Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, who previously blamed Hamas for provoking the Israeli attack on Gaza, has now changed his tune, expressing solidarity with Hamas, calling the Israeli actions "barbaric and criminal" and threatening to break off peace talks that have so far yielded a second intifada, suicide bombings, rockets and threats of death to Jews. Oooooooooo.
Rumours swirl that Israel was considering a 48-hour humanitarian ceasefire in the Gaza strip though in the end the government seems to have rejected it at least for the time being. But does anyone think if the situation were reversed Hamas would consider such a thing? Which does not settle the question whether Israel should, although those who proposed it ought to realize more clearly than they seem to that Hamas would not use a lull in fighting (or anything else) for humanitarian purposes. But Israel's willingness to entertain the notion does underline the stark moral difference between the two sides.
Caroline Kennedy's dynastic shoe-in candidacy for the New York Senate seat vacated by Hillary Clinton took a dramatic turn for the worse when she gave a bumbling interview that started (in, says the Ottawa Citizen, "a dull monotone"):
Um, this is a fairly unique moment both in our, you know, in our country’s history, and, and in, in, you know, my own life, and um, you know, we are facing, you know, unbelievable challenges, our economy, you know, health care, people are losing their jobs here in New York obviously um, arh, you know ...
Hey, bring back that, you know, um, witty, eloquent lady from, um, ahr, Alaska.
As another Middle Eastern "crisis" unfolds not only participants but commentators seem to be repeating themselves. Which is not really a criticism of the latter because the same old points generally retain their validity when one side (Israel) has limited new options and the other side (the Palestinian leadership and an unknown proportion of the populace) is wedded to a strategy of belligerent rejection that has now failed wretchedly for eight decades and counting. I note however Barry Rubin's point about the Hamas strategy of giving Israel "the choice between rockets and media" because I think most reasonable media, even if they stress the suffering of Palestinian civilians, also reflect an understanding that Israel doesn't really have a lot of options and it is the fault of Hamas that they don't so the suffering, which is deplorable, is also Hamas's fault. OK, so the New York Times sent out a Dec. 29 e-mail teaser (I don't know if it's possible to link to it but if you have the nytdirect@nytimes.com service you will have received it) saying:
"Israeli Troops Mass Along Border; Arab Anger Rises By TAGHREED EL-KHODARY and ISABEL KERSHNER With the death toll in Gaza rising to nearly 300, a furious reaction spread across the Arab world, raising fears of greater instability in the region.”
And on December 27 the BBC invited residents of Gaza, but not Israel, to submit tales and photos of suffering (that story is still online but the submit stories section and links seem to have disappeared). But for the most part my view is that the Western-media component of Hamas's strategy is as miserable in every sense as every other part of Hamas's strategy. Even in the Middle East some things do change.
My enthusiasm for an amphibious assault on the Irrawaddy delta is extremely limited. I appear, once again, to be the weirdo.
On Tuesday former Liberal foreign minister Lloyd Axworthy surfaced in this newspaper calling for us to exercise the so-called "responsibility to protect" (R2P) in the Myanmar formerly known as Burma. What? Are you still talking? How could anyone take seriously the proposal to send an army we haven't got to an Apocalypse Now up-river to Rangoon?
Sorry, that would be Yangon now. I bet they even changed the name of the river. Yup, it says online the Irrawaddy is now the Ayeyerwady. But it's still wet. Look at a map. The starting point of Mr. Axworthy's "plan" seems to be a massive amphibious assault on a steaming, immense, swampy river delta half-way around the world. About the level of practicality one had come to expect from him.
I'm not making light of the tragic situation in Burma produced by natural disaster piled on horrible government. Quite the reverse. I'm pointing out that these things are so serious that we have a very definite responsibility to make sense when discussing them.
Which is why I wouldn't start with Lloyd Axworthy. He was a vocal critic of free trade while in opposition in the 1980s, a misjudgment that would have dented the self-confidence of a lesser man. His vaunted ban on land mines hasn't stopped terrorists in Afghanistan since 2001 and in Iraq since 2003 using "Improvised Explosive Devices" which are home-made land mines.
He also held a senior national security post in a government that badly neglected Canada's military. He spent years bloviating about the "responsibility to protect" while signally neglecting its practical counterpart, the ability to do so, the very incarnation of Teddy Roosevelt's warning about combining the unbridled tongue with the unready hand. And Mr. Axworthy never explained where he and his Chrétien-era colleagues acquired either the legal or moral right to override the sovereignty of other nations. He just seemed convinced he was so incredibly smart, well-meaning and persuasive that other people just couldn't not do what he wanted, and that now includes invading Burma.
To my amazement, his proposal is turning out to be the conventional folly. "UN should force Burma to accept aid for cyclone victims: Bernier" was the front-page headline in this newspaper Wednesday, over a story that said "Canada is pushing the United Nations Security Council to press Burma's military dictators to permit international aid to reach cyclone victims, Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier said yesterday. The move comes as the Conservative government faces mounting pressure to back the UN's 'responsibility to protect' doctrine..." And France has already urged the Security Council to invoke R2P.
So Canada is pushing the UN to press Burma because the Tories are under increasing pressure. This stuff is so deep somebody's going to get the bends. But how, I ask you, is it different to invade Burma to stop a humanitarian disaster inflicted by a brutal, demented government than to invade Iraq to do so? Other than Burma is bigger, harder to reach and a lot wetter.
I ask you not because you suggested it but because I'm far more likely to get a sensible answer from you than from Lloyd Axworthy. Which may not narrow the field much. But as his idea seems to be catching on I hope someone is prepared to explain the legal, moral and practical justification for his proposal.
Inflicting aid on Burma by force is an idea so silly it even made me welcome the Canadian expert quoted in the Globe and Mail on Tuesday urging the world community to carry out covert drops of food and water in defiance of both Burma and its Chinese patrons (yes, the same Chinese patrons who wield a veto in the UN Security Council which people expect to invoke R2P). I fear a certain amount of air power would still be required, in case, for instance, the Chinese air force noticed you flying around up there. But at least it would spare us hitting the beaches in force, rifle in one hand and food package in the other.
Well, not us exactly. The essence of Mr. Axworthy's suggestion seems to be: It would improve human rights in Burma to have Russia and China invade it. Or was the idea to have George Bush blast his way in, kick out the tyrants and impose order and liberty? A sorry climb-down after all that lovely America-bashing, to come begging the loan of their army.
Unless of course it's just a bunch of politicians yakking to cover the fact that they don't even realize they have no options. Which is pretty ugly... though not compared to storming the Irrawaddy beaches only to find they're literally a quagmire.
[First published in the Ottawa Citizen]
The sputtering Olympic torch seems to be leaving quite a trail of soot on its way to Beijing. But by far the largest smudge will be deposited on the host country, whose Politburo will one day rue its decision to draw the world's attention by hosting the Games. Meanwhile I applaud recent protesters' recognition that China is a grotesque tyranny and we really should say something. But I think they besmirched themselves by violently disrupting the progress of the torch through France.
I ask you: Is the government of France legitimate? By which I mean not "Is everything it does sublimely wise and just?" but "Does it follow the rule of law, conduct fair elections and enjoy broad popular acceptance?" Since the answer is obviously yes, by what right do people with a grievance against a particular policy of that government, even a justified grievance, take the law into their own hands? The appropriate remedy in a democracy is to give a speech, cast a vote or seek an injunction, not punch a cop.
These torch-snuffing antics were not based on populism, for the protesters' supposed mandate rested on the strength not of their numbers but of their moral indignation. Yet they are not anarchists, who would let everyone do their own thing. Instead they seek to impose their own preferences by force, albeit feebly.
It is also pitiful because of the play-acting component. It is one thing to scream abuse and shove French, British or American police; quite another to take effective action against China in Tibet, Africa or the straits of Taiwan. As Henry Kissinger just wrote, Europeans seem increasingly unwilling to take military action in defence of their security. I detect an element of bad conscience in substituting street theatre within the safe boundaries of democratic states.
I wasn't even impressed when the speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, Democrat Nancy Pelosi, met the Dalai Lama then said, "If freedom-loving people throughout the world do not speak out against Chinese oppression in China and Tibet, we have lost all moral authority to speak on behalf of human rights anywhere in the world." Her whole plan is to talk now so she can talk later. But it is the geopolitics of the windbag to reverse Theodore Roosevelt's "Speak softly and carry a big stick," and it is neither practical nor dignified.
What do the protesters hope to accomplish? If it is to address the Chinese people, they will largely fail because the Chinese government has tight control over the flow of information. If it is to influence their own governments they have a better chance, especially after provoking the revelation that the torch is being protected by some pretty sinister agents of the Chinese government. But the democratic right to protest peacefully does not include the right to protest non-peacefully, and violence just brings your cause into disrepute.
Which is a pity since it is disgraceful to see democratic governments assisting the procession of the torch via bleeding Tibet to Beijing as if it were some glorious tribute to the higher aspirations of mankind. The Chinese government has no acquaintance with those aspirations and, if it did, would have no sympathy for them.
It is disingenuous, or worse, for the International Olympic Committee to deplore politicization of the Games while simultaneously calling the torch relay "a symbol of international peace and friendship" (as Richard Pound did in this newspaper yesterday). Yet the IOC may accidentally have accomplished something useful, by drawing the eyes of the world to the harm being done by this year's hosts to human dignity, environmental quality and international harmony.
Especially given the tragicomic prose with which that regime now attempts to defend itself. The self-imposed isolation of tyrannies is a source of great weakness, and when they emerge from the fishbowl, they tend to flop around in a revealingly inept way. Hence a Beijing Olympic Committee member dismissed the London and Paris protesters as a "handful of Tibetan separatists" and the Chinese premier fulminated against the "Dalai clique" and its "hidden agenda." They've been talking to co-conspirators, flunkies and useful idiots so long they've lost all perspective on themselves. The resulting performance is one the free world should see.
Thus I oppose a boycott of the Games. Let the world go to Beijing but with its eyes as wide open as the smog permits. Let journalists ask tough questions and report frankly on what they see. Let spectators speak bluntly to their hosts, and athletes puncture totalitarian pretensions.
If the sputtering torch dumps a sufficiently public heap of soot on the Communist tyrants in China it will have done some good after all.
[First published in the Ottawa Citizen]
Can someone explain to me why Fidel Castro has been succeeded by his brother? Since when does communism equal hereditary monarchy? Ask Kim Jong-il. It’s instructive to contrast Cuba with Pakistan, where a lot of people are trying under very difficult circumstances to manage a legitimate transfer of political power. It is, unfortunately, far too late to do it peacefully this time. But if they can get the legitimacy right, the violence should subside. I wish Pakistan some of the luck we already had over many centuries.
Sorry, make that millennia. I am regarded in some circles as eccentric because on mild provocation I start explaining about King Alfred and the cakes, and how the descendants of Edmund Ironside married into first the Scottish then the post-Conquest English royal families. But that history is of compelling interest not only for its often ghastly details but because, in the end, the slaughter stopped. Britain basically solved the problem of political legitimacy, and passed that solution on to Anglosphere countries like Canada. Few others have been so fortunate.
The orderly transfers of power we enjoy, which tragically elude so much of the world, are a revealing test of such legitimacy. All rulers assert some sort of claim not just to hold but to deserve power, whether as sun god incarnate, vanguard of the proletariat or person whose budget measures command majority support in an elected legislature. But while the latter is easy to test, tyrants are obliged to maintain the illusion of consent through fear.
It usually works pretty well, at least for them, in the normal course of events. But when the leader is dead or dying and no potential heir emits visible light or the sound of history’s marching feet, when no one yet controls the machinery of repression, it invites swordplay in the temple or machine-gun fire in the cabinet room.
Passing on power to one’s relatives is a kind of desperate default position under such circumstances. That blood is thicker than water tends to make all sorts of families cling together in times of chaos. Besides, a political tyrant is liable also to be a domestic one, and expect his relatives to remain under his thumb from beyond the grave. As they well may; when a legacy of brutal injustice is your only claim to power, the slightest hint of scruples invites violent overthrow. If Fidel Castro’s claim to power was illegitimate, Raul’s is ludicrous. Thus while undemocratic regimes formally based on heredity tend to depart from that principle in times of crisis, more advanced tyrannies have the paradoxical opposite tendency, to revert to it, from Cromwell’s son to Mao’s widow to Saddam Hussein’s family.
Even in fragile democracies effective political power is often dynastic, from India to Kenya; if nothing else, when your political allies are also your relatives you have a good idea where trouble will come from. Of course mature democracies also have families in which political interest and talent run strongly. But you don’t see Robert Kennedy becoming president when JFK is assassinated. And even the British crown became reliably hereditary only once compliance with the will of Parliament replaced accident of birth as the measure of legitimacy.
It is not coincidence that no sane individual has the slightest expectation that Britain or North America will witness a violent transfer of power. Take the bitterly disputed 2000 American election: Did one person even get punched in the nose? And how likely is a coup in Ontario?
In public affairs, as in life generally, we should remember to count our blessings. I yield to no one when it comes to discontent with the inadequacies of governance in Canada. But I am so irascible on this point because I worry that we hold the precious gift of ordered liberty in too slight regard when, indeed, we bother to regard it at all.
The cultural habits of self-government, the ability to depend on your fellows to share your outrage at the right things in the right way at the right time in sufficient numbers, are hard-won and precious and it is no mere pedantry to recall how it happened. Nor is it culturally insensitive to balance sympathy for people seeking peaceful transitions of power outside the Anglosphere with a realistic appraisal of the enormous difficulties they face.
A statue of Alfred the Great on Parliament Hill would remind us that many good people died, often horribly, to give us decent government. And it would help us spare a thought for those people in Pakistan struggling against long odds to achieve what we inherited, and those in Cuba and North Korea still denied even the chance to try.
[First published in the Ottawa Citizen]