Month: March 2012

Gay teens – or straight ones wearing “emo” or Goth-style clothes – are being murdered using cinder blocks: a kind of individual form of crushing under a stone wall. The NYT reports here. Al-Arabiya has more details:

The death toll of the total number of “Emo” youth is not clear, but reports of their killings have created a big uproar in Iraq. Hana al-Bayaty of Brussels Tribunal, an NGO dealing with Iraqi issues, said the current figure ranges “between 90 and 100.” “Emos” are “fools” and “experts must finish them,” the Iraq-based Al Sumaria News TV reported the firebrand conservative cleric Muqtada al-Sadr as saying on Saturday.

Sistani has condemned the vigilante attacks. More here.

A letter from Baghdad here:

Now they’re using blocks or rocks or hammers in the killing of young people and all kinds of bad people are to be killed on the pretext that we are servants of Satan or Massachin [Christians] —  blood militias run free every day and kill the flower of youth, all of whom are innocent of the charges that tarnish their image. I don’t know what to say because I am afraid and scared and now I am mentally ill because of the fear, and they even control mobile devices now, and external and internal checkpoints [on the surrounding roads and city streets ] are collaborating with the militias for fear of the flight of young people from Iraq or from Baghdad. I appeal to the humanity in you…

Peter Beinart zooms in on Dennis Ross's role in bolstering Netanyahu and on Obama's weakness when he backed down on the demand for a settlement freeze. There was, of course, no such freeze. You think Greater Israel under Netanyahu  and Lieberman would live up to its promises?

In November, Israel and the United States agreed to a settlement freeze that exempted East Jerusalem, exempted all public buildings “essential for normal life,” exempted all buildings whose foundations had already been laid, and was set to expire in ten months. Key was the exemption for construction already under way. As Israeli newspapers reported, settlers had spent the months preceding November busily laying the foundations of new houses, which they then built upon during the “freeze.” Then, when the freeze expired, they began laying more foundations. All in all, according to Peace Now, construction began on 1,518 West Bank housing units in 2008. In 2009, the number was 1,920. In 2010— the year of the “freeze”— it was 1,712.

Publicly, Hillary Clinton calling the settlement freeze “unprecedented.” Privately, the mood was darker. As Mitchell told Erekat, “We know what you think of us because we failed.”

Peter rightly notes, I think, that last week's events mark a further capitulation of America's interests to Greater Israel's. From my column in yesterday's Sunday Times [paywalled]:

The new Six Power talks with Iran will now be critical. And in some manner, Netanyahu's apocalypticism and the threat from the Republican party should strengthen the West's current position. Obama can credibly argue that the window for a diplomatic solution, with full inspection of all sites, is still open, but that he is the Iranians' best bet if they want to keep war at bay. Will the Iranians now deal? The economic and financial sanctions are brutal, the military threat now more explicit than ever. But what we do know is that if the Iranians refuse to cooperate, they will have achieved something as chilling as it is ironic: a second US invasion of the Middle East, led by the president who was elected because he opposed the last one.

Or led by a Republican president, leading millions of evangelical Christians in a religious showdown against their eternal enemy: Islam. It is hard to be in any way optimistic about any loosening of the grip of Greater Israel's control of US foreign policy in the Middle East, just as it is hard to be in any way optimistic about a two state solution. Religious fundamentalism in Israel and America is now much more powerful than foreign policy realism.

But that doesn't mean giving up, however understandable that now is. Exposing Israel's slide into a fundamentalist-driven, expansionist force in the Middle East, and making the case, as David Ignatius did yesterday, that non-military options remain our best bet in undermining the theo-fascists in Tehran and the West Bank, remain vital.

My Tory pessimism leads me to think this is a losing battle. But losing battles must also be fought.

Which brings me to the great news of Zion Square, a new group-blog on the Beast designed to air this subject, expose reality and generate a more honest debate about what is happening in Israel. Run by Peter Beinart, whose forthcoming book, The Crisis Of Zionism, is a terrifyingly frank account of our current state of affairs, it's essential reading.

Case in point: Gershom Gorenberg's superb new column on the recklessness of Netanyahu's – and Republican – rhetorical style in Washington last week.

A depressing insight into the depravity of parts of the GOP base.

Quite staggering levels of – let's call them by their proper name – bigotry and ignorance:

Asked whether Obama is Christian or Muslim, some 45 percent of Alabama Republican respondents picked Muslim; 14 percent correctly identified him as Christian. Another 41 percent said they were unsure. In Mississippi, a majority of Republicans, 52 percent, identified Obama as Muslim; 12 percent said he was Christian and 36 percent were undecided.

Nicely captured. This election is, as all elections, about many things. But defeating the barrage of insanity and deception from the FNC-RNC machine is a central part of it. Reminding reasonable people that the current GOP actually proposed this know-nothing, delusional maniac as a potential president is essential in an amnesiac country.

Newt is his nemesis' indispensable ally:

Gingrich staying in the race does nothing but help Romney win toss-up states (for example, Illinois and Wisconsin). Gingrich has shown an inability to connect with voters outside the Deep South, but he has siphoned off enough voters to allow Romney to skim by with vote percentages of 41% or below in Michigan and Ohio. Where Gingrich is likely stronger (Arkansas, Kentucky and North Carolina, among other states), Romney's viability would extend to states he would have little chance in otherwise. With a plausible Gingrich campaign continuing, Romney would likely wrap up the nomination no later than early June, and probably by May, with a clear majority of delegates. 

Gary Younge explains why a GOP victory is "somewhere between a distinct possibility and a likelihood":

True, the employment outlook is improving. Sadly for Obama, that's not the best economic indicator for electoral success. For that, most political economists track real disposable personal income growth per capita, or what the average person has left after tax and inflation. For the first 11 quarters of his presidency, the RDPI has stood at -0.4%. Obama, in short, is digging himself out of a very large hole. The question is whether he has a shovel-ready solution capable of digging him out fast enough.

Jamelle Bouie piles on, armed with the WaPo's poll this morning:

With 46 percent approval to 50 percent disapproval, public assessment of Obama’s job performance has returned to its usual place just below the surface. Indeed, in a head-to-head matchup with Mitt Romney—the likely GOP nominee—President Obama loses, 47 percent to 49 percent. Against Rick Santorum, Obama has a scant three-point lead. The Washington Post attributes this drop to rising gas prices, which seems likely—the president’s standing has declined at both the same time that gas prices have gone up and Republicans have made it an issue.

The gas price is also part of Netanyahu's strategy for defeating Obama. I agree that we are probably currently witnessing a nadir for the GOP, given their appallingly wince-inducing primary campaign, and their recent falling straight into the contraception trap. And there's a chance that Romney could effectively end the campaign this week if he were to win in Mississippi and Alabama in a split electorate. And Romney, I suspect, will likely run the most dishonest, distorting, polarizing campaign he can.

My view remains that Obama needs to embrace radical tax reform and long-term debt reduction to buttress his credible claim to have inherited a catastrophe and turned it slowly around.

(Chart of model based on Real Disposable Personal Income's predictiveness by Harry Enten)

A reader writes:

I was a Benedictine monk for 13 years.  And now I have been with my partner, now husband, for almost 20.  We have been married twice, first in Multnomah County in Oregon in 2004 on March 5th. That was annulled, since the county officials didn’t have the legal authority to allow same-sex unions per the Supreme Court of Oregon.  We married again in 2007 on the same day in Massachusetts, the state where we live today.  It doesn’t bring us many more rights, since most of them are federal, but it does lend a bit of dignity to our every day lives.

Part of the reason that I left the monastery and my life as a Catholic priest (I was ordained in 1986 and went on to earn a doctorate in Dogmatic Theology with an eye to teaching it at the seminary that my old monastery has) was the blatant hypocrisy rampant in the Church.  I remember sitting next to my best friend in the monastery who started laughing one night at dinner.  I had to ask him afterwards what was so funny, since we ate in silence while another monk read to us.  He said, “I was just counting how many of the other monks are gay and I lost count.”

That is what is so sad about the Church’s refusal to acknowledge us.  We are Legion, but not in a satanic way.  We are their lifeblood; we are their priests, their brothers.  I’d say the majority of the Catholic clergy – at least 20 years ago, before they had to do celibacy trials in the seminary? – are gay.  I know of some who were highly placed and had boyfriends.  Could they just come out? The world and the Church would be better for it.

I used to think that homosexuality was a relatively minor issue for the church, and that the natural law arguments for allowing an eternal part of God’s creation some dignity and respect, along with all others who for unchosen reasons cannot partake in procreative heterosexual marriage, were strong. I have come to realize that the homosexual issue is at the very heart of the church’s current crisis – and that the cruelty we see is the kind of cruelty inflicted by closeted gay men on those who have sought an honest life.  This goes all the way to the very top of the church. Its secrecy and hypocrisy and self-hatred all played a part in the cover-up of mass child-rape for decades.

Pope Benedict XVI himself is a living embodiment of these profound and crippling contradictions. Until they are addressed, until they are fully acknowledged, reform on a whole range of issues will remain extremely hard.

(Photo: A Benedictine monk of the abbey of Tamie steps out the room where the service frocks are stored, on August 12, 2011. The actors of the movie ‘Of gods and men’ (Des hommes et des Dieux) took a retirement before the shooting of the movie in this abbey. By Philippe Desmazes/AFP/Getty Images)

Jennifer Rowland has a good roundup of reporting on the slaughter of Afghan civilians by a deranged American soldier in Panjwai province. A depressed Jeff Emanuel decries the murder:

The effective but controversial tactic of night raids was already a very touchy subject  both among the Afghan population and in negotiations between the U.S. and Afghanistan over the post-2014 coalition presence.  This one-man ‘night raid’ that left sixteen civilians dead not only adds to that issue, but also takes away significantly from Afghans’ ability to trust coalition troops with their lives and their security.  Absent any clear larger goals in Afghanistan, it has to be fair game to ask what ISAF’s purpose in that country is if its ability to secure and protect the general population has been irrevocably compromised.

Carl Prine fears rioting:

We likely shall see the Taliban and other anti-government forces escalate the demonstrations because they’re a handy tool used to discredit the Karzai regime and the US-led coalition. There likely will be spontaneous protests in many parts of the nation, including the  Kandahar we’ve screwed down by massing troops there, but those won’t be the interesting ones. I’ll pay more attention to those that appear to be orchestrated by the cadre of the various Taliban networks in the rest of the country, including Kabul.  I suspect that these likely will be led by the one militia with a uniquely honed ability to wield violence and protest theatrically to psychologically addle the government elites and the urban masses. Which is to say, the Haqqanis.

Ed Morissey nods:

[T]his will make the Koran burnings look like an Occupy protest.  

David Axe thinks "the fallout from the Sunday killings could be greatest in the villages that are most vital to NATO’s endgame strategy:"

The Army, the Pentagon, the NATO International Security Assistance Force and U.S. President Barack Obama all denounced Sunday’s killings and vowing to investigate. But the official apologies may be too late to save the decade-long NATO-Afghanistan alliance, already damaged by the Koran burnings, the 2010 “sport hunting” of Afghan civilians by rogue U.S. troops (reportedly from the same base as the alleged Panjwai killer), errant NATO air strikes that have killed thousands of innocent Afghans over the years plus countless minor acts of cultural cluelessness that have slowly poisoned relations between Afghans and their supposed foreign allies.

David Dayen differs somewhat:

I actually disagree with the idea that this attack represents a turning point. Maybe historians will read it that way after the US withdraws. But the truth is that the policy reality dictated a withdrawal a long time ago. We have no strategic value in continuing to occupy Afghanistan, in support of a corrupt government that has no legitimacy in the countryside. And the American public actually knows this.

Steve Hynd worries about justice for the dead:

Given the way in which casual killing of and pissing on the dead bodies of Afghans has been lightly treated by US military courts in the past, I won't hold my breath that this murderer will be treated any differently. The US and its allies have become like a husband who says its all for her own good, while poor wife Afghanistan has all the bruises.

David Sanger focuses on negotiations with the Taliban:

[B]oth in Washington and Kabul, some American military and civilian officials acknowledged that the events would embolden the hard-liners within the Taliban, who oppose negotiations with a force that is leaving the country anyway and who want to use the next two years to appeal to the understandable national allergy to foreign occupation.

Bruce Riedel also watches the peace talks:

Iran and Pakistan will stoke anti-Americanism. Pressure will build in Europe and America to withdraw faster from the Afghan war. With the anti-war socialists likely to win the French elections, we can anticipate at least one major NATO ally pulling out this year. But there are also significant indicators that the Afghan Taliban and their Pakistani patrons are more interested in a negotiating process than ever before. The Taliban has agreed to open an office in Qatar to facilitate talks and to allow five Taliban prisoners in Guantánamo to be transferred to Qatari control. It did not renounce the negotiations over the Quran crisis. If it does the same now—denouncing the killings but not renouncing talks—it will be a sign they are determined to pursue negotiations. 

Jon Lee Anderson recalls a conversation he had with Mullah Zaeef, "a former senior Taliban envoy and post-9/11 Guantámano inmate":

[ Zaeef] smiled tartly, and said that the only possible thing that the Taliban might be willing to talk about with the Americans and their allies were the terms of their complete withdrawal from the country. Such an agreement could determine whether they were able to leave Afghanistan with some semblance of dignity, or not, he said.

Paul Pillar steps back:

The only appropriate policy response to these developments is to press ahead with military disengagement from Afghanistan. The Western mission already has become very hard to perform, and there are bound to be more incidents that will make it even harder.

My reactions from yesterday here and here.

(Photo: The bodies of an elderly Afghan man and a child are pictured in Alkozai village of Panjwayi district, Kandahar province on March 11, 2012. An AFP reporter counted 16 bodies — including women and children — in three Afghan houses after a rogue US soldier walked out of his base and began shooting civilians early Sunday. NATO's International Security Assistance Force said it had arrested a soldier 'in connection to an incident that resulted in Afghan casualties in Kandahar province', without giving a figure for the dead or wounded. By Mamoon Durrani/AFP/Getty Images.)