Of Curfews and Generators Posted by Heather Hurlburt

After a week in the canyonlands to recharge my batteries and get my mind off the "small stuff," I read Mike Signer's posts on some of the more fatal manifestations of a society that has been allowed to come apart at the seams -- one where US embassy officers can now do little more than write memos expressing concern at the fate of their Iraqi colleagues.

And I can't resist revisiting a post I wrote ten days ago about Iraqis' inability to get dependable power to watch the World Cup.

It's interesting to compare the inability of this relatively wealthy (or potentially wealthy) society and its occupiers to provide the basics like power with that of a smaller, poorer country which has known its share of military rulers and tenuous transitions.  With a GDP one-fifth Iraq's in 2005, life expectancy 10 years lower, and one-seventh the electricity consumption, how did Ghana manage to keep every tv and radio in the country on for yesterday's World Cup defeat of the US?

Well, according to this radio interview, the government asked citizens to sacrifice their air conditioners, washing machines, etc. to leave enough current for everyone -- and the country's gold mines stood down operations to reduce their power use. 

Now, this may seem like a trivial, even silly thing to write about on a national security blog.  But there you have a good example of a cohesive society functioning smoothly toward a national objective, even if only a sporting one.  Nobody would argue that Ghana is a "Switzerland of Africa" or any of the other idealistic epithets we apply to our visions of re-built societies.  But the ugly fact is that we don't know how to get from Iraq to Ghana, let alone from Iraqi to Switzerland.  Or rather, we do know:  luck and time, and above all wisdom and vision on the part of the people who have to live there. 

The next time you hear someone talking about remaking a society, any society, by force, ask yourself how long it will take for that remade society to meet what I'll call the "Ghana test."  (Now, if I made the criterion how long it would take to field a football team that could beat Team USA, that might happen faster.)

Curfew in Iraq Posted by Michael Signer

Without making any policy pronouncements or partisan postures on Iraq, it's useful now and then just to try and put yourself in ordinary Iraqis' shoes.  The WaPo had a story last Sunday on the leak of a startling internal memo from the U.S. Embassy in Iraq showing that Iraqi employees at the Embassy can barely tie their shoes without worrying about being assassinated.  Now today finds an unsettling story, again in the WaPo, describing the curfew that was just announced -- abruptly and with no notice -- in Baghdad:

Adding a new layer of confusion to the security crackdown gripping Baghdad, the Iraqi government today imposed a last-minute ban on pedestrian as well as vehicular traffic throughout the city.

The 2 p.m. curfew was announced late in the morning, after many people were already traveling to work or to mosques for weekly Friday prayers. Originally, it was supposed to last all night. But hours later, a bulletin on Iraqi television announced the curfew would end at 5 p.m. (9 a.m. in Washington).

The Problem of Sex Posted by Shadi Hamid

Go to Google trends. And try putting in the following search terms: sex, [bad] sex, porno. Some may be surprised to find just to what extent Middle Eastern countries top the list (could this really be the only thing the Middle East gets high scores on?). What is going on? The Arab world, particularly the Gulf, is infamous for its casual perversity, for its hypersexual netherworlds, undergrounds, and its almost sacred faith in a kind of inverted “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy for the masses. I have lived in the Arab world for a relatively significant amount of time and I still find the whole thing quite mysterious. With that said, I apologize if I am exaggerating the extent of the problem, which may very well be the case (that’s what happens if you are assaulted with two and a half hours of a movie – The Yacoubian Building – which captures, like few things I’ve seen before, the almost total moral, economic, social, and cultural collapse of the modern Arab world).

In any case, the “problem of sex” – it’s always a problem, isn’t it? – interests me because it provides yet more evidence of how closed, repressive societies divert their citizens from their natural equilibriums. It’s not that Arabs are different than Americans, at least in any essential sense. The problem more likely is one intimately related to an authoritarian political structure which, in turn, is reflected and reproduced in almost every other facet of life. On the other hand, in a truly democratic society – one which actually guaranteed freedom of expression and speech – Arab citizens would have the opportunity to break free from the conformist, suffocating political culture which currently prevails, and internal frustrations – some of them sexual, no doubt – could be channeled more productively (through, say, the ballot box).

In a free society, religion would cease to be the purview of the state, which has done more than anyone else to distort it, contaminate it, and hand it over, perhaps unwittingly, to extremists and other unsavory characters. In Egypt and Jordan – the supposedly “moderate,” pro-American Arab states, no less – mosques are micromanaged by ostensibly “secular” regimes which give clerics prepared scripts and force-feed the populations with Friday odes to the all-compassionate President-King. It is no surprise, then, that people, in their profound disillusion, look elsewhere for spiritual fulfillment. As long as the Arab state intervenes in cultural production and blocks its citizens from political participation, it will provoke similarly exclusivist (and violent) reactions from its opponents (i.e. the last 50 years of Arab history).

Distortions and religious subsidies screw up the marketplace of ideas and then, as a result, you start to get unnatural expressions of religio-political zeal. When people are denied the opportunity to express their grievances through legitimate, peaceful, democratic channels, they will likely resort to illegitimate, extralegal mechanisms of political expression. To put it more simply, tyranny leads to terror. Similarly, when young men are told that they cannot hold hands with a member of the opposite sex until they get married (and they don’t usually get married until their late 20s or early 30s, because getting married is just about the most expensive thing you can do the Arab world today), then their natural sexual desire will be suppressed for a comparatively extended period of time. Such desires may find expression in a host of potentially unhealthy practices and behaviors. Let's not forget that young, single men (who lack the means to marry), as Jedediah Purdy points out in a recent article, provide the most vulnerable recruits for extremist, maximalist movements. In such a way, the religious, political, economic, and sexual, comes together in a rather fascinating – but certainly frightening – Molotov cocktail.

Defense Industry and Congress: No Shame in Sight Posted by Lorelei Kelly

You would think that a $330 billion tab for two ongoing wars would create a bit of caution and conservation among those who profit from America's unparalleled military might.  Not so. This week the Senate defeated an amendment that would have required tough oversight standards for military contractors. I'm no conspiracy theorist, but you have to wonder. The defeat of increased oversight likely made Halliburton happy (a company that gives 95% of its campaign contributions to Republicans). 

Just who is benefiting from this outsourcing of our government? Certainly not taxpayers. The House Government Reform Committee's minority staff has reported an 86% increase in contracts with private businesses, from $203 billion in 2000 to $377.5 billion a year in 2005 - a growth rate nearly double that of federal spending as a whole.

But the abuse of national security dollars is a special category of shame. And the facts, no matter how they add up, don't seem to make a dent in the problem. Today the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report that basically says the Air Force's prized F-22 should be shelved  (this is a fighter plane designed for the Cold War that has caused egregious cost-overruns).   This news comes in the wake of the news that the Air Force is also planning to cut 40,000 people from its ranks in order to pay for weapons platforms (including the F-22).

When will our military leaders and our Congress fully understand that--in today's post 9/11 world--human beings ARE our best defense platform?  There's a reason that Special Forces are the poster child of the military. They can shoot, speak foreign languages and set up a criminal justice system. No spangley widget nor contractor can do this as well. Our defense needs to be in the hands of such dedicated, well-trained public servants.

One-two on Climate Change Posted by Lorelei Kelly

Could it be that progressives are getting their public and their elected leaders coordinated on a national security message? A couple of weeks ago, Participant Productions (a new company devoted to social change movies) released "An Inconvenient Truth"  Yesterday, Henry Waxman introduced the Safe Climate Act.  Hmmmmm.....Can Hollywood-Progressives and new money for progressive infrastructure  leapfrog the Axis of Ideology formed by Fox/conservative funders/corporate agendas and Republican leadership?  Go see the movie!

Exemplarism and Democracy: The Journal Posted by Michael Signer

An exciting event today, as a new journal titled Democracy:  A Journal of Ideas will launch its inaugural issue.  The journal, founded by my friends Kenny Baer and Andrei Cherny (both prominent Democratic speechwriters), intends to do for the left what the early neoconservative journals like The American Spectator and The Public Interest did for the right -- help rebuild the intellectual foundation of a new progressive movement through idea-based essays intended to provoke discussion and reckoning.  Its starry Editorial Board includes Bill Galston, Christopher Edley, Les Gelb, Elaine Kamarck, Robert Reich, Susan Rice, Theda Skocpol, Anne-Marie Slaughter, and Sean Wilentz.

You can find the journal online at:

www.democracyjournal.org

The launch, today at the National Press Club at 1 p.m., includes a panel titled "Does the Battle of Ideas Still Matter?" with Francis Fukuyama, Bill Kristol, and Michael Tomasky. 

I consider myself very fortunate to have an article in this issue.  The article is titled, "A City on a Hill," and argues for the concept of "American exemplarism" -- a version of American exceptionalism that aims at building moral prestige in the world community, with the aim of attracting willing followership from other countries.  Instead of the arrogant, neoconservative version of exceptionalism -- which views America as an exception to, and apart from, the world -- exemplarism views America as an exceptional -- as in admirable -- member of the world community.  In my view, exemplarism underlay the Marshall Plan, the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights, the Peace Corps, and Bill Clinton's Kosovo action (among others), and can serve as a guide to a progressive foreign policy that sees America as both strong and good. 

Please let your friends, neighbors, family members, and colleagues far and wide know about Democracy. New ventures like this are essential to rebuilding the intellectual foundation of a movement that I truly believe can soon become the majority.  And the inaugural issue has some terrifically interesting and readable features, including an essay on "Biopolitics" by Jedediah Purdy, an article on the health care subsidy we give big corporations by Jason Furman, and book reviews by Michael Lind, Alan Wolfe, and former  Oklahoma Congressman Brad Carson.

A Note to Muslims: Stop Saying Crazy Things Posted by Shadi Hamid

I was quietly sipping coffee and checking my mail when I stumbled upon what I, initially, found to be an interesting and relatively inocuous article, the kind that Muslims always send to each other on Muslim listservs because it makes us feel "good," or at least mildy validated.

It's a fairly long piece. And apparently Laurie Goodstein likes to include the whoppers at the end of her articles, and preferably nestled in the very last paragraph. The article talks about two American Muslim clerics, Hamza Yusuf and Zaid Shakir. They are "traditionalists." Traditionalists are usually consistent in condemning Islamic extremism and terrorism and seem to evince a sincere hatred of Bin Laden, Zarqawi, and their ilk. That's the good news. On the other hand, they are deeply suspicious of Western liberalism and pretty much all the foundational tenets of post-enlightenment thought. They are not liberals and they are not democrats. They are often - I'm not sure what else to call it - absolutists.

In any case, here's the part which awoke me from my stupor (also known as the WTF effect):

He [Zaid Shakir] said he still hoped that one day the United States would be a Muslim country ruled by Islamic law, "not by violent means, but by persuasion." "Every Muslim who is honest would say, I would like to see America become a Muslim country," he said. "I think it would help people, and if I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be a Muslim. Because Islam helped me as a person, and it's helped a lot of people in my community."

I had to read it over, because I couldn't believe that a mainstream American Muslim leader would say something so stupid and, well, frightening. It's one thing for him to believe that America should be ruled by Islamic law. It is altogether another for him to imply that all "honest" Muslims believe the same thing. As such, it is incumbent upon moderate Muslims who believe in freedom, democracy, and the US constitution to repudiate such remarks. My God, what's up with Western Muslims wanting to be ruled by shariah? I'm curious, though, how non-Muslims interpret Shakir's remarks. Feel free to post your comments or email me directly with your thoughts.

North Korea: Direct Talks on Direct Talks Posted by Suzanne Nossel

The latest is that North Korea appears to be preparing a test launch of a long-range missile capable of reaching the US.  If it happens, it will be a huge setback in our dealings with N Korea, will likely escalate momentum for a missile defense system, and could complicate US relations throughout Asia. 

No matter how this plays out, pundits will focus on the question of whether the Bush Administration has made a mistake in refusing to talk directly with Pyongyang.  Since coming into office, President Bush has refused repeated overtures by Kim Jong Il to open direct talks, insisting that all negotiations with the North occur within a 6-party framework.   The latest rebuff came just two weeks ago, right after the White House laid down conditions under which it said it would talk directly to Iran.

All this has got me thinking about the subject of "direct talks" with dangerous and uncontrollable regimes.  (Note that - at least for tonight - I am not opining on how to solve the crisis on the Peninsula, nor to comment on what is right or wrong about the Administration's policies beyond the question of direct talks). 

I understand the notion that by engaging directly in talks with countries that make threats and flout international norms, the US risks dignifying and publicizing these nations' illegitimate positions and causes.  I also recognize that amid bitter and longstanding policy conflicts, the chances that direct talks between diplomats with vastly different objectives and value-systems will help bridge differences may be slim indeed.  I don't think that pushing for direct talks with either North Korea or Iran comes close to proffering a "solution" to either crisis.  It merely advocates a change in the process by which the conflicts are currently dealt with.

With that said, I wonder whether the US might not be better off with a blanket policy of unconditional willingness to talk directly to North Korea, Iran, and any nation that asks to meet with us face-to-face.  We would not be offering to change our positions, concede any of our arguments, or give credence to any of theirs, but rather simply to meet with no strings attached and no promises implied. The case for such a policy shift is this: