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Obama emerged in Cairo as a true friend of Israel |
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Haaretz.com |
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Neither Tel Aviv nor Ramallah held their breaths Thursday as the American president gave a speech in Cairo; the traffic in both crowded cities continued normally. Tel Aviv was indifferent, Ramallah sunk in desperation: Both cities have already had their fill of nice, historic speeches.Nonetheless, no one can ignore the speech given by Barack Obama: The mountain birthed a mountain. Obama remained Obama. Only the Israeli analysts tried to diminish the speech's importance ("not terrible"), to spread fear ("he mentioned the Holocaust and the Nakba in a single breath"), or were insulted on our behalf ("he did not mention our right to the land as promised in the Bible"). All these were redundant and unnecessary. Obama emerged Thursday as a true friend of Israel.The prime minister ordered the ministers to say nothing, but of course they could not help but invade the studios. Uzi Landau said that a Palestinian state is tantamount to an "Iranian state." Isaac Herzog appeared even more ridiculous when he said that the problem with the settlements is one of "public relations." In essence, both were busy with the same problem: How can we manage to pull the new America's leg as well? Israeli politicians have never before appeared as pathetic, as small as they did Thursday, compared to the bearer of promise in Cairo.
Indeed, there was promise in Cairo, of the dawn of a new age. A U.S.
president talking about negotiations with Iran without preconditions or
tacit threats, even willing to accept Iran having civilian nuclear
capability; a president who talked about Hamas as a legitimate
organization that represents part of Palestinian society, but that
needs to relinquish violence; who spoke with empathy about Palestinian
suffering; who spoke, believe it or not, about security not only for
Israelis but also for Palestinians; who said that all the settlements
are illegal; who called for nuclear disarmament of the entire region.
All are sensational messages, headlines whose significance cannot be
exaggerated, even if there are those who desperately tried to argue
yesterday that "there was nothing new in his speech."
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Iran's Presidential Debate: Will Ahmadinejad's Attacks Backfire?
Iran's voters had been anticipating a heated discussion in their country's first-ever presidential candidates' debate, but even then, Wednesday night's showdown between incumbent President Ahmdinejad and moderate challenger Mir-Hossein Moussavi was a rough-and-tumble affair that exceeded expectations. And the new season of televised politics could get even nastier.
Ahmadinejad came out swinging in his 10-minute opening statement, charging that his government had been the target of unprecedented slander, not only from Moussavi, but also from previous Presidents such as Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani and Mohammad Khatami. These men, said Ahmadinejad, had led Iran away from the path of the 1979 Islamic revolution, and were part of a current "that saw itself as the owner of the nation, of the revolution, rulers of the people."
Moussavi, much more relaxed if not subdued, said he had decided to run because he felt Iran was in great danger. The country could be managed in two different ways, he argued: by adventurism, instability, grandstanding, heroic sloganeering, illusions, superficiality and a disregard for law; or by the way of rationality and expertise. He accused Ahmadinejad of creating a culture of dictatorship, in which Iranians were becoming desensitized to violations of the law by those in power.
That attack prompted Ahmadinejad to break a taboo by accusing high-ranking officials — by name — of using their power to enrich themselves. "What do the sons of Mr. Hashemi do in this country? Which one of my ministers has become a billionaire, or taken rents or usurped properties?"
Moussavi also accused Ahmadinejad of making the country less secure by constantly raising the issue of the Holocaust. "AIPAC [the America Israel Public Affairs Committee], the biggest Zionist institution in the U.S., sees this policy as a blessing for itself," he argued. "We have to have a more pragmatic policy. For four years now, we hear that America is about to collapse ... If that is so, why has it been requested of Obama's Administration — through the Swiss — to talk to your government before the elections?"
But Ahmadinejad insisted he was the first President since the revolution to have secured Iran against U.S. intervention. "For 27 years during your reign [Moussavi was Prime Minister from 1981 to 1989] and those of Mr. Hashemi and Mr. Khatami, the U.S. was seeking to topple the Islamic Republic. Today the U.S. has declared officially that it is not seeking to overthrow us," the President said.
The debate energized supporters of both candidates, hundreds of thousands of whom flooded the streets of Tehran after it was over, each side proclaiming its man the victor. Moussavi supporters chanted, "Doctor [Ahmadinejad], remember Moussavi is above you," to which Ahmadinejad supporters responded, "The debate was held, and Moussavi was destroyed."
One chador-clad Moussavi supporter said, "[Ahmadinejad] played dirty tricks. He put Moussavi into Hashemi's camp. For the first time on national television, someone dared to stain Hashemi's name. That will win him more supporters."
Another young Moussavi supporter disagreed: "He declared everyone his enemy. He wasn't having a debate with Moussavi, he was slandering the names and honors of people who weren't there to defend themselves. That's not honorable. Iranians won't like that," he said.
Many others were disappointed with Moussavi's performance. "He looked like he was in a total state of shock, like he didn't expect Ahmadinejad to hit so hard," said Ata Hosseinian, 25. "He could barely talk properly, he kept saying chiz" (a Persian equivalent of thing, which is used in the way "you know" is used in colloquial English).
An Ahmadinejad supporter on Modarres Highway said it was right of the President to name those names in his allegations of corruption. "People think of Moussavi as the wartime Prime Minister, but they should be aware of who's behind him," the man said.
"That is precisely what Ahmadinejad wanted to achieve," said one dispirited Moussavi supporter. "He wanted to redirect people's hatred of corrupt politicians to Moussavi's person, although Moussavi himself is known to be clean."
Debate among supporters of rival candidates continued for hours, mostly peacefully, although occasional fistfights and brawls were reported across town.
One point that had antagonized Moussavi's supporters was Ahmadinejad's attack on the candidate's wife. The President said Zahra Rahnavard, who is the first woman in the history of the Islamic Republic to campaign on behalf of her husband, had entered university without sitting the difficult national entry exam. "I'd like to talk about the educational record of a lady you know very well. Should I talk about this lady's record? Should I?" Ahmadinejad had asked threateningly.
That attack alienated at least one of Ahmadinejad's supporters. "It was particularly ugly of the President to point the finger at Moussavi's wife, who is an honorable lady with a résumé of service to the country," said a chemical-engineering student. "I was an Ahmadinejad supporter, but the face he showed last night really turned me off. I'm voting for Moussavi."
By cloaking himself in the mantle of anticorruption campaigner, Ahmadinejad appeared to escape the burden of incumbency. "Although he has all the means of the country at his disposal, Ahmadinejad's aim was to present himself as the underdog last night, and he succeeded to some extent," former Vice President Mohammad Ali Abtahi commented. "He showed that in order to gain a few more votes, he is willing to put in question the legitimacy of the entire Islamic Republic."
By breaking with the conventions of Iran's political class, the President has certainly taken a risk. "Ahmadinejad totally broke the rules of the game," said Moussavi supporter Hosseinian. "He may very well have a powerful current building up against him." There are now rumors that Rafsanjani, Expediency Council chief and the country's second most powerful personality after the Supreme Leader, has asked state television for an opportunity to debate Ahmadinejad live. State television in the Islamic Republic has rarely been this exciting.
TIME.com
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Preeti Bhattacharji
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Introduction
The Xinjiang Uighur Autonomous Region (XUAR), a territory in western China, accounts for one-sixth of China's land and is home to about 20 million people from thirteen major ethnic groups. The largest of these groups is the Uighurs [PRON: WEE-gurs], a predominantly Muslim community with ties to Central Asia. Some Uighurs call China's presence in Xinjiang a form of imperialism, and they stepped up calls for independence—sometimes violently—in the 1990s through separatist groups like the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). The Chinese government has reacted by promoting the migration of China's ethnic majority, the Han, to Xinjiang. Beijing has also strengthened economic ties with the area and tried to cut off potential sources of separatist support from neighboring states that are linguistically and ethnically linked with the Uighurs.
Intermittent Independence
Since the collapse of the Qing Dynasty in 1912, Xinjiang has enjoyed varying degrees of autonomy. Turkic rebels in Xinjiang declared independence in October 1933 and created the Islamic Republic of East Turkestan (also known as the Republic of Uighuristan or the First East Turkistan Republic). The following year, the Republic of China reabsorbed the region. In 1944, factions within Xinjiang again declared independence, this time under the auspices of the Soviet Union, and created the Second East Turkistan Republic. But in 1949, the Chinese Communist Party took over the territory and declared it a Chinese province. In October 1955, Xinjiang became classified as an "autonomous region" of the People's Republic of China.
Some Uighurs, nostalgic for Xinjiang's intermittent periods of independence, call for the recreation of a Uighur state. "The Central Asian Uighurs know a great deal about the two East Turkestan periods of sovereign rule, and they reflect on that quite frequently," says Dru C. Gladney, president of the Pacific Basin Institute at Pomona College. Many of these Uighurs say China colonized the area in 1949. But in its first white paper on Xinjiang, the Chinese government said Xinjiang had been an "inseparable part of the unitary multi-ethnic Chinese nation" since the Western Han Dynasty, which ruled from 206 BC to 24 AD.
Economic Development
Xinjiang's wealth hinges on its vast mineral and oil deposits. In the early 1990s, Beijing decided to spur Xinjiang's growth by giving it special economic zones, subsidizing local cotton farmers, and overhauling its tax system. In August 1991, the Xinjiang government launched the Tarim Basin Project (World Bank) to increase agricultural output. During this period, Beijing invested in the region's infrastructure, building massive projects like the Tarim Desert Highway and a rail link to western Xinjiang. In an article for The China Quarterly, Nicholas Bequelin of Human Rights Watch says these projects were designed to literally "bind Xinjiang more closely to the rest of the PRC."
Since 1954, China has also used the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC) to build agricultural settlements in China's western periphery. Locally known as the Bingtuan, the XPCC is charged with cultivating and guarding the Chinese frontier. To achieve this mission, the corps has its own security organs, including an armed police force and militia. Over the past fifty years, the XPCC has attracted a steady stream of migrant workers to Xinjiang.
Beijing continues to develop Xinjiang in campaigns called "Open up the West" and "Go West." Experts like Gladney say these programs have made the region relatively prosperous. "If you look at the general per capita income of Xinjiang as a region," he says, "it's higher than all of China's except for the southeast coast." But others note that Xinjiang's wealth is concentrated in its oil-rich centers, and international development bodies like the Asian Development Bank say that there are high levels of inequality (PDF) in the area. The Chinese government has launched a series of programs to alleviate poverty in Xinjiang, and in March 2008, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao emphasized harmonious development of the region in a government report.
Han Migration
Growing job opportunities in Xinjiang have lured a steady stream of migrant workers to the region, many of whom are ethnically Han. The Chinese government does not count the number of workers that travel to Xinjiang, but experts say the local Han population has risen from approximately 5 percent in the 1940s to approximately 40 percent today. These migrants work in a variety of industries, both low tech and high tech, and have transformed Xinjiang's landscape. In June 2008, the BBC produced a photo report called Life in Urumqi, which said Xinjiang's capital had recently witnessed "the arrival of shopping centres, tower blocks, department stores and highways."
Many of these Uighurs say China colonized the area in 1949. But in its first white paper on Xinjiang, the Chinese government said Xinjiang had been an "inseparable part of the unitary multi-ethnic Chinese nation" since the Western Han Dynasty.
In its 2007 annual report to the U.S. Congress, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China said the Chinese government "provides incentives for migration to the region from elsewhere in China, in the name of recruiting talent and promoting stability" (PDF). Since imperial times, the Chinese government has tried to settle Han on the outskirts of China to integrate the Chinese periphery. But the Communist Party says its policies in Xinjiang are designed to promote economic development, not demographic change. Xinjiang's influx of migrants has fueled Uighur discontent as Han and Uighurs compete over limited jobs and natural resources.
Ethnic Tension
The Chinese government says Xinjiang is home to thirteen major ethnic groups. The largest of these groups is the Uighurs, who comprise 45 percent of Xinjiang's population, according to a 2003 census. Like many of these groups, the Uighurs are predominantly Muslim and have cultural ties to Central Asia.
As Han migrants pour into Xinjiang, many Uighurs resent the strain they place on limited resources like land and water. "Uighurs feel like this is their homeland, that these resources should be more devoted to them," says Gladney. In 2006, Human Rights in China said population growth in Xinjiang had transformed the local environment, leading to "reduced human access to clean water (PDF) and fertile soil for drinking, irrigation and agriculture."
Ethnic tension is fanned by economic disparity: the Han tend to be wealthier than the Uighurs in Xinjiang. Some experts say the wage gap is the result of discriminatory hiring practices. The Congressional-Executive Commission on China reports that in 2006, the XPCC reserved approximately 800 of 840 civil servant job openings for Han. Local officials say they would like to hire Uighurs, but have trouble finding qualified candidates. "One common problem of the western region is that the education and cultural level of the people here is quite low," said Wang Lequan, Xinjiang's Communist Party secretary, in an interview with the BBC. Gladney says Han applicants tend to have better professional networks because they are more often "influential, children of elite Party members and government leaders."
According to Bequelin, Uighurs are also upset by what they consider Chinese attempts to "refashion their cultural and religious identity." In an op-ed for the Washington Post, Rebiyah Kadeer, a prominent exiled Uighur, condemns China for its "fierce repression of religious expression," and "its intolerance for any expression of discontent." Beijing officials respond to these accusations by saying they respect China's ethnic minorities, and have improved the quality of life for Uighurs by raising economic, public health, and education levels in Xinjiang.
Terrorism and Counterterrorism
During the 1990s, separatist groups in Xinjiang began frequent attacks against the Chinese government. The most famous of these groups was the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM). China, the United States, and the UN Security Council have all labeled ETIM a terrorist organization, and Chinese officials have said the group has ties to al-Qaeda. Concern about Uighur terrorism flared in August 2008—just days before the Beijing Olympics—when two men attacked a military police unit (NYT) in Xinjiang, killing sixteen. However, a month later, the New York Times reported that according to eyewitness accounts of three foreign tourists, the attackers were also in paramilitary uniform, casting doubts on the official Chinese version of the incident, which had called it a terrorist incident. The attack had come a week after a group calling itself the Turkistan Islamic Party took credit for a slew of terrorist attacks (Xinhua), including two bus explosions in Yunnan province.
The Han population there has risen from approximately 5 percent in the 1940s to approximately 40 percent today.
The Chinese government has taken steps to combat both separatists and terrorists in its western province. According to the U.S. State Department, Chinese authorities raided an alleged ETIM camp in January 2007, killing eighteen and arresting seventeen. China also monitors religious activity in the region to keep religious leaders from spreading separatist views. Since September 11, 2001, China has raised international awareness of Uighur-related terrorism and linked its actions to the Bush administration's so-called war on terror.
But many experts say China is exaggerating the danger posed by Uighur terrorists. China has accused the Uighurs of plotting thousands of attacks, but Andrew J. Nathan, a China expert at Columbia University, says, "You have to be very suspicious of those numbers." Gladney notes that many of the "terrorist incidents" that China attributes to ETIM are actually "spontaneous and rather disorganized" forms of civil unrest. Most experts say ETIM has no effective ties to al-Qaeda, and Bequelin goes so far as to say, "ETIM is probably defunct by now, as far as we know." In a 2008 report, Amnesty International accused Chinese officials of using the war on terror to justify "harsh repression of ethnic Uighurs." But in Xinhua, a state-run newspaper, Chinese rights organizations refuted the Amnesty report, saying it was designed to slander China under the pretense of human rights.
Experts disagree on the efficacy of China's counterterrorism measures. Some, including Bequelin, say China's anti-separatist campaign actually provokes more resentment, which can lead to more terrorism. But other Western outlets say China's counterterrorism measures have been relatively successful. A review of U.S. State Department documents shows a decrease in Uighur-related terrorism since the end of the 1990s.
Tough Neighborhood
Xinjiang shares a border with Mongolia, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and the Tibet Autonomous Region. Because of the Uighurs' cultural ties to its neighbors, China has been concerned that Central Asian states may back a separatist movement in Xinjiang. According to Nathan, these fears are fueled by the fact that the Soviet Union successfully backed a Uighur separatist movement in the 1940s. To keep Central Asian states from fomenting trouble in Xinjiang, China has cultivated close diplomatic ties with its neighbors, most notably through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. According to Bequelin, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization was created "to ensure the support of Central Asian states," and to "prevent any emergence of linkages between Uighur communities in these countries and Xinjiang."
"People aren't threatening to boycott the Olympic opening ceremony for the Uighurs,"
–Adam Segal, CFR Senior Fellow
Many experts believe China's diplomatic efforts have been successful. Adam Segal, senior fellow for China studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, says China's neighbors "are now fighting their own Muslim fundamentalist groups," which makes them more sympathetic to China's plight. According to the U.S. State Department, Uzbekistan extradited a Canadian citizen of Uighur ethnicity to China in August 2006, where he was convicted for alleged involvement in ETIM activities. Nathan says cases like these are evidence that China's neighbors are cooperating with China's anti-secessionist policies. In contrast, the United States refused to hand over five Uighurs who had been captured by U.S. forces in Pakistan in 2001, despite Chinese calls to do so. After their release from Guantanamo Bay in May 2006, the Uighurs were instead transferred to Albania.
None of China's neighbors have expressed official support for the Uighurs, but the region's porous borders still worry Chinese officials. In the 1980s and 1990s, many Uighurs traveled into Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they were exposed to Islamic extremism. "Some enrolled in madrassas, some enrolled with [the anti-Taliban opposition force] the Northern Alliance, some enrolled with the Taliban, some enrolled with the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan," says Bequelin. Chinese officials worry that militants who slip in and out of Xinjiang can promote anti-state activity.
International Disinterest
In the run-up to the Beijing Olympics in 2008, protests in Tibet reaped international attention. But protests in Xinjiang (IHT) went relatively unnoticed. "People aren't threatening to boycott the Olympic opening ceremony for the Uighurs," says Segal. Because Tibet gets more global attention than Xinjiang, some reporters have referred to Xinjiang as "China's other Tibet" (al-Jazeera).
International interest in Xinjiang is muted for a variety of reasons. According to Nathan, the Uighur community lacks an effective leader. "For the Uighurs, their most prominent spokesperson is Rebiya Kadeer in Washington, who really doesn't have the infrastructure and the Nobel Prize that the Dalai Lama has," he says. Bequelin adds that the Chinese government has effectively branded Uighur separatists as terrorists, which has reduced international sympathy for their mission. Amidst international apathy, most experts say the human rights situation in Xinjiang is likely to get worse before it gets better. "There's no international pressure to change policy in Xinjiang right now," says Segal. "So why would China make any changes?" CFR.org.
The frontrunner to be France's next president is a brilliant Thatcherite populist - with a sinister authoritarian record
The Guardian,
Wednesday 18 April 2007
The gap might be closing but, on the eve of
the first round of France's presidential elections, Nicolas Sarkozy is
still the clear frontrunner. The candidate of "the France that wakes up
early in the morning", the former interior minister is hailed by the
Economist as "France's chance", the man to bring about Thatcherite
economic reforms. In the US, he is lauded for his outspoken admiration
of the American dream - he is proud, he says, to be known as "Sarkozy
the American". But Sarkozy's authoritarian populism - much of which is
designed to court the 5 million people who voted for Jean-Marie Le Pen
in 2002 - is less well-known outside France.
Sarkozy
holds the record in French politics for the most TV appearances over
the past decade, and never misses a chance to portray himself as the
new champion of France. His ruthlessness in pursuit of the ultimate
political prize has never been in doubt since he betrayed his
long-standing mentor, Jacques Chirac, during the 1995 presidential
campaign.
In his book Le Petite Démagogue, journalist Jean-Luc
Porquet claims Sarkozy's ability to slay all in his path to
self-promotion was in evidence as long ago as 1983, when he was just 28
and righthand man to Charles Pasqua, the frontrunner for the
Neuilly-sur-Seine mayoralty. When Pasqua was hospitalised with a
hernia, Sarkozy disloyally chose to campaign for himself, allegedly
savouring his political victory with the line: "I've fucked them all!"
Sarkozy has never denied this rumour.
The man who would be king
has always relied on a brilliant populist media strategy and close
links with the nation's press barons. Yet his conception of press
freedom alarms many in the profession. Last month, the Society of
Journalists from the public TV channel France 3 released a communique
denouncing the threats Sarkozy made against its management board.
Arriving for makeup ahead of an appearance on France 3 to find no place
reserved for him, Sarkozy had reportedly snapped: "The whole board
needs firing ... I can't do it now. But it won't be long."
Alain
Genestar, Paris Match's former director who in August 2005 published a
photo of Sarkozy's wife, Cécilia, in the company of the man she
temporarily left him for, accused Sarkozy of bringing about his
downfall. He was widely reported to have scuppered a biography of
Cécilia in 2005: the publisher was forced to pulp 25,000 copies. In
October 2006, a journalists' trade union denounced the interior
minister's imperious methods in targeting a freelance working for the
French news agency AFP. She had reported a media-staged raid in a
suburb during which 100 police officers "by mistake" terrorised several
families, notably pressing a gun to the temple of a
two-and-a-half-year-old child.
Journalists are not the only ones
in Sarkozy's sights. He has intensified attacks on the so-called
clemency of judges and magistrates. In June 2005, intervening in a
criminal case whose prime suspect was a repeat offender, he declared
that the judge who had "dared to parole such a monster" must "pay".
After riots in the suburbs he fumed: "I do find it unacceptable that
the juvenile court of Bobigny hasn't handed out one single prison
sentence." Last month, the union of magistrates condemned Sarkozy's
tenure as interior minister as "particularly worrying", stating that
"despite the principle of separation of [executive and judicial]
powers, Nicolas Sarkozy has redoubled his demagogic attack" on the
judiciary.
But it is in his approach to delinquency that
Sarkozy's authoritarian drift has manifested itself most poisonously.
At a cabinet meeting in June 2006 he presented a bill on the prevention
of juvenile delinquency based on an earlier parliamentary report
drafted mainly by MPs from his own party. The report's sinister
findings state not only that youth deviancy materialises in infancy but
also appear to link ethnicity with criminality. According to the
satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné, Sarkozy told a fellow minister
that "the kids of 1945 have nothing in common with the giant black
under-18s from the suburbs who scare everyone". Later, facing
widespread condemnation, the government jettisoned the most
controversial measures, which imposed mental-health assessments at
school from the age of three to detect behavioural disorders "leading
to delinquencies".
But Sarkozy's retreat was purely pragmatic,
and he persists in his belief in genetic pre-determinism. "I would be
inclined ... to think that people are born paedophiles and it's a
problem that we can't cure this pathology," he said in February.
Sarkozy
the candidate pledges more housing for the poor; yet in his 20 years as
mayor of Neuilly he refused to increase social housing in this wealthy
suburb from 1% of all housing to the 20% required by French law. He
pledges tough measures to tackle public debt, but during his tenure as
budget minister a staggering €121bn was added to the national debt.
Sarkozy has promised more security, but violence and police brutality
rose relentlessly during his time as interior minister, and his
comments threw fuel on the flames in the banlieues. Sarkozy the
presidential candidate has promised "positive discrimination"; Sarkozy
the minister has introduced a record number of security measures
tending to criminalise migrants, ethnic minorities and Travellers.
Sarkozy
probably thinks himself genetically predetermined to become France's
supreme saviour. So far he has gambled everything on his "telegenic
virility". But he is relying on the amnesia of the electorate.
· Naima Bouteldja, a French journalist, is a researcher for the Transnational Institute.
The frontrunner to be France's next president is a brilliant Thatcherite populist - with a sinister authoritarian record
The Guardian, Wednesday 18 April 2007
The gap might be closing but, on the eve of the first round of France's presidential elections, Nicolas Sarkozy is still the clear frontrunner. The candidate of "the France that wakes up early in the morning", the former interior minister is hailed by the Economist as "France's chance", the man to bring about Thatcherite economic reforms. In the US, he is lauded for his outspoken admiration of the American dream - he is proud, he says, to be known as "Sarkozy the American". But Sarkozy's authoritarian populism - much of which is designed to court the 5 million people who voted for Jean-Marie Le Pen in 2002 - is less well-known outside France.
Sarkozy holds the record in French politics for the most TV appearances over the past decade, and never misses a chance to portray himself as the new champion of France. His ruthlessness in pursuit of the ultimate political prize has never been in doubt since he betrayed his long-standing mentor, Jacques Chirac, during the 1995 presidential campaign.
In his book Le Petite Démagogue, journalist Jean-Luc Porquet claims Sarkozy's ability to slay all in his path to self-promotion was in evidence as long ago as 1983, when he was just 28 and righthand man to Charles Pasqua, the frontrunner for the Neuilly-sur-Seine mayoralty. When Pasqua was hospitalised with a hernia, Sarkozy disloyally chose to campaign for himself, allegedly savouring his political victory with the line: "I've fucked them all!" Sarkozy has never denied this rumour.
The man who would be king has always relied on a brilliant populist media strategy and close links with the nation's press barons. Yet his conception of press freedom alarms many in the profession. Last month, the Society of Journalists from the public TV channel France 3 released a communique denouncing the threats Sarkozy made against its management board. Arriving for makeup ahead of an appearance on France 3 to find no place reserved for him, Sarkozy had reportedly snapped: "The whole board needs firing ... I can't do it now. But it won't be long."
Alain Genestar, Paris Match's former director who in August 2005 published a photo of Sarkozy's wife, Cécilia, in the company of the man she temporarily left him for, accused Sarkozy of bringing about his downfall. He was widely reported to have scuppered a biography of Cécilia in 2005: the publisher was forced to pulp 25,000 copies. In October 2006, a journalists' trade union denounced the interior minister's imperious methods in targeting a freelance working for the French news agency AFP. She had reported a media-staged raid in a suburb during which 100 police officers "by mistake" terrorised several families, notably pressing a gun to the temple of a two-and-a-half-year-old child.
Journalists are not the only ones in Sarkozy's sights. He has intensified attacks on the so-called clemency of judges and magistrates. In June 2005, intervening in a criminal case whose prime suspect was a repeat offender, he declared that the judge who had "dared to parole such a monster" must "pay". After riots in the suburbs he fumed: "I do find it unacceptable that the juvenile court of Bobigny hasn't handed out one single prison sentence." Last month, the union of magistrates condemned Sarkozy's tenure as interior minister as "particularly worrying", stating that "despite the principle of separation of [executive and judicial] powers, Nicolas Sarkozy has redoubled his demagogic attack" on the judiciary.
But it is in his approach to delinquency that Sarkozy's authoritarian drift has manifested itself most poisonously. At a cabinet meeting in June 2006 he presented a bill on the prevention of juvenile delinquency based on an earlier parliamentary report drafted mainly by MPs from his own party. The report's sinister findings state not only that youth deviancy materialises in infancy but also appear to link ethnicity with criminality. According to the satirical newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné, Sarkozy told a fellow minister that "the kids of 1945 have nothing in common with the giant black under-18s from the suburbs who scare everyone". Later, facing widespread condemnation, the government jettisoned the most controversial measures, which imposed mental-health assessments at school from the age of three to detect behavioural disorders "leading to delinquencies".
But Sarkozy's retreat was purely pragmatic, and he persists in his belief in genetic pre-determinism. "I would be inclined ... to think that people are born paedophiles and it's a problem that we can't cure this pathology," he said in February.
Sarkozy the candidate pledges more housing for the poor; yet in his 20 years as mayor of Neuilly he refused to increase social housing in this wealthy suburb from 1% of all housing to the 20% required by French law. He pledges tough measures to tackle public debt, but during his tenure as budget minister a staggering €121bn was added to the national debt. Sarkozy has promised more security, but violence and police brutality rose relentlessly during his time as interior minister, and his comments threw fuel on the flames in the banlieues. Sarkozy the presidential candidate has promised "positive discrimination"; Sarkozy the minister has introduced a record number of security measures tending to criminalise migrants, ethnic minorities and Travellers.
Sarkozy probably thinks himself genetically predetermined to become France's supreme saviour. So far he has gambled everything on his "telegenic virility". But he is relying on the amnesia of the electorate.
· Naima Bouteldja, a French journalist, is a researcher for the Transnational Institute.
Former FBI Interrogator, Ex-State Dept. Counselor Criticize Torture Memos at Senate Panel Hearing.
Site : democracynow.org
The Senate Judiciary Committee held the first congressional hearing on prisoner interrogation Wednesday since the release of Bush administration memos authorizing torture. Former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan called the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques “slow, ineffective, unreliable and harmful,” while former State Department counsel Philip Zelikow said he was told to destroy a memo he wrote criticizing the torture’s authorization.
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Ali Soufan, former FBI interrogator, testifying at Wednesday’s hearing.
Philip Zelikow, former State Department lawyer and head of the 9/11 Commission, testifying at Wednesday’s hearing.
AMY GOODMAN: President Obama has reversed his position and says he will now prevent the release of photographs of US soldiers abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. The news broke just as the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on detainee interrogation and torture Wednesday. It was the first hearing on the Bush administration’s harsh interrogation methods since the Obama administration released the so-called “torture memos” authorizing them.
A former FBI agent, Ali Soufan, who had interrogated high-level al-Qaeda suspects, testified at the hearing, but from behind a wooden screen to hide his identity. Soufan said the Bush administration’s so-called enhanced interrogation techniques were, quote, “slow, ineffective, unreliable and harmful.” In contrast, he described the less threatening interrogation method he had used on suspects, including Abu Zubaydah.
ALI SOUFAN: The interrogator uses a combination of interpersonal, cognitive and emotional strategies to extract the information needed. If done correctly, this approach works quickly and effectively, because it outsmarts the detainee using a method that he is not trained nor able to resist. The Army Field Manual is not about being soft. It’s about outwitting, outsmarting and manipulating the detainee.
The approach is in sharp contrast of the enhanced interrogation method that instead tries to subjugate the detainee into submission through humiliation and cruelty. A major problem is it—it is ineffective. Al-Qaeda are trained to resist torture, as we see from the recently released DOJ memos on interrogation. The contractors had to keep requesting authorization to use harsher and harsher methods.
In the case of Abu Zubaydah, that continued for several months, right ’til waterboarding was introduced. And waterboarding itself had to be used eighty-three times, an indication that Abu Zubaydah had already called his interrogators’ bluff. In contrast, when we interrogated him using intelligent interrogation methods, within the first hour we gained important actionable intelligence.
This amateurish technique is harmful to our long-term strategy and interests. It plays into the enemy’s handbook and recreates a form of the so-called Chinese wall between the CIA and the FBI. It also taints sources, risks outcomes, ignores the endgame, and diminishes our moral high ground.
My interest in speaking about this issue is not to advocate the prosecution of anyone. Examining a past we cannot change is only worthwhile when it helps guide us towards claiming a future, a better future that is yet within our reach. For the last seven years, it has not been easy objecting to these methods when they had powerful backers.
AMY GOODMAN: Former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan. Soufan was questioned by both Democratic Senator Sheldon Whitehouse and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. In response to Soufan’s testimony Senator Whitehouse read a statement from President Bush that said enhanced interrogation had actually led to useful information.
SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: On September 6, 2006, President Bush stated the following: “Within months of September 11, 2001, we captured a man named Abu Zubaydah. We believed that Zubaydah was a senior terrorist leader and a trusted associate of Osama bin Laden…Zubaydah was severely wounded during the firefight that brought him into custody, and he survived only because of the medical care arranged by the CIA.
“After he recovered, Zubaydah was defiant and evasive. He declared his hatred of America. During questioning, he at first disclosed what he thought was nominal”—nominal—“information and then stopped all cooperation…We knew that Zubaydah had more information that could save innocent lives, but he stopped talking. As his questioning proceeded, it became clear that [Zubaydah] had received training on how to resist interrogation. And so, the CIA used an alternative set of procedures.”
Does that statement by the President accurately reflect the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah?
ALI SOUFAN: Well, the environment that he’s talking about, yes, it reflects—you know, he was injured, and he needed medical care. But I think the President—my own personal opinion here, based on my recollection, he was told probably half-truth.
SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: And repeated half-truth, obviously. His statement, as presented, does not conform with what you know to be the case—
ALI SOUFAN: Yes, sir.
SEN. SHELDON WHITEHOUSE: —from your experience on-hand.
ALI SOUFAN: Yes, sir.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: Do you believe that any good information was obtained through harsh interrogation techniques? Can you say that there was no good information?
ALI SOUFAN: Well, from what I know on the Abu Zubaydah, I would like you to evaluate the information that we got before—
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: Well, the Vice President’s suggesting that there was good information obtained, and I’d like the committee to get that information. Let’s have both sides of the story here. I mean, one of the reasons these techniques have survived for about 500 years is apparently they work.
ALI SOUFAN: Because, sir, there’s a lot of people who don’t know how to interrogate—
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: Right.
ALI SOUFAN: —and it’s easier to hit someone than outsmart them.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM: I understand that you believe you got it right and you know how to do it and these other people don’t.
AMY GOODMAN: Republican Senator Lindsey Graham questioning former FBI interrogator Ali Soufan at the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Wednesday.
Former State Department counselor and former head of the 9/11 Commission, Philip Zelikow, also testified at the hearing. He criticized the memos authorizing the interrogations from the Office of Legal Counsel and revealed that the memo he wrote offering an alternative view on the legality of torture has now been located and could be declassified shortly.
PHILIP ZELIKOW: It seemed to me that the OLC interpretation of US Con law in this area was strained and indefensible, in a whole variety of ways. My view was that I could not imagine any federal court in America agreeing that the entire CIA program could be conducted and it would not violate the American Constitution.
So I distributed my memo analyzing these legal issues to other deputies at one of our meetings in February 2006. I then took off to the Middle East on other work. When I came back, I heard the memo was not considered appropriate for further discussion and that copies of my memo should be collected and destroyed. That particular request, passed along informally, did not seem proper, and I ignored it.
This particular memo has evidently been located in the State’s files and is being reviewed for declassification. But in sum, the US government, over the past seven years, adopted an unprecedented program in American history of coolly calculated, dehumanizing abuse and physical torment to extract information. This was a mistake, perhaps a disastrous one. It was a collective failure in which a number of officials and members of Congress and staffers of both parties played a part.
Gideon Levy : The Holocaust and Israeli occupation cannot be compared
Tags: israel news
The Israeli soldiers played backgammon in their tent as a Palestinian
ambulance stood waiting, its red lights flashing.
The sight of the ambulance, holding an agonized woman, was not
enough to cause any of the soldiers to take a break from their game.
This went on for half an hour, until my patience finally ran out.
It was the height of the second Intifada, and we were lined up at
checkpoint 250, which at that point besieged the West Bank town of
Jenin. I exited the vehicle and approached the soldiers, raising my
distraught voice at them.
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"They always keep us hanging like this," the ambulance driver had just told me, in contemporary Hebrew slang.
I asked the soldiers how they would have felt had it been their
father or mother laying there in the ambulance. That query flurried
through their minds, brainwashed against seeing Palestinians as a
fellow human.
In my rage, I then told the soldiers that only monsters could play
backgammon as an ailing woman suffers nearby. One of the soldiers
cocked a gun at my head and unfastened the safety.
In the "investigation" held following the incident, the soldier
claimed I told them they were Nazis. As far as they were concerned, the
words "monster" and "Nazi" were synonymous.
I have never called Israel Defense Forces soldiers Nazis and I
never will. The Holocaust and the Nazis could not and should not be
compared to any other inhumane behaviors.
In Europe, this designation is becoming more and more common. The
IDF are Nazis and Israel is a Nazi, Jews afflicting unto others all
that was done to them.
A large part of the world's leftists - many of whom consider
themselves to be friends of Israel, some of them even Jewish - see the
Israeli occupation as a manifestation of renewed Nazism.
I reject that comparison with anger and contempt. It is incorrect,
horrifically infuriating and harmful to the just Palestinian cause. The
occupation is cruel enough, and while comparison to the Holocaust not
only cheapens that historical memory, it also undervalues the crimes of
the Israeli occupation.
There is no one absolute evil. Comparison between the Israeli
occupation and Nazism is like comparing an elephant to a fly. What do
they have in common? Practically nothing.
Worrying Racism
It's not clear who started it. Maybe it was us. Abba Eban, the
legendary Labor foreign minister, once called the borders established
following the 1967 Six-Day War "Auschwitz borders" - no less. Decades
later, Benjamin Netanyahu said that Iranian President Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad is a "modern-day Hitler" - no less.
Portuguese author Jose Saramago was also tempted to make the
comparison. After visiting the occupied territories in 2002, he said
they resembled Auschwitz.
MK Issam Makhoul once gave a raised arm salute over the Knesset podium, calling out "Heil Sharon."
From both the right and the left, in Israel and abroad, comparisons rise.
All of these comparisons should be rejected. Anyone who likens the
1967 borders to Auschwitz and the president of Iran to Hitler is just
as infuriating as those who compare the IDF to Nazis.
The Israeli occupation is both brutal and cruel. Israel in 2009 is
beginning to resemble 1930s Germany more and more. The dehumanization
process Palestinians experience, encouraged by the media and executed
by the IDF, brings to mind horrific images.
Anyone facing the barbed-wire fences surrounding Qalqilya, for
example, cannot help but think of a concentration camp. A concentration
camp - not an extermination camp. The person who smeared graffiti on
the separation wall calling Abu Dis a ghetto, as it severed by an
8-meter high concrete wall, did so with good reason.
The racism exhibited toward Israeli Arab, wherever they may go,
should also stir profound concern. Arab students are unable to rent
apartments in Jewish cities and a Ramat Aviv grocery shop owner has
said that quite a few of the upscale neighborhood's residents refuse to
have Arab employees deliver their groceries. That too should ring some
bells.
Arabs were fired from Israel Railways, essentially because of their
ethnic affiliation, and others struggle to be accepted into government
positions, for the same reason. So-called selections - yes, that's the
name for it - prevents young Arabs from entering city night clubs.
Security checkups in Ben-Gurion Airport, which separates people
according to their ethnicity, and the checkups based on someone's
accent, are sickening.
There are more than a few IDF orders and Knesset laws that if
translated to German, would certainly cause alarm. The demand to
require Arab citizens to pass a loyalty test would have sounded
horrible in German. Also, the prevalent claims that Israel's problems
could have been solved had we only barricaded the Palestinians behind
fences or borders are just as horrifying.
The term "demographic threat" should sound familiar to the
Holocaust generation, to subsequent generations, as should the
discussion - shameful in its accepted legitimacy, - of how to deal with
this apparent "threat." The citizenship law should have, as they say in
English, "rang a few bells."