of Christians among the tourists who died while vacationing in Thai resorts.

Like religious people facing calamity through the ages, the survivors of the tsunami question how this could have happened. How entire villages could be wiped away. How tiny children could drown by the thousands.The answers in southern Thailand, perhaps the most religiously diverse area hit by the tsunami, reflect an effort to make sense of the incomprehensible and try to survive the unendurable.

To Buddhists, who believe in a universal system of cause and effect, rather than a God making decisions about the universe, the tsunami came as part of something larger they call Samsara, the endless cycle of birth, death and rebirth.The abbot in Koh Kau Khao has told the people that the event was much bigger than their village; it came from forces of the universe. Na Pha Phon, one of the few who survived the tragedy without losing a family member, does not waste much time on analysis: "What happened, happened," she said, seeming at peace with her conclusion.But Sakorn, in her sorrow, wonders why certain people died and others didn't.She remembers how once she had told the abbot that she saw someone stealing from the monastery. "Don't worry about it," he told her. "It's his karma." Maybe some who died seemed like good people, but she believes they committed bad actions, Kam, in previous lives, and their karma caught up with them.She also blames a violation of the hallowed grounds of the monastery. A new resort had opened on the island just days before the killer waves came. The resort built a fence on the monastery's grounds, and she said she felt physical pain when that happened. She knew it was wrong.

In a steamy camp for displaced persons, an air-conditioned tour bus pulls up the dirt road in a cloud of dust. When the doors open, a group of youngsters wearing identical black T-shirts pour out, ready to help the tsunami's survivors. Their T-shirts read "Love your neighbor as yourself."They are missionaries, members of Thailand's small evangelical community. They sound like they have a good handle on the reasons for the disaster. The group leader, Ohm Rung Kitt, 32, explains that "God is a God of mercy, not punishment." Why did he allow so much pain, then? "Jesus suffered on the cross," he says. "There's great mystery in suffering."

It may be a mystery, but he has some ideas.He and his Australian friend, 30-year-old Paul Flack, who have been working hard to build temporary homes for the victims, say they think the tragedy will persuade many of the area's Buddhists to turn to Jesus. "People are in need; they need someone, something," Flack says.Despite their reassurance, Ohm hesitates when asked if the killing of so many could ever be justified, especially by a merciful God. He pauses awkwardly and his eyes tear up.In the earliest days, he volunteered at a local temple where thousands of dead bodies were gathered for identification. "When you see the corpse of a baby," he says, remembering "a sea of corpses," with the white vapor of dry ice rising around it, "It's very hard, it's very hard."

It's not only their untimely deaths that trouble him, it's also that "They will have no eternal life" because they had not yet accepted Jesus.And what about the Buddhists, who have also not accepted Jesus?"It's very sad," Flack says, looking down and shaking his head. "It's very sad."

The village of Baan Kon Thee on the island of Phuket is home to the glittering Masjeed Nurudee Neeyah, a sparkling gold mosque visited by Muslims from all over southern Thailand.The grandfather of the imam, is 73-year-old Maad Songmang, a thin man who sports a starkly white beard against his deeply tanned face. Maad's 30-year-old granddaughter worked at a resort in Khao Lak. She was swept to sea in the tsunami, but the waves washed her body back to the coast and Maad brought her home for burial.With most of the tsunami's dead still lying in the morgue unidentified, Maad praises Allah for giving him the comfort of burying his granddaughter's body.

Unlike Muslim clerics in Indonesia who have variously said the tsunami came as a test for believers, a reminder to the slackers and a punishment to the non-believers, Maad sees no complex divine intervention in his loss."Everybody dies sometime," he says matter-of-factly. His granddaughter, he says, is very happy now. Then he smiles as if sharing the peace she must now feel. "She is with Allah."

Where was God on Dec. 26?In this land of many faiths, the answer to that question comes easily to some and offers comfort to many. Others yet grieving deeply refuse to discuss the subject.Nature has always had a way of reminding us of our powerlessness.

Finding just how or why we must endure the darkest depths of sorrow is one of the questions that have troubled the great sages from the beginning of time.When suffering comes from war or other man-made disasters, we can more easily excuse God and blame the horror on the failings of man. But when it's nature alone that brings the pain, it's much more difficult to excuse a higher power.The quest for answers continues in the temple on Koh Kau Khao, and throughout a region still mourning a tragedy we might tellingly describe as one of biblical proportions.

Copyright © 2005, Chicago Tribune

Never Again? What About Burma?

2005-01-27T13:23:00.000-05:00

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Bangkok ---

Never again. Those are the empty words that have long wafted in the rarified air of high-level, important-sounding diplomatic gatherings; words made to sound sincere by gifted speechwriters, crafted meticulously and couched in just the right sentences so that the listener will feel that lump in his throat and have to choke back tears.

Never again. The words came often on Monday, when the United Nations gathered to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz death camp, where as many as 1.5 million, mostly Jews, died in gas chambers or from starvation at the hands of the Nazis in World War II.

Never again, they started saying almost 60 years ago. But somehow it took 60 years to say it officially in the U.N. General Assembly. I read Monday's polished speeches in Thailand, as I tried to find out what the tsunami wrought in nearby Burma, one of those lands where "never again" means nothing at all. The speechwriters know their craft. They managed to mention many of the places where "never again" has long meant nothing.

But they did not mention Burma because the killing there is slower, slower than the deliberate slaughter today in Darfur, the orgies of killings in Rwanda in the '90s, or the madness that engulfed Cambodia in the '70s.

Burma is being slowly strangled by its own government. A once prosperous nation is gasping for air. A few years ago, I visited Burma --- renamed Myanmar by its brutal dictators --- and discovered a land where people live in fear; where the government does little more than strengthen its rule, enrich itself and terrify the population. It's a land where a heroic woman, Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, has spent most of the last nine years under arrest, as have many of those chosen by their own people 15 years ago,when the government miscalculated and allowed elections. I also found a land whose suffering is all but forgotten by the rest of the world.

That's why when the tsunami swept across this region, killing more than 5,000 people on Thailand's Andaman Sea coast, a coast that continues on Burma's side of the border, I worried about those living on Burma's stretch of coast.

The Burmese government announced that just a few dozen people died there.But, as one Burmese exile in Thailand told me, "If that's true, it's the first time the Burmese government has spoken the truth."So, I'm trying to find out the truth.

I reached a European businessman while he was in Burma. On his cellphone he told me the rumors swirling in the streets, that more than 10,000 people died there during the tsunami. I asked if I could speak with one of his friends. They all refused. He told me they said the danger was not worth it, because "nobody cares what happens in Burma."

I will continue trying to find out what the tsunami really did there, and what the government has done to help the victims.

As I dig through the sparse information coming out of Burma, however, I
have found a muted sense of excitement. It turns out something happened in Washington that stirred up political activists in Thailand and Rangoon.

Activists are elated by what they heard from Secretary of State-designee Condoleezza Rice during her confirmation hearings. Rice actually mentioned Burma as one of the six countries in her "outposts of tyranny."The Burmese have had bitter experiences in their efforts to end decades of tyranny, so they know better than to allow themselves any real optimism.

They don't expect much change in the international approach to their plight --- an approach that has allowed their tragedy to continue seemingly without end.

Still, in a world that keeps promising never to forget, it is nice to at least be remembered. But that's still a long way from the true meaning of "never again."

Sudan's Bloody Peace

2005-01-26T11:42:00.000-05:00

SUDAN
Bloody peace ignores tragedy in Darfur
Miami Herald
Posted on Fri, Jan. 14, 2005
BY FRIDA GHITIS

The streets of Juba, in southern Sudan, filled with joyous celebrations last Sunday. The thousands who came out to march and chant their happiness could hardly believe that the moment had finally arrived.
After decades of fighting, one of Africa's longest running and bloodiest conflicts had officially come to an end. Across the border in Kenya, officials from around the world had gathered to witness the signing of a peace deal ending a war that killed at least two million people and left millions more homeless. The president of Kenya called it, ``the beginning of a new, brighter future for the people of Sudan.''
Really? We may want to set aside that Nobel peace prize just for now.
In fact, rather than praise and commendation, the names of government leaders in Khartoum belong on indictments in war-crimes tribunals. Instead of shaking hands and back slaps with the world's politicians, these leaders' limbs belong in shackles. If ever there was a country deserving of regime change, Sudan is the one. And, as is often the case, powerful people around the globe have shielded and protected these leaders, allowing their track record of serial genocide to continue to this day.
The war that we can only hope just ended in the country's south pitted the Muslim central government against the Christian and animist south. Because most of the victims were Christians and the territories are rich in oil, the world eventually took the conflict seriously and exerted the necessary pressure to bring a resolution.
While the celebrations over the peace deal in southern Sudan unfolded, however, the systematic slaughter in Darfur, in western Sudan, continued. There, the war sets Muslim against Muslim. But the government and its supporters are Arab Muslims, and their victims are ethnic Africans, not Arabs. Despite many lofty-sounding speeches, threats and ultimatums, the world appears unwilling -- definitely not unable -- to do anything meaningful to stop the killing.
Let's be clear about this: Responsibility for the outrages in Darfur, where at least 70,000 have died and some two million have been forced from their homes, lies squarely with the Sudanese government and the nomadic Arab militias that it supports, the Janjaweed. But the international community, from the speechifying society of the United Nations Security Council to that exclusive dictators' club known as the Arab League, has shown little interest in stopping the slaughter. By their inaction -- our inaction -- we have become accomplices.
The peace treaty in the south provides for a sharing of the land's riches between the dictatorship and the people. The excruciatingly poor people of the region now have a chance at a measure of prosperity. The government no longer will enforce Muslim law there, and in a few years, the area will presumably be allowed to vote on full independence, rather than mere autonomy. But the strongmen in Khartoum are cleverly distracting the international community. They have learned their lesson, working to tighten their control and ''Arabize'' Darfur more than they did in the south.
Practically all the grievances against the government that created the conflict in the south are still the order of the day in Darfur, where the killings started after rebels said that their region, too, is marginalized, does not receive enough resources from the central government and should have a say in its own affairs.
The peace treaty just signed shows that this regime, which once harbored none other than Osama bin Laden, does respond to international pressure. Sadly, the international community has been unwilling to impose even an arms embargo on Khartoum, when much-stronger sanctions are fully justified.
Life for the people of Darfur has become a slow-motion nightmare of death and devastation. The only way to stop that is to impose strict sanctions on the regime and to push forth with a much-stronger presence of armed peace keepers than the minimal force now in place from the African Union. Without it, we are not only complicit in the horrors, but we risk a full unraveling of this weekend's peace treaty. After all, as a former Soviet refusenik once said, we should never trust a government that doesn't trust its own people.
If the killing in Darfur does not end, the joy in Juba could be short lived. We'll have ourselves, in addition to the perpetrators, to blame.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion
/10641220.htm?1c

2005-01-25T16:51:00.000-05:00

Pornthip -- Thailand's Superhero Doc

Thailand's CSI -- The Tsunami Super-Doc

2005-01-25T16:30:00.000-05:00

Woman Doctor Dazzles Thailand:
After the Tsunami, a Superhero is Born
By Frida Ghitis

(Takua Pa, Thailand) When the tragedy that befell Thailand moves into the history books and is absorbed by the country’s legends, one Buddhist temple will serve as the stage for much of the drama played out in the weeks following the Tsunami, and one woman will remain a central character in a story of heartbreak, science and politics.

The place is Wat Yanyao. The Buddhist Temple that became a morgue for thousands of Tsunamis victims. And the unforgettable -- un-ignorable -- central character will be Pornthip Rojanasunan, the deputy chief of Thailand’s Central Institute of Forensic Science, the country’s legendary forensic chief, who led the victim identification process, took on the establishment, and in the process became a cult hero in Thailand.

For forty days after the December 26 waves smashed ashore, the temple became the hectic epicenter of identification efforts. Some 500 volunteers from dozens of countries worked to identify decomposing bodies, take information from grieving relatives, and handle the complicated logistics of dealing with more than 5000 dead bodies.

Amid the hundreds of scientists, victims’ relatives, and other professionals milling busily on the temple grounds, one tiny figure, with spiky purple-red hair, stood out in the crowd. Pornthip, as everyone knows her, ran the massive and grim operation until February 3, when a turf battle with Thai police ended with the Temple mortuary closing down and Pornthip forced out of the operation. By the time the bodies were wheeled out, the villagers in Takua Pa had become passionate in their support and their gratitude towards Pornthip, and ever more suspicious of the police.

Pornthip no longer plays a central role in this operation, but few doubt that she will be highly visible in the country’s future.

According to Sombat Chnatornvong, a long-time observer of Thai politics, “Dr. Pornthip’s courage has made her a hero in the eyes of most Thais.”

The government has now transferred refrigerated trucks holding the
remains of Western tourists to a new facility set up in cooperation with the Interpol in the resort island of Phuket, about 80 miles away. The overall identification process is now in the hands of the Police Forensic Institute. Pornthip, in a characteristically blunt statement, declared that “the autocrats” had gotten their way.

Before the government officially decided to send the foreigners’ bodies away, a bitter turf war erupted between Pornthip and the Royal Thai Police. With Pornthip’s flamboyant looks splashed over the front pages and her utterly non-traditional image appearing on television every single night, the dispute became high drama on a national scale, and a source of anguish for victims’ families. The Thai police say she is publicity hungry, and accused her of mishandling the identification process. Many bodies had to be exhumed because in the chaos of the first days they were stacked on top of each other and their DNA got mixed together.

Police officials urged the government to assign the victim identification task to the police, which would operate alongside the Interpol at the new state-of-the art forensic identification center. Villagers begged the government to keep their loved ones nearby.

Pornthip, ranked by local polls as the second most popular figure in Thailand, reminded everyone that Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra -- who ranked first in the same poll -- put her in charge of the operation. “My work will go on,” she said, “unless the prime minister says something else.”

Then she warned that villagers would mount protests if efforts to move their relatives’ remains went ahead.

The villagers promptly protested, setting roadblocks just as foreign dignitaries toured the destruction area, and demanding that identification work remain at the temple with Pornthip. The protests persuaded the government to delay the handover, and to move only the foreigners. But in the end, Pornthip lost the battle

Like hundreds of other Thais from nearby fishing villages, Plenphis Lumjamuang spent many days waiting outside the Temple, she said she wants to see her daughter’s body again and doesn’t trust the authorities to interfere with Pornthip’s work.

Verbal clashes between the irreverent, blunt-speaking Pornthip and the police are nothing new. She has long been a thorn in their holstered sides, accusing officials of incompetence and corruption and calling for forensic pathology to be taken out of the hands of police. When a botched government operation in the country’s restive South left scores dead, it was Dr. Pornthip who revealed scores of prisoners had suffocated after being detained. In Thailand she is known as one government official who can be trusted to tell the truth.

Her popular appeal has allowed her to openly criticize the government, because all political parties want her join to their ranks. In opinion surveys Thais say she is the most likely first female Prime Minister. Sombat Chantornvong says she is unlikely to turn to politics but, he adds, “If she wants to, she could have a bright political future.”

For now, she says she is not interested in politics; all she wants to do is help the people. And the people stand firmly on her side. “Pornthip is working hard,” said 53-year-old Suh Wath, who makes a living carrying passengers on his motorcycle taxi. “The police only want to take more money.” Like everyone else, he knows how much weight her diminutive body frame has lost: 5 pounds, from working tirelessly since the Tsunami struck.

In the early days, with her workers buckling under the emotional weight of their wrenching jobs, Pornthip explained, “I have to console them like their mother.” She allowed photographers to catch her, too, breaking down from sorrow. Her image continues to evolve, from chief pathologist to chief mourner, and chief speaker of the truth. On a makeshift memorial wall just inside Yanyao temple’s gates, visitors wrote words with their thoughts on the disaster. Several drew cartoons of the reed-thin, spiky-haired Pornthip. One showed her looking fierce, making a soldier cry. Another showed her wearing a cape and a big S on her chest, saying, “Leave no one behind.”

Much to her critics’ chagrin, Dr. Pornthip has become Thailand’s beloved superhero. And as superhero-watchers know, there is always another battle just over the horizon.

2004-12-21T20:09:00.000-05:00

Frida, Hard at Work

Jerusalem Report: Torturing the Truth

2004-11-16T20:41:00.000-05:00

Jerusalem Report, The: Torturing the Truth
In the autumn of 1654, exactly 350 years ago, a group of Jews fleeing the terror of the Inquisition - in its Portuguese-Brazilian incarnation - landed in New Amsterdam and built the first Jewish community in North America. These refugees from one of the most vicious onslaughts of religious extremism the world has ever seen were among the lucky ones. Jews who remained in Brazil had to go underground. If discovered, as many were, they faced deportation to Portugal and execution.

The Inquisition - the Catholic Church's medieval anti-heresy machine - left many tens of thousands, if not millions, of Jews, Protestants and Muslims, as well as deviant Catholics, dead in Europe and the New World between the 13th and 19th centuries, imprisoning and torturing many more. What's more the campaign to ensure Catholic purity was the forerunner of much of today's religious intolerance.

Amazingly, the Vatican now wants to rewrite history. Just in case we thought the world was suffering from a shortage of religious hatred, of competing interpretations of history, and of killing in the name of God, a recent Church report claims the Inquisition was not a very big deal. According to the 783-page document, the Church's work resulted in just a few thousand deaths, due to "procedures applied with excessive vigor," what the pope has called, by way of apology, "errors committed in the service of the truth."

This revisionism - analysis made with one eye closed and the other darting in search of excuses - attempts to whitewash what is one of the most lasting and destructive effects of an orchestrated campaign of mass religious persecution that opened the gates to hatred that some historians say reached its grotesque climax during World War II.

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The Church, which under Pope John Paul II has made commendable strides to mend fences with the Jews and has apologized for some of its misdeeds, has taken a giant step back - at precisely the wrong moment in history. Relations between the Vatican and Israel and the Jews carry the burden of 2,000 years of mistrust and bloodshed. A decade ago, Israel and the Holy See established diplomatic ties, and in 2000 Pope John Paul II made a historic visit to Israel. But the links remain tense and troubled. An official report minimizing the Inquisition only gives fodder to Jews who doubt the sincerity of the Vatican's efforts.

The editor of the report, Prof. Agostino Borromeo, says only 1.8 percent of the 125,000 people tried by the Spanish Inquisition were executed, and that number, fewer than 2,500 people, does not justify the awful image that has made the Inquisition synonymous with the worst of the Dark Ages. The number itself is highly suspect. British historian Cecil Roth calculated that some 30,000 "secret Jews" died at the hands of the Spanish Inquisition alone. That doesn't include the executed Muslims and Protestants and the many Catholics burnt at the stake on patently absurd charges. In "A History of the Spanish Inquisition," the 19th-century Spanish historian Juan Antonio Llorente said Church authorities in Spain put 31,912 on the pyre, and that millions more were killed in other parts of Europe. And just in case the numerical manipulations leave you unconvinced, the Vatican blames secular institutions for most of the abuses, conveniently ignoring that it was the Church that handed over the accused for interrogations of mythical horror.

Even for those Jews, Muslims and Protestants who surrendered their religion the terror continued. Many who converted endured mistrust and abuse under a regime that put science in the service of torture, devising some of the pain-inducing machines that became the hallmark of their age. By the end of the 15th century, Dominican prior Tomas de Torquemada, one of the apostles of anti-Semitism, persuaded the king and queen of Spain to expel all the Jews from the kingdom. Portugal soon followed suit. At least 100,000 were forced from their homes, thrown out to wander in search of a land that would allow them a new beginning.

For many, the welcome came in Muslim countries. For others it meant America, as it did for the small group of Jews 350 years ago.

Not only does the Vatican report fly in the face of historical evidence when it tells us that "only" a few thousand died, it doesn't tell us about the millions who lived in fear or about the untold thousands who spent decades in dungeons. And it ignores the centuries of prejudice it engendered. At a time when religious extremism in the Middle East has started spreading to the rest of the world, the Vatican's decision to minimize the Church's role in creating the monster of intolerance is beyond baffling.

It's inexcusable.

The War Against Muslims

2004-04-23T14:56:00.000-04:00

Posted on Fri, Apr. 23, 2004

MIDDLE EAST
Muslims suffer the most under radical Islam
BY FRIDA GHITIS
Miami Herald

For hundreds of Muslims families in the Middle East, the events of this week have changed life forever. To the rest of the world, the most recent bombings represented just another horror in an age of carnage. But with scores dead and hundreds injured in blasts throughout the region, thousands of surviving mothers, brothers, sons and daughters' lives will never be the same. And that's just from this week's killings.

Suicide bombings in Southern Iraq, more blasts in Riyadh, the Saudi Arabian capital and a massive terrorist plot involving chemical weapons discovered in Jordan, which authorities said would have killed some 20,000 people -- all point to the greatest fallacy about the current campaign by militant Islamists. The common view holds that this is a war of East vs. West, of militant fundamentalist Islam vs. the United States and its allies. The reality is quite different. Radical Islam is at war against the majority of the world's Muslims, who have no desire to live under the militants' reading of Islamic law.

The Basra massacre was most likely the work of Islamic-inspired fighters. Suicide bombings are the trademark of fundamentalist terrorism. In Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Osama bin Laden, radical Islamism has already left its terrorist signature in previous attacks.
It is Muslims, however, that terrorists are killing in the largest numbers by far. More important, it is Muslims whose governments and societies the militants ultimately want to dominate. Today's Muslim world is the final prize for the winner of the conflict.

Followers of the al Qaeda ideology have already shown what kind of government and what kind of society they pursue. Afghanistan had the dubious distinction of embodying that fundamentalist fantasy under Taliban rule. From Afghanistan we know that the biggest losers from a fundamentalists' victory will be Muslim women. But anyone who does not want to live in a world where religious authorities dictate every aspect of daily life, where thought and expression are strictly controlled and where infractions against ancient religious codes are punished by beheadings or stonings, also stands to lose if Islamists succeed.

The No. 1 enemy of Islamic radicals is modernity. Anything that moves society forward, away from their understanding of what life was like in seventh century Arabia, where Islam was born, is a threat.

That's one reason why Muslims and non-Muslims incorrectly view this as a conflict between East and West. Islamists view the West, led by the United States, as the tip of the modernity spear. They are probably right about that. But most people in the Arab world do not want to live by seventh-century rules. They may not want all that America stands for, but they do want human rights, economic opportunity and progress.
The Muslim majorities -- tragically for them and dangerously for us -- have failed to speak out against this campaign. As the controversial Muslim writer Irshad Manji says, ''the Muslim world has used the West -- the so-called oppressive West -- as a weapon of mass distraction for a long time.'' Muslims, she says, have been successfully intimidated. Voices of dissent have been silenced, and people who ''devour'' the Western lifestyle in private, publicly speak out against America.

In the end, however, they are the ones with the most to lose from their silence. If the fundamentalists win, the consequences for the West will pale in comparison to the suffering that will befall hundreds of millions of Arabs and Muslims. Even before the war is over, they are already the ones suffering the most painful losses.
Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs. She is the author of The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live Television.''
http://www.muslim-refusenik.com/news/miamiherald-04-04-23.html

Genocide Met with the Silence of Hypocrisy

2004-04-06T15:38:00.000-04:00

SUDAN
As genocide occurs, we sit on our hands

BY FRIDA GHITIS

Special to the Herald
Published 4/6/2004

Every so often the world takes up the opportunity to place its own hypocrisy on display. This time, the opportunity has emerged in a corner of Sudan, the oil-rich African nation. While ethnic cleansing, massacres and other crimes against humanity steadily grind down the lives of three ethnic Sudanese minorities, the indignation of much of the globe remains reserved for more familiar villains.

The sounds of righteous anger and moral indignation have become the province of governments and mobs alike. In Washington, the White House declares its fine deed of freeing an oppressed people from the clutches of a dictator. In Europe, pacifist protestors wave their sunny rainbow flags proclaiming their love of peace above all. In the Middle East, and in Arab communities here in Europe, mobs of young men electrified with rage set American and Israeli flags on fire in support of their embattled brethren.

And yet, when more than 700,000 Muslims in Western Sudan are pushed away from their homes by other Muslims, when thousands are massacred, when women are raped, children abducted and villages burned, there is a deafening quiet.

The hypocrisy of international reaction to the atrocities in the Sudanese province of Darfur is in particularly sharp focus this week because the world is commemorating the 10th anniversary of the massacres in another African country, Rwanda. Ten years ago the world did less than nothing when some 800,000 Rwandans were hacked to death by Rwandans of a different ethnicity. When the killing started, U.N. peacekeepers fled clearing the way for one of the most efficient slaughters in history. Now newspapers, magazines and television stations flicker across Europe and America with sophisticated analysis and heart-rending images of what happened in Rwanda. We need to understand, of course, so we can prevent it from happening again.

But now that it is happening again, as a U.N. official indicated, few people seem to care.

The killings in Darfur trace the ethnic fault line of a country divided by religion and ethnicity. Sudan, the enormous country just south of Egypt in Northeastern Africa, is made up of Arabs and black Africans. Its people are Christians and Muslims. For decades the Arab-dominated government has fought a devastating war against black Christians in the oil-rich south. That war may soon end, thanks in part to key participation by the United States in negotiating an agreement. This new conflict pits Arab Muslims against African Muslims of the Fur, Messalit and Zaghawa tribes.

A rebel group in Darfur rose up against the government more than a year ago, demanding that the government provide more development help and stop arming local Arabs. The government responded by arming a new militia and setting it free to ravage the region, without regard to whether rebels or civilians became targets. Human-rights organizations charge the government with encouraging, if not directly controlling, the actions of the murderous Janjaweed.

Some observers think the Sudanese government aims to suppress the uprising so rapidly that the international community has little time to organize its response.

The response so far has been utterly toothless.

A U.S. State Department official has condemned the attacks, and U.N. chief Kofi Annan has declared himself ''disturbed'' by the conflict. There is little doubt that what is happening in Darfur meets the legal definition of Crimes Against Humanity and Genocide. And yet, not much is being done to stop it. Peace talks in neighboring Chad have not even succeeded in pushing the two sides into the same room.

The paragons of pacifism in Europe and America have staged no protests. Perhaps slaughtering civilians does not offend their sense of morality. Their rainbow flags are apparently reserved to protest American intervention in Iraq. The zealous defenders of Muslims are apparently also too busy worrying about how Israel and the United States behave.

The government in Washington, the defender of Good against Evil, has its hands too full with Iraq and the November election to let the president speak forcefully against the massacres.

John Kerry, the Democratic candidate has no time to worry about genocide when he's occupied driving his own campaign. American silence is echoed in Europe.

Once again, we have found an opportunity to practice hypocrisy, and we have wholeheartedly embraced it.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs.

http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/8364001.htm

Seeking Justice in Cambodia's Killing Fields

2004-04-04T12:31:00.000-04:00

San Francisco Chronicle

Cambodia's killing fields hold the key to a horrible truth
Frida Ghitis
Sunday, April 4, 2004

Choeng Ek, Cambodia -- About half an hour south of the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, lies a disturbingly peaceful grassy field. The killing field of Choeng Ek is one of the many places where thousands of Cambodians died at the hands of other Cambodians.

Excavated mass graves have yielded a gruesome harvest of human bones, some still covered in ragged clothes.

In the middle of the field, a glass memorial encloses about 8,000 skulls, some visibly shattered in the act of murder. Each skull, one shudders to realize, belonged to a human being, a life extinguished in an orgy of violence during the days of Cambodia's Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s.

It is a perilous practice to compare tragedies. But few countries have suffered as much as Cambodia. And yet, 25 years after Vietnamese forces overthrew the Khmer Rouge and its bloodthirsty leader, Pol Pot, there is little understanding of what exactly happened during Cambodia's nightmare.

Until now, there has been no attempt to reach clarity and justice, and no one has come to trial.

So Pheap, who was a boy during the Khmer Rouge regime, shakes his head in disbelief at the political process that has yet to bring justice.
"I don't understand," he says. "Why does it take so long?" Now 35 years old, So Pheap remembers working in the fields with the other children, separated from his parents. Many family members died in circumstances no one can explain.

"Why did they kill so many people?" he wonders, as do millions of Cambodians. The Khmer Rouge experience remains a confusing and painful national scar.

International efforts have focused on bringing genocide trials against top leaders of the Khmer Rouge, the fanatical, paranoid regime that led as many as 2 million Cambodians to their deaths.

The trials, however, will not be enough to cleanse the soul of this nation. Cambodia needs a South Africa-style Truth Commission, one that will bring out the truth and clear the air poisoning relations between victims and victimizers, who live side by side in this impoverished nation.

The Cambodian government of Prime Minister Hun Sen, once a member of the Khmer Rouge, spent years negotiating with the United Nations on rules for a genocide tribunal.

Agreement was reached to try the top leaders still living in freedom, but the tribunal remains in limbo, due to a national political stalemate. Even when the genocide trials get started, only a handful of elderly men will face justice. The trials are important, but they are not enough.

The victims at Choeng Ek came from Phnom Pehn's infamous prison, Toul Sleng, a place where the Khmer Rouge regime brought its enemies, real and imagined, to be tortured, interrogated and then carted off to their deaths.

The Khmer Rouge, led by the Paris-educated Pol Pot, came to power in 1975, in the chaos left in the wake of the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. The United States had carpet-bombed Cambodia in an effort to cut off enemy supply routes to Vietnam.

After the Americans left, Pol Pot and his followers easily overthrew Lon Nol, the anti-communist dictator Washington had supported. So Pheap still remembers the rejoicing in the streets.

The joy was short-lived. Pol Pot wanted to create a Maoist agrarian utopia. He ordered everyone out of the cities and into the fields.

Phnom Penh, a city crowded with some 2 million people, including many refugees fleeing the civil war, became a ghost town.

Even hospitals were emptied, as the entire population joined a drive to boost rice production. Hundreds of thousands died of overwork, disease and starvation.

Pol Pot's deranged plan was to create a blank slate of a society. To do this, he exterminated all educated people, meaning anyone with at least a seventh-grade education. Ethnic minorities, intellectuals and Buddhist monks were murdered in the name of the revolutionary ideal.
Pol Pot, who died a free man in 1998, was known as Brother No. 1. He was surrounded by a small clique.

But the Khmer Rouge counted thousands of followers. The Toul Sleng prison alone employed more than 1,000 guards, interrogators, torturers and other accessories to murder. Like the top leaders of the Khmer Rouge, almost all remain at large. They have not faced their victims, and they have not told their stories.

Cambodians understand the reality of that time. They know many of those who killed knew that they too would die if they failed to follow orders.
What the country desperately needs -- something that other nations, such as Iraq, will also need -- is a systematic way to get at the truth.

Cambodians should at long last have a chance to tell their heartbreaking story. They should have the opportunity to gain a profound understanding of what happened and why it happened.

Only then can they obtain a believable vow from their leaders not to allow history to be repeated. Only then will they be able to live without the constant fear of revenge and of a return to terror.

Only then will the rest of us hear the truth about how a band of fanatics drove millions to their deaths, while the rest of the world chose to look away.

Frida Ghitis is the author of "The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live Television

Thailand Muslim Insurgency

2004-04-04T11:57:00.000-04:00

CHICAGO TRIBUNE
4 april 2004

Trouble in paradise: Thailand's Muslim insurgents

On a quiet Saturday morning recently in southern Thailand, an elderly Buddhist monk slowly made his rounds, clad in traditional saffron robes. His feet bare and his shaved head bowed, he collected alms from the faithful. A motorcycle approached.A man on the bike raised his machete and struck, leaving the holy man dead only moments after a 13-year-old novice standing near a Buddhist temple also was hacked to death.

Another Buddhist monk narrowly survived a machete attack that day in the same Thai province of Yala, one of three Muslim majority provinces in overwhelmingly Buddhist Thailand.Who would have it in for Buddhist monks?The three fell victim to a renewed wave of Islamic extremism now boiling in this traditionally peaceful Buddhist land.

Rebels have killed more than 40 people since the beginning of the year. Most of the dead were security forces, government officials, and Buddhist monks. The attacks have shaken up the country, thrown the leadership off balance, and placed the government in a quandary familiar to virtually every country trying to defeat a terrorist threat.In their most daring assault, the one that launched the current wave of violence, the attackers set fire to 21 schools in a single night.

The fires of Jan. 4 worked as a decoy, allowing militants to raid a government armory and steal hundreds of weapons.To the image-conscious government of Thailand, the Muslim rebellion presented a daunting challenge. The government needed to take action without causing a damaging panic and destroy the terrorist network without sparking a recruiting boom for the enemy.

The requirements of security initially seemed to compete with the public-relations demands of the tourist industry. The explosive growth of tourism in Thailand--the top destination in Southeast Asia--brought 10 million visitors last year, along with billions of dollars.Foreign tourists open their wallets for the image of near-ethereal peace in a Buddhist land of gleaming temples, smiling monks, and sandy white beaches--along with less spiritual pursuits.

An armed rebellion by Muslim extremists is not exactly a draw for tourists.

The initial response from the authorities was to downplay the problem, hoping to keep it out of the headlines. The southern provinces, sitting on the border with Malaysia, have long been rife with smuggling, drug trafficking and other shady pursuits. The government tried to blame the violence on banditry and gang rivalries.The Jan. 4 incident, however, showed just how serious the situation was. The rebels now had hundreds of weapons, and the sophistication of the attack proved that this was no common criminal act.

Intelligence officers in the region and in the United States now say the group Jemaah Islamiyah, known to have links with Al Qaeda, is operating in the area.Only a few months earlier, Thai authorities had been shocked to discover that the Asian terrorist mastermind Hambali had coordinated many of his most destructively successful operations, such as the Bali bombing in 2002 and the Jakarta Marriott attack last year, from a base in Thailand. Now they were discovering that extremism had settled in on their side of the Malaysian border.

When it became clear that ignoring the problem would not make it go away, the government launched a closed-fist crackdown in the South, sparking the outrage of law-abiding Muslims, who claimed that the government's actions would effectively drive the population to the side of the extremists.Like other nations facing terrorism, the Thai government is now straining to find that elusive place where just the right amount of force is brought to bear on just the right people, a nearly impossible balancing act.

Immediately after the twin armory and arson attacks, the government declared martial law in the three southern provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat, where the majority of Thailand's 6 million Muslims live. By some counts, more than 10,000 troops marched into the area, stirring the simmering resentment.Authorities began looking into Muslim education in the area, scrutinizing schools for any sign of training militants and focusing on religion at the expense of the required secular education.As the attacks continued, Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra declared he was losing patience. "We must be aggressive from now on," he vowed, claiming that the insurgents were trying to start a religious war.Complicating matters is the fact that no one has claimed responsibility for the attacks, and it is not exactly clear what their purpose is.Thailand's Muslim minority has long resented the central government. Separatist movements surfaced in the 1960s and operated into the late 1980s, when the government offered an amnesty to the rebels.Still, the region is plagued by lower incomes and higher crime than the rest of the country, along with social problems typical of low-income border areas.

Many say the violence is a direct result of government neglect. Increasingly, however, it has become clear that the insurgency is the work of Muslim separatists with ties to Al Qaeda, possibly including some who trained in the old terrorist alma mater of Afghanistan.Muslim leaders have condemned the violence. After the machete attacks on the three monks, religious organizations called on authorities to find and punish the killers, describing them as "spreading the disease that poisoned national harmony and peace."But their loudest rebukes these days are reserved for the authorities. At one point, they angrily withdrew their support from government efforts, charging that security forces had crossed the line. Muslim leaders accused soldiers and police officers of repeatedly violating the rights of Thailand's Muslims with their insensitive and intrusive tactics.Authorities have shown some sensitivity to the criticism. Thaksin visited the region and met with local leaders. However, he is not likely to protect human rights if it risks his anti-terrorism campaign. The Thai people, about 90 percent of them Buddhists, have little patience for terrorism, and they like their take-charge prime minister.The Thai leader has demonstrated coldblooded determination in the past; last year he launched a war on drugs that left 2,000 people dead under questionable circumstances.

The government now says it is ready for a carrot-and-stick strategy. Authorities say they will loosen the strict martial law, and the Cabinet has approved a development plan for the region. The $18 million plan calls for infrastructure projects to bring water, roads and electricity. The Thai government, however, is taking no chances with the insurgency.Some of the "development" money is going to training of the police and military forces.
Copyright © 2004, Chicago Tribune

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2004-04-03T21:38:00.000-05:00

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Oops, Did it Again -- Forgot Separation of Church and State

2004-03-03T17:37:00.000-05:00

Places of worship intrude on voting's sacred privacy

Atlanta Journal-Constitution

By FRIDA GHITIS

My new polling place stands inside the American Civil Liberties Union offices.

It offers plenty of convenient parking. From my car, I walk a few short steps along a corridor covered with posters -- one attacking Mel Gibson's movie about Jesus, another saying the government should take better care of the elderly. Others proclaim the virtues of civil liberties and invite me to join the organization. The corridor ends in a large hall where I cast my ballot, unaffected by any of the propaganda I just read.

Just kidding.

My polling place has, in fact, moved, but not to any overtly political office. Instead of the old school gym I'd grown accustomed to, I now exercise my foremost democratic privilege inside a church.

Despite the signs indicating that no campaigning is allowed at that location, there is the unmistakable whiff of politics in the air.

It is kind of the good neighbors at the First Christian Church to open their doors to voters. Their kindness, however, deserves a hearty thanks, but no thanks. Churches are the wrong venue for voting, especially at a time in our country where so-called faith-based organizations have become major players in the political arena.

My description of a walk down an imaginary ACLU office is not a total illusion. The reality is that the moment I stepped into the church building I faced a sign-up sheet to join the church group on a trip to watch Gibson's controversial "The Passion of the Christ." Bible passages also greeted me and other voters, reminding us that Jesus loves us. This we know, because our polling place told us so.

With church staff milling about, I wonder how members of this particular congregation felt when a precinct worker loudly asked if they were voting Republican or Democrat. Would they have dared "out" themselves to following the less popular party before their pew mates? I can tell you that the entire experience was more than a little unpleasant.

I wonder also how my church-going neighbors would have felt about voting in a mosque, forced to walk the gantlet of Allah hu-Akbar signs along the way to the brand new voting machines. Or, maybe they could have voted in a synagogue. Come to think of it, just a few blocks from the First Christian Church stands the Congregation Beth Haverim. That's the city's gay synagogue. There, Christian voters might have had the opportunity to hear all the latest on gay marriage. An unforgettable experience, I'm sure.

The reality is that voting in a church, mosque or synagogue should simply not happen. We would not place our voting machines in the offices of a political party, the ACLU, an anti-abortion or pro-abortion organization, or any other organization aiming to influence our political views. As it happens, our tax dollars have provided plenty of public buildings. Within walking distance of my new polling place is a large post office, for example. The school where I used to vote is still there, just across the street.

Setting up voting machines in places of worship and the facilities they manage means that voters must be exposed to proselytism on their way to the polls. It allows churches to use Election Day as a membership drive. A government-sanctioned political activity as sacred as voting cannot take place in a house of worship, because the separation of church and state cannot take a day off on Election Day.

http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0304a/03ghitis.html

USATODAY.com - Give Iraqis more power

2003-12-16T20:44:00.000-05:00

USATODAY.com - Give Iraqis more power

2003-11-20T18:24:00.000-05:00

Iraq’s Civil War: Let Iraqis Defend Their Freedom
By Frida Ghitis

The day I heard the US had disbanded the Iraqi army, I immediately thought of a man I had met only days earlier in a dismal placed called Camp Bucca in Southern Iraq. Camp Bucca was a makeshift prison filled with captured Iraqi soldiers. EPWs, is what the Americans called them, enemy prisoners of war. Many of the prisoners, however, were not enemies of the United States.

Nassir Al Salam, a muscular, balding man of 43, had reached the rank of Lieutenant Colonel in Saddam’s army. When the war started, he told me without a hint of shame, he heard Donald Rumsfeld on a shortwave radio broadcast telling Iraqi soldiers to surrender if they wanted to help free their country. He gave himself up as soon as he could. That was his way of helping defeat Saddam Hussein.

Men like Col. Salam embody the answer to many of the problems facing the US in Iraq today. Focusing on them should make it clear that this new stage of the war is one for the future of Iraq, and one in which the Iraqis must be allowed to play a much larger role.

The day I met him, exactly six months ago, the Colonel was leaving the camp, freed by the US after some six weeks as a prisoner of war in this place of military guards, canvas tents and asphyxiating desert heat. How did he feel about the Americans, the people who welcomed his surrender with imprisonment? “They helped us achieve our dream,” he said. Without the Americans, he told me, nobody could remove Saddam. “It was our golden chance.”

Then he paused for a moment and looked at the soldiers. “They paid blood, the American troops,” he mused, “We will never forget that.”

Col. Al-Salam had heard about the looting overtaking Baghdad and he had a clear idea about what should be done to stop it: “Use Iraqi troops to secure the city,” he advised. The Colonel was rearing to get to work for the future of his country.

The US did not follow his advice. Instead, Col. Al-Salam, a highly trained officer, received five dollars from the Americans and some food from the Red Cross. Then he returned to his home in Karbala. Twenty days later, the announcement came: The Iraqi army would no longer exist. He was unemployed. He would become little more than a witness in the transformation of his country.

By then the looting was subsiding and the spiral of attacks against US forces and Iraqi civilians was just about to uncoil, with devastating results.

When the US describes the war as the “liberation” of Iraq, it sounds like propaganda. But it doesn’t have to. The Iraqi people yearned desperately to throw off the shackles of Saddam’s dictatorship. And, as Col. Al-Salam said, they would never have succeeded without American help. Now that they are free of Saddam’s repression, the Iraqis themselves should play a major role in securing their country.

The country does not need more occupation troops; not from France or Germany or Turkey. It needs Iraqis to take their rightful place in a war that is theirs, with full support from the United States to ensure victory. The US must remain, leading the effort, because Iraq’s future will affect this country, and because the US has a responsibility, as the nation that launched the war. But Iraqi soldiers must march shoulder to shoulder with the Americans.
Iraq is in the midst of a civil war pitting those who oppose democracy, on one side, against those who support an open democratic regime. The guerrilla forces include an assortment of Baathists wanting to return to power; Sunnis who don’t want to lose the privileges of the Saddam era, and Jihadists, who want to turn Iraq into a fundamentalist Islamic state.
The problem is that those who want democracy for their country are not allowed to fight. American forces are fighting for them, taking casualties, and depriving the Iraqi people of earning and crafting their own democracy the way so many other nations did.

Sure, the US should continue to fight on the side of the vast majority, the ones who want a post-Saddam Iraq to become a country of free speech, free elections and equal rights for women. But this fight belongs to the Iraqi people.

People like Col. Nassir Al-Salam welcomed the American liberation. They have longed to have a free country. They should be allowed to defend their nation and fight those who would again take away their freedom.

Frida Ghitis is the author of “The End of Revolution: a Changing World in the Age of Live Television.” She writes about world affairs.

fg note: a version of this article appeared on USA Today http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2003-12-16-ghitis_x.htm

Dutch Gays Vs Vatican

2003-09-21T11:55:00.000-04:00

Doctrine Meets Practice Dutch take on Vatican over gay marriages
By Frida Ghitis

from Chicago Tribune sept 21, 2003

At the stroke of midnight, on April 1, 2001, an extraordinary ceremony unfolded at City Hall in Amsterdam. Inside the massive red brick building adjoining the city's grand opera hall, a leading Dutch politician performed official marriage ceremonies for four gay couples. The weddings, conducted by Mayor Job Cohen, represented the first fully government-sanctioned same-sex marriages in the world. They were not registered partnerships, civil unions or any other political concoction cooked up to resemble a normal marriage. These marriages were 100 percent identical to the ones joining married heterosexual couples in the Netherlands.

The weddings did not cause much of a social or political commotion in the Netherlands. That, however, is not what happens in most countries when gay marriage comes up for debate. Since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the Texas anti-sodomy law this summer, moves to legalize gay unions on all continents have gathered steam. The Vatican has made it its mission to stop gay marriage. Activists in the Netherlands now say they will help gay groups in other countries achieve what they did. A few weeks after the Supreme Court ruling, the Vatican issued a call for Catholics around the world to stand up against the evils of ungodly and unnatural homosexual unions.

According to the Vatican's 12-page directive, even supporting gay marriage is "gravely immoral." Not long after that, the main gay organization in the Netherlands announced the publication of a booklet designed to help activists legalize their relationships by studying the Dutch experience. Hans van Velde, a principal author of the 60-page guide, says requests for copies have poured in from all corners of the world. Already the publishers, the weekly Gay Krant and the Dutch Association for the Integration of Homosexuality, have shipped copies to Brazil, Argentina, Suriname, Romania and many other countries.

In this battle, spearheaded by the Netherlands on one side and the Vatican on the other, the Vatican has already scored important victories. When Pope John Paul II declared it the duty of Catholics to fight gay marriage, the Congress of Colombia was already debating legislation to grant partnership rights to same-sex couples. Prominent politicians, including several former presidents, had expressed support for the bill. But Colombia is a devoutly Catholic country, and the legislation was quickly shelved after the word came out of Rome. Activists say the Vatican's push killed the bill.

In Poland, the pope's birthplace and another very Catholic country, activists believed the time was not yet right to fight for gay marriage rights. But, after hearing that authorities refused to allow a gay man to see his dying partner in the hospital, Sen. Maria Szyszkowska introduced a civil unions bill. With the pope's pronouncement, the bill faces an uphill battle.

The Vatican's involvement has infuriated many activists, especially in light of the church's recent sexual abuse scandals. In Argentina, where a version of legalized same-sex union is in place, writer Eduardo Galeano wondered how, exactly, supposedly chaste priests are suddenly experts in sex. In his native Uruguay, he reports, the archbishop proclaimed homosexuality a "contagious disease." Galeano points to the horrors of the Inquisition, when homosexuals were burned alive and worse on instructions of the church. The Vatican, he says, should be begging for forgiveness, rather than continuing to spray its venom.

To those worried about the collapse of society should gay marriage become a reality, gays and their supporters in the Netherlands say not to worry. Since gay marriage became legal, the Netherlands remains standing.

Heterosexuality, they say, does not appear to have been endangered. Dutch activists underscore that what they fought for was civil matrimony. They say the rules of religious marriage are a matter for each church to decide.
When it comes to legalizing civil marriages, they feel a responsibility to share the secrets of their success. The main gay umbrella organization, which is also the oldest gay group in Europe, helped start the International Gay and Lesbian Organization, which is promoting equality for gays.

Cohen, who as justice minister became the principal sponsor of legislation in the Dutch parliament, acknowledged that initially he did not see the need for same-sex marriage. Cohen, who is openly straight, eventually came to champion the cause when he realized that the issue was, in fact, equality. The same point is made by Jose Smits, one of many openly gay members of parliament. She says the problem is really one of discrimination - which politicians of all stripes generally oppose.

The Dutch publication offers encouragement to gay groups even in the face of defeat. Arriving at gay marriage required a long and arduous 16-year trek through the jungles of public opinion, parliamentary politics, the Dutch courts and, surprisingly, a reluctant gay community. When Henk Krol, editor of the Gay Krant, first brought up the matter with gay groups, they did not support him. At one point, the president of the gay association, Anja van Kooten Niekerk, agreed with politicians who opposed gay marriage, saying it was "sad" that gays were demanding marriage rights. "It actually annoys me," she said. Legal experts convinced skeptics when they explained that marriage is the only contract that imposes duties on third parties. When two people marry, not only do they agree to responsibilities toward each other, but they also involve other entities dealing with pension funds, investments, inheritance, hospital visitation rights, government matters and other practical issues. Krol said he opposed "gay marriage." That's right. He considered gay marriage discriminatory.

The idea was that marriage itself, just as it was, should be open to all consenting adult couples. To get there, organizers had to study existing laws. Then they tested their claims in court, where they lost. The Dutch high court said same-sex marriage would require new legislation. They then set out to enlist allies in parliament and design a course of legal action. They gradually persuaded municipalities to allow registries of committed gay couples, and enlisted the agreement of corporations, such as the Dutch airline KLM, to recognize the registries for the purpose of employee benefits. After 1998, gay couples were allowed to make their relationships official through a national system of registered partnerships that assigned rights and responsibilities almost identical to those of marriage.

At last, in 2001, the law was changed so gays had identical marriage rights as straight couples. Since the Netherlands pioneered equality in marriage for same-sex couples, the trend has spread. In January 2003, Belgium abolished all its laws that stood in the way of marriage between gay couples. (Belgium, too, is still standing.) In Canada, after a provincial high court said it was unconstitutional not to allow gays to marry, the country looks set to join the Netherlands and Belgium. In many European countries, the shock value of gay life seems to be fading. The European Parliament just voted to recommend that countries allow gays to marry and adopt children. The current mayor of Berlin, Klaus Wowereit, "outed" himself during the election campaign and was elected anyway.

In the United States, the Supreme Court unleashed a frenzy of activity in conservative circles to stop gay marriage. But many other countries are well on their way. Just as some local governments in the U.S. allow gay couples to register, domestic partnership legislation is in place in all Scandinavian countries, as well as in Spain, New Zealand, Costa Rica, Israel, South Africa and many other spots throughout the world. The Vatican may tell its followers that the trend is sordid, unnatural and against God's laws. But right now, in this faceoff between Dutch activists and the Vatican, men such as van Velde say the Vatican is bound to lose.

Legalized gay marriage is inevitable. "It's something," he said, "that you cannot stop." .

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs. She is the author of "The End of Revolution: A Changing World in the Age of Live Television."

http://www.chicagotribune.com/search/chi-0309210071sep21,1,1255123.story

Iraqi Women's Future: All Arab Women Are Watching

2003-08-24T13:22:00.000-04:00

Iraq’s Struggle Brings Hope -- and Fear – to Women in the Arab World
By Frida Ghitis

When the sound of explosions rattles the windows in Baghdad, worries about the political shockwaves reach across the oceans. What happens in Iraq keeps people awake in America and across the desert in other Arab countries. Among those most interested in seeing a happy ending for this latest harrowing tale from Mesopotamia are activists for women’s right in the Arab world.

The fate of Iraqi women, many believe, will greatly influence the lot of all women in the region.

At a time when the security situation dominates the scene, the overwhelming sense is one of fear. But the ultimate outcome of Saddam Hussein’s overthrow is still unknown. And Iraq today is a place where much is going on beyond the violence.

“If there were an extremely positive democratic development in Iraq, with women playing a major role, it would have a huge impact on the region,” says Mahnaz Afkhami, President of the Women’s Learning Partnership for Rights, Development and Peace.

Afkhami, however, says she is not particularly optimistic. She worries that Iraq, a country with a long tradition of social and political influence in the region, may go the opposite way, with conservative religious organizations acquiring more power, to the detriment of women.
In the Arab world women, in general, tend to have a very difficult time making their voices heard. There are enormous differences in their status in the more than 20 Arab countries. In some countries the situation is desperate. In a few, women are making enormous strides, achieving a measure of equality.

The recently released United Nations Arab Human Development Report concluded that Arab women have the lowest level of political and economic participation in the entire world. That, according to the report -- whose lead author is Egyptian -- has proved disastrous not only for democracy, but also for the economies of the region.

In a region where democracy is a rarity, women tend to have even fewer democratic rights than men. In addition, they are often subjected to strict interpretations of Islam, along with restrictive cultural traditions that often keep them out of the mainstream of political and economic activity.
In places like Kuwait, women are clinging to hopes that positive developments in Iraq will help them break through the social and political barriers blocking them from the political process.

Lulwah el-Mullah has spent decades in a relentless and so far unsuccessful struggle for the right of Kuwaiti women to vote and stand for election to the Emirate’s parliament. She believes that from Baghdad, the ancient seat of the Abassid Caliphate -- the Islamic civilization’s high water mark for learning and progress -- Iraq will again lead the way, exercising enormous influence over the Muslim and Arab world. If conditions improve in Iraq, she says, it could help turn the tide in Kuwait. “If things go well there,” she says, “people here will feel it is only normal for women to have the vote.”
During Saddam Hussein’s regime, women were not treated very differently from men. “Women, like men, could be – and were -- picked up at midnight and tortured,” according to Joe Stork of Human Rights Watch. “It was,” he says, “a non-discriminatory approach to repression.”

In the years after the 1991 Gulf War, Saddam Hussein allowed religious views to play a greater role in society, imposing new restrictions on women. But for decades before that, particularly before Saddam came to power, women held jobs in every field, enjoying what was probably the greatest degree of equality in the Arab world.

By contrast, women struggle for some of the most basic rights in other Arab countries. Saudi Arabia remains one of the most repressive regimes for women. Notoriously, women are not allowed to drive and they cannot travel without permission from their husband or father. They live lives segregated from men. They must, for example, enter buses from the rear and sit in separate sections. Daughters receive half as much inheritance as sons, and the testimony of one man equals that of two women.

According to the US State Department, women cannot even receive hospital treatment without the consent of a male relative.

Customs like these, or more extreme ones, such as Honor Killings, in which women are targeted for sexual misconduct, or Female Genital Mutilation, which is common in countries like Egypt, are often defended as cultural differences, which the West simply fails to understand. But Stork says that is no longer an acceptable argument. “It is women in these societies, first and foremost,” he explains, “who insist that is not an acceptable argument.”

By all accounts, women in Iraq are shouldering their responsibilities to the region with a great deal of energy. Behind the constant news of bombings, there is a flurry of political activity, receiving much less attention by the international press. “There is a tremendous amount of openness and a real drive to be involved in the reconstruction of the country,” according to Maha Muna, the senior advisor for governance, peace and security at UNIFEM, the United Nations Development Fund for Women. At the moment, however, she admits that questions of security practically overwhelm every other issue.

According to Muna, “there is a real sense of hope.” Women, she says, are becoming organized. There are professional groups in all fields, there are organizations focusing on all areas of the reconstruction and the political process. But, at this pivotal moment, when some of the most important decisions are being made, the problem of safety is making it increasingly difficult for women to even leave their homes.

A report by Human Rights Watch "Climate of Fear: Sexual Violence and Abduction of Women and Girls in Baghdad,” says women have experienced a near epidemic of rapes and abductions. The report warns that the climate of insecurity is keeping many women from participating in the political life of the country.

Political life in Iraq is a vibrant free-for-all, with scores of political parties and more than a hundred newspapers sprouting all over the country.
When the US-led occupation only agreed to cede some power to a 25-member Governing Council, the faces of the group were mostly men. There were just 3 women members -- much to the chagrin of many in Iraq.
But more than the number, what will matter is what happens inside the Council. Muna says the key will be in the inner workings of the organization and in the product of their work. “We have to wait and see how big a role women will play there,” she says. “But, we don’t have to wait very long.”

The work is already starting, and Muna says there are already plans to make the ministry of planning, in particular, play a pivotal role in ensuring that women are part of all the ministries.

People who have looked at rebuilding situations like the one in Iraq say what happens in the early months is critical for the future. “In a post-conflict situation,” according to Muna, “you’re either going to have an opportunity for women to come and really play a role, or you’ll have society just go back and try to protect traditional ways and power bases.”
“I think the Iraqis can do it, “ she says. “I saw very qualified, very involved Iraqi women.” But there is one big caveat: there must be security, and Iraqis must be allowed to determine their own future.

Not everyone is optimistic. Hoda Elsada, an outspoken feminist and professor at Cairo University, says the dominant view in the so-called Arab Street is one of suspicion and concern. “People,” she says, “are worried about having American troops in the region.” The situation could lead to more regional instability, she says, and women could be the losers.
She already sees some old patterns remerging. Women, as before, are being told their concerns are a low priority when there are so many pressing issues. “It’s always women,” she notes, “who are asked to be quiet.”

Others fear the threat of fundamentalism, but from her vantage point across the border in Kuwait, Al-Mullah rejects the notion that fundamentalism will emerge victorious. “Knowing the Iraqi people and the Iraqi nation, it can never become a fundamentalist Islamic country, “ she says. “I know the Iraqi people.”

Clearly, this is one of history’s inflection points. Muna, who has watched women struggle in many areas of conflict agrees that there is the potential for greater conservatism. But, she adds, “there is also an amazing potential for a liberal progressive regime to come about.” Thousands of Iraqi women are working for that, and many more, throughout the Arab world, hope they will succeed.

But first, there must be security.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs. She is the author of “The End of Revolution: a Changing World in the Age of Live Television.”

Bechtel, the General and Lawrence of España

2003-05-13T16:19:00.000-04:00

By Frida Ghitis

(Kuwait City) On a Saturday afternoon, the first day of the week in this part of the world, I rounded the corner from the gift shop towards the lobby of the Sheraton. I had to take a quick sideways step to avoid running into a short man walking with a resolute, if slightly absent-minded pace towards the hotel Barber shop. His face looked familiar. Knowing this was, after all, the Sheraton Kuwait – center of the action – I turned back and went to take a second look.

There he sat, waiting his turn to climb on the barber’s chair. Lieutenant General Jay Garner, US Army - retired, the man chosen to run America’s newly liberated Iraq, No security detail, no bodyguards, no aides de camp, waiting for a haircut. Something seemed out of place.

When Gen. Garner emerged with a clean new haircut – looking much like he did before – I approached him for a little chat. He was charming, friendly and, I thought, a little depressed. No, he said, he was not on his way to Washington. He was going to Qatar, where his boss, Gen. Tommy Franks keeps his “office.” Time for a meeting with the boss. It sounded a little ominous.

Garner was, in fact, about to be “redeployed” back to the US. It seemed only fair he would get the news in person. In a matter of 24 hours, the headlines around the world would shout the news that he, officially, had failed in his mission to stabilize and rebuild Iraq.

In Kuwait, he was another character in the revolving door of the powerful, the famous and the wealthy that spins in and out of this hotel in the center of Kuwait.

By Monday morning Garner was again at the Sheraton -- staging ground for the post-war conquest of Iraq. This time, after a little coffee at the lobby, he would make his way to the Southern Iraqi city of Basra. A few hours later, as he arrived in Basra, the cameras would pan away from Garner in his customary sport shirt and turn to the only grey suit in the delegation, the stern and business-like Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III, Garner’s replacement as Iraq civilian administrator.

I expect we will see the general again in a few days, this time with all his luggage, catching a flight back home. Garner and his team will take the blame for the chaos that has swept through Iraq. In reality, their departure will again offer proof that Washington’s military machine is formidable, but its’ planning for peace was always dangerously naïve.

By now, the Sheraton Kuwait has become something of a dressing room for America’s Iraq. The stages of the country’s metamorphosis can be traced through the pages of the hotel’s guest register.

First came the journalists, hordes of them. From the top names, recognizable in world capitals, to scruffy freelancers chasing a good story. The hotel became a parade ground for camping and adventure-travel fashion -- pockets , zippers, velcro and vests galore. Every journalist covering the war became an expert in the latest moisture-wicking micro-fibers.

As the ranks of mud-caked embeds started thinning out, the transformation began. The parking lot across the street remained full of satellite trucks – including the Bloom Mobile, the satellite truck designed by the late David Bloom, the rising star at NBC who died covering the war. Bloom died not from enemy, or even friendly fire. He died in the service of television, when a blood clot traveled from his leg to his lung after weeks in the cramped confines of the vehicle.

Other media vehicles are still visible: humvees painted a yellowish shade of desert grey with small satellite dishes on top; dozens of 4-wheel drives with huge letters on the door and hood that say “TV” and blue and red jerry cans on the roof.

Some journalist remain, like the Spanish television producer who likes to dress in Ghalabiya and Keffiyah, the traditional flowing white floor-length robe and head-cover worn by Arab men. He explains that it helps him mix with the crowds and find the truth about what’s on people’s minds. The only problem is that Lawrence of España spends much of his time in the Sheraton. It doesn’t matter, though. The crowds in Kuwait’s streets are filled less with Arabs than with workers from India, Bangladesh and other nationalities, who make up two-thirds of this emirate’s population. In parts of Kuwait city he would stand out as the lone Arab in the crowd.

As journalists move on to other stories, the average vehicle pulling up to the hotel entrance has changed, as has the sartorial splendor of those who enter the Sheraton lobby.

The main “Spy Phase” has passed, as has much of the “Cowboy Entrepreneur” stage. The leading current at the Sheraton now is plainly “Big Business.” Read: Bechtel.

When the spies came, they were almost endearing in their conflicted wishes to remain undetected while casting a shadow of mystery. Friendly in the elevator, they said just enough to let you know they could not tell you why they had come, who they worked for, or where they were going. I did not ask for a business card, but if I had I think they would read, If I Told You, I’d Have to Kill You.

Then there was Secret Service Man. Secret Service Man always dressed immaculately. He had a little trouble keeping his presence secret, because his voice was a little too loud. At breakfast, with a couple of American assistants and a Kuwaiti in full Arab dress, he expounded on the beauty of living in France. Oh, yes, a lovely home, the elegant women, the educational opportunities for the kids. We all learned tidbits of Secret Service man’s life. His apartment by the river, somewhere in France, the tax benefits of an expatriate existence, and a few other puzzling details.

Very kindly, he made it easy for us to lift his cover. He walked into the Sheraton business center and in his booming voice asked if he had received a fax. “Spicka, Frank Spicka is the name.”

Spicka, as any modern spy with Google technology can tell you, is on loan from the secret service to the Interpol, heading up anti-terrorism activities. He held many lobby meetings with Arab Sheikhs and never removed his tie and starched white shirt.

Spicka and his team moved on at about the same time as the cowboy businessmen did. Before they left, the cowboys talked of the enormous opportunities in the new frontier: No telephone service. All it takes to make money, they explained, is a small portable cellular set up. Money could be made with telephones, television dishes, water purification and other products. The possibilities were endless.

But making money from Iraqis whose homes have been robbed, whose currency displaying Saddam’s likeness has become little more that a curiosity, is not the way to go. The real money deals are made in Washington.

There are still American soldiers, young and old, roaming the lobby in their non-military attire. They all walk with distinctive confidence, but they come in different sizes and shapes. The young ones look like children about to ask their parents if they can borrow the car. The older ones look a little grittier, a little wiser. They speak of office politics and of getting promotions, much as the Bechtel workers do.

The Big businessmen may have nothing to hide, but they make sure any excess printouts are promptly shredded in the business center. In the hallways you can hear them whispering lines like, “he’s close to Cheney.” Or, “…that guy is eating out of our hand” or, “he’s working on Garner right now.” (A tip to cloak-and-dagger businessmen: the Sheraton hallways have better acoustics than Carnegie Hall.)

The shockwaves of Washington deal making reverberate at the Kuwait Sheraton. Executives from the multi-national mega-project firm of Bechtel arrived in small numbers, initially. Many of them, middle aged men with graying hair, still sported the thick necks that betray a history of military service.

You could see them passing in the lobby, or having breakfast at the table next to the New York Times’ Thomas Friedman on his way to Basra, or Lawrence of España, or perhaps a Baghdad-bound missionary, a spy or a retired general.

Bechtel’s top men are ill-at-ease sharing the building with what is still a significant contingent of journalists. After all, the $680 million deal it made to help rebuild Iraq’s infrastructure has stoked the fires of conspiracy theorists and the anger of those who keep an eye on the relationship between the White House and the business community.

The hotel registry includes representatives from contractors and subcontractors from Australia, the US and Britain. By now, however, Bechtel is the number one tenant here.

The Bechtel men (there appears to be only one woman among the scores of Bechteleers) walk around with a credential hanging from the lanyard around their neck. It doesn’t say Bechtel. It describes them instead as “humanitarian workers.” They run in and out of a large room in the back of the hotel that operates as the company’s command center here.

The company’s job, for now, is to work on water, sewage and other infrastructure projects in Iraq. They define the work as infrastructure and humanitarian ventures. So, humanitarian workers they are.

Their initial contract for $680 million put the company and the White House on the defensive. Former Secretary of State George Shultz, prior president and current Director of Bechtel, denied that he used his considerable influence to get Bechtel a sweetheart deal.

Bechtel has enough PR problems around the world. They’re even accused of overcharging the peasants of Bolivia for their water. The operation based at the Sheraton wants to focus sharply on the business at hand, and leave the job of denying it is a sinister, kleptocractic, corporate giant to the highly-paid professionals whose job is to polish the company name.

The stakes are high. If Bechtel and the other member of the brotherhood of Big Business can keep the controversy under control, there are many more billions to be made in the reconstruction of Iraq. And the Sheraton Kuwait, is a charming place for a base of operations. Now that Kuwait City is slowly morphing into a desert oven, with temperatures routinely reaching 106 degrees, the marble lobby of the Sheraton remains chilly enough to make the hotel steam room appear inviting. It’s not easy working so close to a war zone. As one Bechteleer, fresh out of the sauna told me, “this is rough. Last night they did not leave a chocolate on my bed”

Sudden Introspection in the Arab World

2003-05-05T21:40:00.000-04:00

Arab world looks inward War stirs change in 'system of negativity' that prevails

By FRIDA GHITIS
KUWAIT CITY, Kuwait -- The crushing defeat of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship has fueled an extraordinary display of introspection and vocal self-criticism in the Arab world. It is too early for Arab liberals to rejoice over the ultimate outcome of the Iraqi campaign, but the excitement is palpable among many advocates of democratic change for this stagnated region.

The phenomenon is incalculably important because without introspection, this pivotal part of the world will never change. Without change, the Arab people will be condemned to growing poverty, continuing repression and simmering hatred. The rest of the world, in turn, will be forced to endure as the extremists in the center of the Islamic world export their own brand of hatred.

For decades, Arab leaders, the region's media and the population at large -- known pejoratively as the "Arab Street" -- have utterly refused to look within for the causes of the Arab world's rapidly multiplying problems. But events in Iraq have shaken this society profoundly.
Reporters on Arab satellite channels were catching their breath from reports of brave and determined Iraqi resistance when U.S. forces entered Iraq and Saddam statues began tumbling to the ground. The Iraqis, it turned out, despised their leader.

Why, the people are asking, did Arab governments fail to prevent this war? Why did they appear to support Saddam? What are they afraid of? Why was the reporting by Arab journalists so inaccurate? Will an occupying power lead a long-oppressed people to real freedom and democracy?
Few people in the Arab world are ready to openly praise the Americans, but many have started, at long last, challenging the system that has made the region a land of political oppression, human rights abuses and religious extremism.

Conversations with people here are still filled with references to the sinister motives of Washington and to the evil ways of Israel's Ariel Sharon. But, suddenly, there is more than that. Shafeeq Ghabra, a leading Kuwaiti political scientist, sees a major development -- an opportunity to overtake what he calls a "system of negativity" that glorifies and justifies all that is failing and "misleads the population into an illusionary journey of sandcastles that eventually come crashing down."

Hamza Dushgani, who staunchly opposed America's march toward war, recently confessed in the daily Arab News to the electrifying impact of watching Saddam's likeness slapped with the dirty sandals of joyous Iraqis. Without turning pro-American, she pondered the Arab history of missed opportunities and miscalculations, "Leaders that don't lead; schools that don't teach; clergy that preaches hatred; a press that excels at pointing fingers at the outside." It is always someone else's fault, she noted ruefully. "The Crusaders, the Mongols, the British, the Communists, the Zionists, and lately, of course, the Yanks."

An editorial in the same paper, sarcastically entitled "It's All Israel's Fault," accuses the Arab language media of falsely blaming every single malady on Israel's occupation of Palestinian lands.

Let's be clear about this: the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is paramount in the minds of Arabs. Their deep mistrust of the United States for what they view as one-sided support for Israel is practically universal here. But the glimmers of introspection are beginning to allow for other important subjects to become a topic of conversation.

Suddenly, there are more conversations about how the Palestinian issue has been exploited and used to avoid tackling other injustices. The calls for democracy are becoming better organized, even as radical Islamists make gains within the new democratic institutions. (The Kuwaiti Parliament, for example, voted democratically against granting women the right to vote.)
Traditional institutions are coming under criticism. The Arab League has been the target of a firestorm of recrimination for its handling of the Iraqi crisis. And intellectuals in the area shake their heads in disbelief at the work of regional leaders trying to come up with a coordinated response to what is happening in Iraq.

Until now, the calls for modernization have been met with scorn, as dangerous imports. As one Arab commentator put it, "We import cars and clothes and machinery."

Why, he wonders, are we reluctant to bring freedom, democracy and human rights? In the aftermath of the Iraqi war, these imports may just be on the way.

Ghabra explains it best when he says that America has indeed made many mistakes, but, he adds: "What about us? Where is our share, what have we done? There are so many things we can do in the Arab world instead of blaming." Now that the question has been asked, there is a chance that the answers will also come forth.

http://www.ajc.com/opinion/content/opinion/0503/
05international.html

Bungling the Bugle Call to War in Iraq

2003-03-03T18:14:00.000-05:00

The Clumsy Call to War
By
Frida Ghitis

The White House holds high hopes that a successful effort to remold Iraq will lead to a new era of democracy, peace and progress in the entire Middle East. But Washington’s clumsy efforts to gain international support for the campaign are making it much more difficult to turn the war against Saddam into the first step in the long road to an elusive Middle Eastern nirvana.

There might have been a time when plans to overthrow a man like Saddam Hussein would have enjoyed an enthusiastic international reception. The US, however, began working to gain international approval by dismissing everyone’s opinion in the matter. Long before Washington started trying to persuade other nations to support the endeavor, it announced that it had already made up its mind.

Last summer, as powerful arguments against a war were rapidly taking shape, the Bush administration made only feeble attempts to respond. White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card dismissively offered his car salesman’s analysis, explaining, “you don’t introduce new products in August.” It was clear that Washington viewed the opinions of other nations as a secondary marketing issue, not as legitimate views deserving of serious consideration. The war, in which lives would be lost, was crudely described as a product to be sold.

Even as a matter of marketing, Washington approached it backwards. Instead of laying out the problem to the world and carving a path towards a solution, Washington slammed its solution before the world, and proceeded to try to come up with a problem. In everyone’s eyes, President Bush wanted a war with Saddam, and he was looking for a way to force an international endorsement.

Everyone had heard about “regime change,” the ultimate goal, long before the reasons why it was needed had been explained to the public. The marketing team pondered what to use as its principal justification. It could grasp for an Iraqi link with AlQaeda. It could point to Saddam’s attacks against at least three neighboring nations. It could speak of his use of chemical and biological weapons, or about the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have disappeared at the hands of his internal security forces, or about a country that has become a chamber of horrors for its inhabitants. Or about a nation whose threat requires the US to keep troops in Saudi Arabia, where they are not welcome. The choices were many. The White House settled on WMD – weapons of mass destruction. Big mistake.

By making the campaign against Iraq primarily about disarming Saddam Hussein, the White House presented Saddam with a way out. If Iraq convinced the world that it was getting rid of his weapons, then there was no reason to attack. But Washington’s concern is not the weapons. It is Saddam Hussein. That is hardly classified information.

Suddenly, the Bush administration was deceiving the world. It wanted war when it claimed to want disarmament. Demonstrators began carrying pictures of president Bush sporting a Hitler mustache.

Imagine that. Suddenly Iraq, of all countries, became the nation of peace. Iraqi deputy premier Tariq Aziz, prayed for peace at the tomb of St Francis of Assisi while protesters, convinced they were doing a favor to the Iraqi people, vilified Washington’s plans.

Even before September 11th, the Bush administration’s dismissive behavior towards international agreements and world opinion had started stoking the fires of anti-Americanism that now rage in parts of the world.

With European’s thoroughly insulted and anti-Americans emboldened by Washington, men like Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder exploited the overpowering anti-war sentiment – as many American politicians might have. Saddam easily painted American ambitions as colonial plans to take over Iraqi oil.

Now America, having lost the benefit of the doubt, will have to strain to disprove its critics. Every action it takes, especially after the war, will be searched for ulterior motives. Plans to install an American administrator early in the post-Saddam era are now seen as proof that the US has colonial ambitions. In the Arab world, where hatred for colonial powers still burns, America will have to work much harder to prove its goal is not simply controlling Iraqi oil.

Frida Ghitis writes about world affairs. She is the author of “The End of Revolution: a Changing World in the Age of Live Television.”