Many years ago, I heard Phyllis Bennis give what I thought was a fair summation of the period of time after the U.S. took over the Oslo negotiations through their collapse at the end of Clinton's presidency: They spent seven years negotiating over the easy issues while putting off all of the difficult issues.
When Clinton's presidency was ending and, by all appearances, he wanted a peace deal as part of his legacy, he apparently thought he could impose upon the Palestinians a 'final resolution' on the issues of refugee rights, water rights, Israeli settlements, borders, Jerusalem, Israeli military authority on Palestinian land, the right of the Palestinian state to control its own borders, and the like, by taking a proposal that was acceptable to Israel and telling Arafat, "This is the best you'll ever get". He did that despite having been warned by Arafat that it was a problematic time for the Palestinians to be entering into negotiations at all, and we know what happened with the promise that he would not blame Arafat if the negotiations failed.
The subsequent negotiations at Taba suggest that Barak and Arafat might have been able to reach an agreement on far more just terms, but for the fact that Barak lost his election, ended the talks based upon his loss of a mandate, with the prospects of a negotiated resolution falling into the hands of Ariel Sharon, who preferred provocation and stonewalling to anything that might have resulted in a peaceful settlement of the conflict.
After a week of off-and-on negotiations, senior Palestinian and Israeli negotiators announced they had never been more close to reaching agreement on final-status issues. But they had run out of political time. They couldn't conclude an agreement with Clinton now out of office and Barak standing for reelection in two weeks. "We made progress, substantial progress. We are closer than ever to the possibility of stiriking a final deal," said Shlomo Ben-Ami, Israel's negotiator. Saeb Erekat, Palestinian chief negotiator, said, "My heart aches because I know we were so close. We need six more weeks to conclude the drafting of the agreement."
Whatever good he did for the peace movement prior to that time, Clinton would have done both sides a big favor by admitting his own fault for the failure of his summit -- and for its aftermath.
It seems to me that foreign leaders would do Israel a favor by stating what seems obvious: That as much as the world favors a two-state solution, Israel's settlement activity, restrictions on Palestinian development and activity, wall, and other factors are creating a future in which there will be no alternative to a one-state solution.
It's possible to be "pro-Israel" and to favor Israel disentangling itself from the occupied territories and allowing a Palestinian state. In fact, it's hard to think of a position more pro-Israel than to help it off of a track that leads to a single state future through which Israel either becomes a decidedly non-democratic state that encompasses the West Bank and Gaza, or loses its Jewish identity as the result of the democratic process.
To me, the idea that the occupation can be sustained in perpetuity seems like a delusion. If the world's leaders believe that it's not a delusion and don't care about Palestinian rights, then their failure to articulate a position against settlement and in favor of a two-state solution becomes more understandable -- but are world leaders truly that delusional and indifferent?
As the conflict expands, to what degree are we properly characterizing the conflict as being driven by ISIS/ISIL, as opposed to the very same forces that led to Iraq's civil war while under U.S. occupation? Is there a point where we should stop pointing to ISIS/ISIL as 'the' enemy and start describing a larger group or coalition as the target of the military efforts?
I do not want to discount the role of ISIS/ISIL's strategies and intimidation tactics, but if the underlying desire for civil war were not present within a very significant percentage of Iraq's Sunni population it's difficult to imagine their enjoying this type of success, both in terms of enlisting fighters and in terms of expansion.
I'm also curious as to whether you have an opinion on the future of ISIS if it is not defeated -- would it end up holding its power and influence over the territories it controls, or would there be division -- or even yet another civil war -- within those territories over who gets to control the territories or the extent to which they embrace fundamentalism?
Assuming the anti-ISIS/ISIL coalition succeeds in rolling back ISIS, what could then be done to lock in that success? It would seem that going back to the status quo ante would simply serve to reproduce the context in which ISIS/ISIL was able to rapidly gain support and foment civil war. At this point, how realistic is it to posit a future with a united Iraq?
The quotation suggests that, prior to Republican abandonment of bipartisan efforts on the budget, immigration and climate change, and around the time of the passage of the PPACA, Obama was optimistic about the direction that the nation was headed. Following the 2010 "shellacking" in the midterm elections, and given the balance of power in the House and Senate since that time, there's no realistic chance of achieving supermajority passage of a constitutional amendment, let alone state ratification.
I think it's reasonable to infer that the reason the P.A. delayed this move is two-fold. First, there is the possibility that any action they file against Israel will be countered by filings against P.A. leaders. But second, and more importantly, I suspect that they were told that this action would undermine the peace process, and were strongly urged (if not instructed) not to take action by some or all of the "Quartet".
Karzai has his reasons for being difficult, and they seem to have little to do with who is in the White House. Part of the problem appears to be that he was almost as bad of a choice to lead a nation as Ahmed Chalabi, but with fewer paying attention and his looking striking in his robes, I guess we weren't supposed to notice the corruption and incompetency in his administration. (The truth hurts, so I'll be on the lookout for his vengeance.)
I have come to think of Ted Nugent as another version of Ann Coulter, somebody who realizes that the only thing that separates him from fading completely into obscurity is the media frenzy that will be generated by his next outrageous, over-the-top comment.
For the sake of clarity, the conditions under which one can seek asylum are considerably broader than having been charged with a crime - Under the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, asylum seekers must show that they have a well-founded fear of persecution due to their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group, and are unable or unwilling to seek protection from the authorities in their own country.
I did not watch the Eastwood speech, but the notion of criticizing the President for flying on Air Force One strikes me as a particularly small-minded, fact-deprived, Tea Party-derived piece of absurdity. Air Force One is a flying fortress - part of the cocoon in which we keep the President during his travel, with any number of high-tech defenses against possible attack - and is also a flying office that is meant to enable the President to do whatever he needs to do, whenever he needs to do it. Perhaps Eastwood plans to make a movie in which the President travels only by bicycle and rowboat, but in the real world there is no "ecological" alternative to the use of Air Force One.
Eastwood might have found himself at home in the U.K. a few years back when Tony Blair's lust for an equivalent aircraft had the local pundits joking about "Blair Force One", but even they understood why the President has... two of them.
1. The filibuster only exists in the Senate, not in "both houses of Congress".
2. Obama is head of the executive branch; Congress is the legislative branch. The fact that the same party controls both the White House and Congress does not mean that they share the same goals or agenda - consider the manner in which a Democratically controlled Congress undercut Clinton during his first two years, and the analogous manner in which a number of Democratic Senators sabotaged Obama in order to extort legislative concessions or to please industry groups back home.
3. The Democrats had a total of sixty votes in their Senate caucus (and no, there were never 60 Democrats - 58 Democrats, 2 independents) between July 7. 2009 when Senator Franken took office and August 25, 2009, when Ted Kennedy died. Although the Democrats had a nominal 60 votes during the period during which Kennedy's temporary replacement was appointed (September 25, 2009) until Scott Brown was sworn in (February 4, 2010), they chose not to treat his vote as a sixtieth - you will recall that they put off finalizing the ACA until after Brown took office. The total time with a nominal sixty votes, you will note, is considerably shorter than "two years". Further, given the health of Senators Kennedy and Byrd, it's something of an overstatement that the Democrats actually had sixty votes for those three months - they could not vote from the hospital.
4. Classifying somebody as an "unlawful combatant" is a mechanism by which that person can be detained without trial. But if you put them on trial, it is for crimes.
5. Lots of "heinous" criminals, including those who have attempted or committed acts of terrorism, have been tried in New York. Why do you believe that the people of NYC are so weak and cowardly that they could not deal with a trial of 911 terrorists in their state? Projection?
This is incredibly basic stuff - how can you not know this?
It's pretty standard wedge politics, it's just that Romney was a bit clumsy in his wording. By "poor" people benefiting from the "safety net" he meant "people on welfare", part of an overall Republican message about a class of undeserving poor people who get 'free stuff that the rest of us have to work for.' In that final statement, he's basically saying that if you vote for a Democrat, your hard earned money will go to the undeserving poor.
It's another iteration of Santorum's "I don't want to make bla... ah people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money", or whatever we're supposed to believe he said.
The stubborn notion that there's no difference between the two major parties and their candidates, or that it makes no difference who wins the White House, can result from naiveté or conceit, but it's simply not true. The identity of the President makes a huge difference on a wide range of issues. We went through the same argument that "there's no difference between the candidates" during the Bush-Gore campaign. In retrospect, would anybody argue that?
I would like to tell you that you're going to experience elections in which you're going to like the candidate you vote for, or that you won't have to compromise on some (or many) issues that are important to you when choosing the better candidate. But such is life. Candidates are human, none of them are perfect, and unless you're the candidate you're going to disagree with at least some of what the candidate stands for.
Looking back, though, would you seriously argue that it was for the best that Bush won? Twice? That Obama beat McCain? Do you seriously believe you will be better served by having President Romney appoint the next set of members to the NLRB, the next set of federal judges (including Supreme Court justices), the next head of the EPA, the next head of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (assuming he bothers)?
So unless you have a rational, fact-based answer to my question, it stands. And guess what? If you had one, you would have posted it.
"Palestinians don’t even acknowledge that the Israelis exist...."
I look forward to your substantiation of that claim, as well as your condemnation of the likes of Joseph Farah ("Palestinian people do not exist") and Larry Miller ("There are no Palestinians. It's a made up word.")
"...it seems likely that if Qaddafi is deprived by the UN-backed coalition of his advantage in planes and tanks, the rebels will again advance west...."
It's not that I wouldn't understand the concept of allowing the rebels to advance, or want Qaddafi to hold on to power, but if the UN Resolution is enforced in a manner that basically takes sides in the civil war and shields the rebel forces from even defensive measures, that's problematic on any number of levels. Not the least of which is the UN resolution itself, that the Security Council "Demands the immediate establishment of a ceasefire...".
I suspect that the hope is for what you suggested, "that the rest of the Libyan officer corps will throw the Qaddafis under the bus and switch sides", but not so much to join the rebels. I cynically suspect that the west, much of which has embraced Qaddafi in recent years, would prefer a slightly less offensive version of "the devil we know" as opposed to bringing the rebel faction (a devil we don't know) into some sort of coalition. Also, should it happen, there's a possibility that the rebels won't agree to join with the generals who topple Qaddafi - and then what? Allow the civil war to resume and play itself out? Impose an indefinite "no fly zone' that effectively partitions the country, in the hope that one day the two sides reach a compromise? Actively support the military efforts of one side or the other?
Is the suggestion that the U.S. might reconsider its aid package for Egypt simply for the benefit of Mubarak, or is it also a message to the military that if they engage in a coup they may find that aid immediately cut off?
What would be the best way of measuring if 1/3 of the population is mentally ill? Perhaps a survey: "What is the President's religion? Was he born in our country? Is he constitutionally barred from serving in his office? What are his goals for the nation? Is climate change real?"
More seriously, I would not be surprised if between the nation's poverty, overpopulation, and a huge environmental crisis a significant percentage of the population is showing signs of acute mental illness, although I would expect that things will normalize as the crisis passes. It's not just that people adapt - I think people and societies recover from shared trauma much better than they do with individual trauma. People who suffer individual trauma seem more apt to focus on their own losses (Why me? What did I do to deserve this?) while society at large often attempts to insulate itself from the idea that "it could happen to me, as well" (He must have done something to deserve it). A shared trauma is much less likely to make somebody feel like their loss is worse than that of others, or that they're somehow being punished. A massive shared trauma can also necessitate pulling together in ways that would not otherwise occur.
To the extent that the broad provision of mental health services is to occur in a nation like Pakistan, it seems to me that it would have to be through a network of "lay counselors", trained and to the extent possible supervised by mental health professionals, primarily operating through group sessions that are open to the public. Even then, resources would likely be stretched very thin.
Many years ago, I heard Phyllis Bennis give what I thought was a fair summation of the period of time after the U.S. took over the Oslo negotiations through their collapse at the end of Clinton's presidency: They spent seven years negotiating over the easy issues while putting off all of the difficult issues.
When Clinton's presidency was ending and, by all appearances, he wanted a peace deal as part of his legacy, he apparently thought he could impose upon the Palestinians a 'final resolution' on the issues of refugee rights, water rights, Israeli settlements, borders, Jerusalem, Israeli military authority on Palestinian land, the right of the Palestinian state to control its own borders, and the like, by taking a proposal that was acceptable to Israel and telling Arafat, "This is the best you'll ever get". He did that despite having been warned by Arafat that it was a problematic time for the Palestinians to be entering into negotiations at all, and we know what happened with the promise that he would not blame Arafat if the negotiations failed.
The subsequent negotiations at Taba suggest that Barak and Arafat might have been able to reach an agreement on far more just terms, but for the fact that Barak lost his election, ended the talks based upon his loss of a mandate, with the prospects of a negotiated resolution falling into the hands of Ariel Sharon, who preferred provocation and stonewalling to anything that might have resulted in a peaceful settlement of the conflict.
Whatever good he did for the peace movement prior to that time, Clinton would have done both sides a big favor by admitting his own fault for the failure of his summit -- and for its aftermath.
It seems to me that foreign leaders would do Israel a favor by stating what seems obvious: That as much as the world favors a two-state solution, Israel's settlement activity, restrictions on Palestinian development and activity, wall, and other factors are creating a future in which there will be no alternative to a one-state solution.
It's possible to be "pro-Israel" and to favor Israel disentangling itself from the occupied territories and allowing a Palestinian state. In fact, it's hard to think of a position more pro-Israel than to help it off of a track that leads to a single state future through which Israel either becomes a decidedly non-democratic state that encompasses the West Bank and Gaza, or loses its Jewish identity as the result of the democratic process.
To me, the idea that the occupation can be sustained in perpetuity seems like a delusion. If the world's leaders believe that it's not a delusion and don't care about Palestinian rights, then their failure to articulate a position against settlement and in favor of a two-state solution becomes more understandable -- but are world leaders truly that delusional and indifferent?
As the conflict expands, to what degree are we properly characterizing the conflict as being driven by ISIS/ISIL, as opposed to the very same forces that led to Iraq's civil war while under U.S. occupation? Is there a point where we should stop pointing to ISIS/ISIL as 'the' enemy and start describing a larger group or coalition as the target of the military efforts?
I do not want to discount the role of ISIS/ISIL's strategies and intimidation tactics, but if the underlying desire for civil war were not present within a very significant percentage of Iraq's Sunni population it's difficult to imagine their enjoying this type of success, both in terms of enlisting fighters and in terms of expansion.
I'm also curious as to whether you have an opinion on the future of ISIS if it is not defeated -- would it end up holding its power and influence over the territories it controls, or would there be division -- or even yet another civil war -- within those territories over who gets to control the territories or the extent to which they embrace fundamentalism?
Assuming the anti-ISIS/ISIL coalition succeeds in rolling back ISIS, what could then be done to lock in that success? It would seem that going back to the status quo ante would simply serve to reproduce the context in which ISIS/ISIL was able to rapidly gain support and foment civil war. At this point, how realistic is it to posit a future with a united Iraq?
The quotation suggests that, prior to Republican abandonment of bipartisan efforts on the budget, immigration and climate change, and around the time of the passage of the PPACA, Obama was optimistic about the direction that the nation was headed. Following the 2010 "shellacking" in the midterm elections, and given the balance of power in the House and Senate since that time, there's no realistic chance of achieving supermajority passage of a constitutional amendment, let alone state ratification.
I think it's reasonable to infer that the reason the P.A. delayed this move is two-fold. First, there is the possibility that any action they file against Israel will be countered by filings against P.A. leaders. But second, and more importantly, I suspect that they were told that this action would undermine the peace process, and were strongly urged (if not instructed) not to take action by some or all of the "Quartet".
Karzai has his reasons for being difficult, and they seem to have little to do with who is in the White House. Part of the problem appears to be that he was almost as bad of a choice to lead a nation as Ahmed Chalabi, but with fewer paying attention and his looking striking in his robes, I guess we weren't supposed to notice the corruption and incompetency in his administration. (The truth hurts, so I'll be on the lookout for his vengeance.)
I have come to think of Ted Nugent as another version of Ann Coulter, somebody who realizes that the only thing that separates him from fading completely into obscurity is the media frenzy that will be generated by his next outrageous, over-the-top comment.
For the sake of clarity, the conditions under which one can seek asylum are considerably broader than having been charged with a crime - Under the 1951 Geneva Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees, asylum seekers must show that they have a well-founded fear of persecution due to their race, religion, nationality, political opinion or membership of a particular social group, and are unable or unwilling to seek protection from the authorities in their own country.
I did not watch the Eastwood speech, but the notion of criticizing the President for flying on Air Force One strikes me as a particularly small-minded, fact-deprived, Tea Party-derived piece of absurdity. Air Force One is a flying fortress - part of the cocoon in which we keep the President during his travel, with any number of high-tech defenses against possible attack - and is also a flying office that is meant to enable the President to do whatever he needs to do, whenever he needs to do it. Perhaps Eastwood plans to make a movie in which the President travels only by bicycle and rowboat, but in the real world there is no "ecological" alternative to the use of Air Force One.
Eastwood might have found himself at home in the U.K. a few years back when Tony Blair's lust for an equivalent aircraft had the local pundits joking about "Blair Force One", but even they understood why the President has... two of them.
Where to begin....
1. The filibuster only exists in the Senate, not in "both houses of Congress".
2. Obama is head of the executive branch; Congress is the legislative branch. The fact that the same party controls both the White House and Congress does not mean that they share the same goals or agenda - consider the manner in which a Democratically controlled Congress undercut Clinton during his first two years, and the analogous manner in which a number of Democratic Senators sabotaged Obama in order to extort legislative concessions or to please industry groups back home.
3. The Democrats had a total of sixty votes in their Senate caucus (and no, there were never 60 Democrats - 58 Democrats, 2 independents) between July 7. 2009 when Senator Franken took office and August 25, 2009, when Ted Kennedy died. Although the Democrats had a nominal 60 votes during the period during which Kennedy's temporary replacement was appointed (September 25, 2009) until Scott Brown was sworn in (February 4, 2010), they chose not to treat his vote as a sixtieth - you will recall that they put off finalizing the ACA until after Brown took office. The total time with a nominal sixty votes, you will note, is considerably shorter than "two years". Further, given the health of Senators Kennedy and Byrd, it's something of an overstatement that the Democrats actually had sixty votes for those three months - they could not vote from the hospital.
4. Classifying somebody as an "unlawful combatant" is a mechanism by which that person can be detained without trial. But if you put them on trial, it is for crimes.
5. Lots of "heinous" criminals, including those who have attempted or committed acts of terrorism, have been tried in New York. Why do you believe that the people of NYC are so weak and cowardly that they could not deal with a trial of 911 terrorists in their state? Projection?
This is incredibly basic stuff - how can you not know this?
It's pretty standard wedge politics, it's just that Romney was a bit clumsy in his wording. By "poor" people benefiting from the "safety net" he meant "people on welfare", part of an overall Republican message about a class of undeserving poor people who get 'free stuff that the rest of us have to work for.' In that final statement, he's basically saying that if you vote for a Democrat, your hard earned money will go to the undeserving poor.
It's another iteration of Santorum's "I don't want to make bla... ah people's lives better by giving them somebody else's money", or whatever we're supposed to believe he said.
So you want Obama to win, you just don't want to vote for him? That's how you get outcomes like Bush's exceptionally narrow victory over Gore.
The stubborn notion that there's no difference between the two major parties and their candidates, or that it makes no difference who wins the White House, can result from naiveté or conceit, but it's simply not true. The identity of the President makes a huge difference on a wide range of issues. We went through the same argument that "there's no difference between the candidates" during the Bush-Gore campaign. In retrospect, would anybody argue that?
I would like to tell you that you're going to experience elections in which you're going to like the candidate you vote for, or that you won't have to compromise on some (or many) issues that are important to you when choosing the better candidate. But such is life. Candidates are human, none of them are perfect, and unless you're the candidate you're going to disagree with at least some of what the candidate stands for.
Looking back, though, would you seriously argue that it was for the best that Bush won? Twice? That Obama beat McCain? Do you seriously believe you will be better served by having President Romney appoint the next set of members to the NLRB, the next set of federal judges (including Supreme Court justices), the next head of the EPA, the next head of the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau (assuming he bothers)?
So unless you have a rational, fact-based answer to my question, it stands. And guess what? If you had one, you would have posted it.
"...That’s not good enough for me anymore...."
Great, but how will President Romney be the answer to any of your objections?
You seriously see no daylight between the positions of Yitzhak Rabin and Ariel Sharon?
"Palestinians don’t even acknowledge that the Israelis exist...."
I look forward to your substantiation of that claim, as well as your condemnation of the likes of Joseph Farah ("Palestinian people do not exist") and Larry Miller ("There are no Palestinians. It's a made up word.")
http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=28222
http://www.jr.co.il/articles/politics/mideast.txt
"...Washington is therefore bequeathing to an unstable region even more instability...."
With all due respect to the "Pottery Barn rule", what's the realistic alternative?
"...it seems likely that if Qaddafi is deprived by the UN-backed coalition of his advantage in planes and tanks, the rebels will again advance west...."
It's not that I wouldn't understand the concept of allowing the rebels to advance, or want Qaddafi to hold on to power, but if the UN Resolution is enforced in a manner that basically takes sides in the civil war and shields the rebel forces from even defensive measures, that's problematic on any number of levels. Not the least of which is the UN resolution itself, that the Security Council "Demands the immediate establishment of a ceasefire...".
I suspect that the hope is for what you suggested, "that the rest of the Libyan officer corps will throw the Qaddafis under the bus and switch sides", but not so much to join the rebels. I cynically suspect that the west, much of which has embraced Qaddafi in recent years, would prefer a slightly less offensive version of "the devil we know" as opposed to bringing the rebel faction (a devil we don't know) into some sort of coalition. Also, should it happen, there's a possibility that the rebels won't agree to join with the generals who topple Qaddafi - and then what? Allow the civil war to resume and play itself out? Impose an indefinite "no fly zone' that effectively partitions the country, in the hope that one day the two sides reach a compromise? Actively support the military efforts of one side or the other?
Is the suggestion that the U.S. might reconsider its aid package for Egypt simply for the benefit of Mubarak, or is it also a message to the military that if they engage in a coup they may find that aid immediately cut off?
What would be the best way of measuring if 1/3 of the population is mentally ill? Perhaps a survey: "What is the President's religion? Was he born in our country? Is he constitutionally barred from serving in his office? What are his goals for the nation? Is climate change real?"
More seriously, I would not be surprised if between the nation's poverty, overpopulation, and a huge environmental crisis a significant percentage of the population is showing signs of acute mental illness, although I would expect that things will normalize as the crisis passes. It's not just that people adapt - I think people and societies recover from shared trauma much better than they do with individual trauma. People who suffer individual trauma seem more apt to focus on their own losses (Why me? What did I do to deserve this?) while society at large often attempts to insulate itself from the idea that "it could happen to me, as well" (He must have done something to deserve it). A shared trauma is much less likely to make somebody feel like their loss is worse than that of others, or that they're somehow being punished. A massive shared trauma can also necessitate pulling together in ways that would not otherwise occur.
To the extent that the broad provision of mental health services is to occur in a nation like Pakistan, it seems to me that it would have to be through a network of "lay counselors", trained and to the extent possible supervised by mental health professionals, primarily operating through group sessions that are open to the public. Even then, resources would likely be stretched very thin.