EthicalDemocracy
New York City
September 16th, 2009
4:23 am
My NYT Comment #75.
EthicalDemocracy
New York City
September 16th, 2009
8:39 am
Segregation vs. Social Justice in Democracy: The India Case
\"New Peace in commute\" for India's women? Your article illustrates the axiom -- No Justice No Peace.
Women-only commuter trains are an integral part of an adhoc, unequal, inadequate and functionally inequitable public transportation policy in Indian Democracy.
Gender segregation on public transportation reinforces the most negative aspects of India's powerfully entrenched patriarchy. Sequestered travel on a train to work is predictively unlikely to increase women's safety, or equal participation in India's democracy.
India's public transportation systems are grossly underfunded. This inequity punishes the poor, especially the poorest women. The nation's poorest women, don't get to ride these commuter trains. That structural inequity is the crux of the problem. In a nation-state that should be providing adequate public transportation for ALL, while making every attempt at a smaller carbon footprint, regardless of what the West does.
Finger-pointing at the West will not help Indians become more ecologically responsible or more socially just, as they attempt to meet their expanding transportation needs.
An Indian policy implementation of relentless attrition in funding, blatantly devalues PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION as a universal social good that should be intentionally deployed, through policy, by both the Centre and the States, as a powerful social leveler, in our unprecedented democratic civil society.
I travel to India twice a year every year (since 1999), spending a total of 5 months, every visit. Over this past summer, I traveled in Kerala, Tamil Nadu, Delhi, Jammu & Kashmir, logging thousands of miles and several days on trains and buses. That's democracy on wheels.
A woman, I travel alone in India, entirely by State public buses, state-run commuter trains and the Indian railways ((Second Class sleeper), refusing to use cars proffered by my middle class relatives. Any form of PUBLIC transport is acceptable to me.
Now that may appear eccentric or overly zealous but I am attempting, always in flawed fashion, to sincerely develop ethical practices of civic participation, in myself (no one else), within Indian democracy.
In my view, India cannot afford to produce, much less dispose, a paper cup, as millions carelessly do daily on the Indian trains, any more than India can afford to promote PRIVATE transportation over PUBLIC transportation. Mass Public Transit is a core social justice issue in India's current stage of development, right up there with food/water security, shelter, universal healthcare, universal primary/ secondary education, employment.
My Indian women and men co-travelers in Democracy, especially the burgeoning, heavily subsidized and bribegiving/bribetaking, complicit-in-corruption middle class, who are the main beneficiaries of the women-only commuter trains, can fight JOINTLY for adequate affordable PUBLIC transportation for ALL, instead of cynically choosing cars over buses and/or riding separately in trains.
Such vigorous civic participation would likely advance the Greater Collective Good (GCG), a wholly attainable ideal of ethical democracy.
Satyameva Jayate!
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------
New York Times copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/16/world/asia/16ladies.html
On India’s Railways, Women Find New Peace in Commute
Showing posts with label ethical democracy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ethical democracy. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Monday, August 31, 2009
Barefoot Justices for Ethical Democracy
Barefoot Justices for Ethical Democracy
WE the People of India display a national motto that we can be unabashedly proud of. No nation-state in the world can top the powerful appeal of Satyameva Jayate.
Truth is the vehicle of Ethical Democracy.
Ethical Democracy is secular worship of the attainable ideal of SOCIAL JUSTICE through the path of Truth. Truth is not some lofty abstraction.
Gandhiji vividly demonstrated the dynamic, pragmatic imperative of Truth. Truth is often inconvenient, contingent, relative, subtle, blatant, slow, fast. But most important, it is irresistible to humans in groups. Societies depend for their survival, on their frequently faltering pursuit of truth. Even a halting and flawed pursuit is better then none.
In the diverse, secular Indian nation-state, The search for Truth is placed higher than the search for God. Not "In God we Trust" or even " pluribus e unum" as in the US, but "Satyameva Jayate." Truth is the victor. The victor is not you or me or any individual but Truth. Way to go, Republic of India. Excellent start. But we still have a very long row to hoe.
Now, among a host of other priorities, We, the People, urgently need a transformed national, state, and local court system to stand up and deliver those high ideals and aspirations expressed in "Satyameva Jayate."
The issue of publicizing assets held by Supreme Court justices will now be placed before the public, on a website. That is a welcome and necessary development in our unfolding democracy. Hidden assets are completely incompatible with democracy, in which EVERYONE, each citizen is accountable and exercises both rights and responsibilities. Therefore, the CJI Chief Justice of India is not exempt -- and neither am I.
Public pressure from We the People, NOT only judicial activism, beginning with former CJI Verma in 1997, has finally succeeded in making those assets transparent on a website. It's taken 12 long years. TLTL. Too Little Too Late. Still, it's a laggardly triumph for ethical democracy. We can see the powerful efficacy of the public use of RTI Right to Information, in this victory for civil society (that's US, you and me working together) to MAKE democracy.
Wanted: A Justice System for a Postcolonial Democracy: Our justice system needs to swiftly become more relevant to the unique requirements of a postcolonial democracy, instead of merely aping other systems in national-states with a completely different socio-historical trajectory. The colonial oppressors and their formerly oppressed subjects cannot possibly have identical or even similar justice systems. India needs its very own unique justice system, flowing from the demands and needs of its vibrantly emergent democratic polity.
Wanted: A ProPoor Social Justice System --
Our justice system must be continually proactive and preemptive to deliver SOCIAL JUSTICE to our most oppressed, our most marginalized, our most disadvantaged.
Redistributive justice accomplished through and by the courts is an imperative in an expanding democracy.
Wanted: Barefoot Justices -- We desperately need vigorous, erudite, dedicated BAREFOOT JUSTICES who can leave their hallowed chambers in New Delhi or Chennai and uphold the rule of law in every hamlet of our vast country. These hamlets and outposts are not remote, they have been made remote by judicial officialdom. Judicial bureaucrats on the bench don't fit the bill in a vibrant, aspirational democracy. Justice delayed is Justice denied. The court system has the solemn and fully accountable obligation to deliver justice, not later but NOW.
Our justice justice system needs to break free from TLTL Syndrome. Too Little Too Late simply will not do.
We need pro-civil society justices and a justice system worthy of our unprecedented, vibrantly unfolding democracy, the bewildered envy of the world. Our Indian democracy is a magnificent, seriously flawed work in progress. We need justices who recognize this fact and can act on that fact.
Get off the bench, lose your wigs, drop your robes, hit the streets..
Justice is waiting to be dispensed. And that delay is not good for democracy.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Times of India copyright
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/india/Supreme-Court-judges-agree-to-disclose-assets/articleshow/4937780.cms
NEW DELHI: Under mounting public pressure, the judges of the Supreme Court on Wednesday decided to make public their assets, an issue that had
been haunting higher judiciary for quite some time. ( Watch Video )
"A decision in principle has been taken on the issue at a meeting convened by Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan and the details of the assets to be declared by the judges would be put on the Supreme Court website," a top apex court source said after the two-hour deliberations.
The decision comes after months of public debate over making public the details of higher judiciary, especially the apex court judges and their families ever since the Right to Information law triggered the issue.
The source said the decision, adopted in the form of a resolution, would be effective only after the minutes are signed by all the judges.
"Once the minutes are recorded the assets would be made public and would be posted on the Supreme Court website," the source said.
The decision was immediately welcomed by senior advocates Soli Sorabjee and Prashant Bhushan, who has been campaigning on the subject.
Sorabjee said it was a decision in the right direction. He said it was not not so much judicial corruption and that they had something to hide but it was due to some misgivings.
The issue of declaration of assets had also led to a spat with Karnataka High Court judge Justice D V Shylendra Kumar, who questioned Balakrishnan's authority to speak on behalf of all judges. The CJI hit back saying the judge was "publicity crazy".
A couple of days ago, the CJI, however, had maintained that judges were free to disclose their assets and nothing prevented them from doing so. Only there was a lack of consensus, which he said was being worked out.
In between, Justice M K Kannan, a judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, and Justice Kumar declared their assets while Justice K Chandru of the Madras High Court expressed his inclination to do so.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
WE the People of India display a national motto that we can be unabashedly proud of. No nation-state in the world can top the powerful appeal of Satyameva Jayate.
Truth is the vehicle of Ethical Democracy.
Ethical Democracy is secular worship of the attainable ideal of SOCIAL JUSTICE through the path of Truth. Truth is not some lofty abstraction.
Gandhiji vividly demonstrated the dynamic, pragmatic imperative of Truth. Truth is often inconvenient, contingent, relative, subtle, blatant, slow, fast. But most important, it is irresistible to humans in groups. Societies depend for their survival, on their frequently faltering pursuit of truth. Even a halting and flawed pursuit is better then none.
In the diverse, secular Indian nation-state, The search for Truth is placed higher than the search for God. Not "In God we Trust" or even " pluribus e unum" as in the US, but "Satyameva Jayate." Truth is the victor. The victor is not you or me or any individual but Truth. Way to go, Republic of India. Excellent start. But we still have a very long row to hoe.
Now, among a host of other priorities, We, the People, urgently need a transformed national, state, and local court system to stand up and deliver those high ideals and aspirations expressed in "Satyameva Jayate."
The issue of publicizing assets held by Supreme Court justices will now be placed before the public, on a website. That is a welcome and necessary development in our unfolding democracy. Hidden assets are completely incompatible with democracy, in which EVERYONE, each citizen is accountable and exercises both rights and responsibilities. Therefore, the CJI Chief Justice of India is not exempt -- and neither am I.
Public pressure from We the People, NOT only judicial activism, beginning with former CJI Verma in 1997, has finally succeeded in making those assets transparent on a website. It's taken 12 long years. TLTL. Too Little Too Late. Still, it's a laggardly triumph for ethical democracy. We can see the powerful efficacy of the public use of RTI Right to Information, in this victory for civil society (that's US, you and me working together) to MAKE democracy.
Wanted: A Justice System for a Postcolonial Democracy: Our justice system needs to swiftly become more relevant to the unique requirements of a postcolonial democracy, instead of merely aping other systems in national-states with a completely different socio-historical trajectory. The colonial oppressors and their formerly oppressed subjects cannot possibly have identical or even similar justice systems. India needs its very own unique justice system, flowing from the demands and needs of its vibrantly emergent democratic polity.
Wanted: A ProPoor Social Justice System --
Our justice system must be continually proactive and preemptive to deliver SOCIAL JUSTICE to our most oppressed, our most marginalized, our most disadvantaged.
Redistributive justice accomplished through and by the courts is an imperative in an expanding democracy.
Wanted: Barefoot Justices -- We desperately need vigorous, erudite, dedicated BAREFOOT JUSTICES who can leave their hallowed chambers in New Delhi or Chennai and uphold the rule of law in every hamlet of our vast country. These hamlets and outposts are not remote, they have been made remote by judicial officialdom. Judicial bureaucrats on the bench don't fit the bill in a vibrant, aspirational democracy. Justice delayed is Justice denied. The court system has the solemn and fully accountable obligation to deliver justice, not later but NOW.
Our justice justice system needs to break free from TLTL Syndrome. Too Little Too Late simply will not do.
We need pro-civil society justices and a justice system worthy of our unprecedented, vibrantly unfolding democracy, the bewildered envy of the world. Our Indian democracy is a magnificent, seriously flawed work in progress. We need justices who recognize this fact and can act on that fact.
Get off the bench, lose your wigs, drop your robes, hit the streets..
Justice is waiting to be dispensed. And that delay is not good for democracy.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Times of India copyright
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/news/india/Supreme-Court-judges-agree-to-disclose-assets/articleshow/4937780.cms
NEW DELHI: Under mounting public pressure, the judges of the Supreme Court on Wednesday decided to make public their assets, an issue that had
been haunting higher judiciary for quite some time. ( Watch Video )
"A decision in principle has been taken on the issue at a meeting convened by Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan and the details of the assets to be declared by the judges would be put on the Supreme Court website," a top apex court source said after the two-hour deliberations.
The decision comes after months of public debate over making public the details of higher judiciary, especially the apex court judges and their families ever since the Right to Information law triggered the issue.
The source said the decision, adopted in the form of a resolution, would be effective only after the minutes are signed by all the judges.
"Once the minutes are recorded the assets would be made public and would be posted on the Supreme Court website," the source said.
The decision was immediately welcomed by senior advocates Soli Sorabjee and Prashant Bhushan, who has been campaigning on the subject.
Sorabjee said it was a decision in the right direction. He said it was not not so much judicial corruption and that they had something to hide but it was due to some misgivings.
The issue of declaration of assets had also led to a spat with Karnataka High Court judge Justice D V Shylendra Kumar, who questioned Balakrishnan's authority to speak on behalf of all judges. The CJI hit back saying the judge was "publicity crazy".
A couple of days ago, the CJI, however, had maintained that judges were free to disclose their assets and nothing prevented them from doing so. Only there was a lack of consensus, which he said was being worked out.
In between, Justice M K Kannan, a judge of the Punjab and Haryana High Court, and Justice Kumar declared their assets while Justice K Chandru of the Madras High Court expressed his inclination to do so.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Can Neda in Death Rekindle Iran's Democracy?
The shot that killed 26 year-old Neda Salehi Agha Soltan on Saturday in Tehran was heard around the world. Our hearts hurt for her. According to several reports, not least the stunning I-minute video of her dying moment, Neda was an innocent bystander watching street protests against a flawed election result, when she was shot. Neda, you are an innocent and your immortality in the cause of freedom, justice and Iran's democracy has just begun.
Iran's SELF-STYLED, UNELECTED "supreme leader" which pretty much means 'look at me I'm TOP DOG MULLAH and I am embarrassingly selfpromoting' -- Khamenei-- bears responsibility for Neda's brutal killing.
Ahmadinejad's leadership is dependent of the support of the clerics, (all male no surprise), and NOT the electorate. Ahmadinajad cannot succeed because his victory is bloodstained by the dying gasp and the rolling eyes of an innocent. Ahmadinejad's victory was not accomplished by ethical means, necessary for the full expression of participatory democracy.
But wait -- both Khamenei and Ahmadinajad are effective in controlling US neo-imperial designs in the West Asia region. That's important.
Neda's death has lent a bloody clarity, as well rendered more complex the internal and external geopolitics of Iran:
People everywhere who support the ethical development of civil societies in all nation-states, regions, culture areas and spaces, had hoped that Iran's elections would be fair. We had hoped that Iran's ancient civilization and staggering contribution to world culture would be vindicated by a vibrant and authentic expression of the people's aspirations. Instead, Iran's election have proven to be highly irregular, if not outright fraudulent.
3 million more votes were "cast" than there were registered voters! Did dead people vote? Did non-existent people vote? Did certain people vote multiple times? What an unholy mess for this self-described Islamic Republic.
Could Iran learn a lesson in electoral politics and vote counting from secular democratic India which recently conducted a massive and fair election; has more followers of Islam than Iran; and has more followers of Islam than any country except Indonesia? Yes Iran can.
Yes, Iran take a page out of India's flawed but fair election Lesson Plan. Iran, Be open, transparent, take responsibility for discrepancies in the vote count. Show that you can be discursive, not prescriptive. Discussion that bends towards Justice and in fact leads to Justice is the cornerstone of Ethical Democracy.
Obviously, the first strategic step that both Ahmadinejad and MirHossein Moussavi should have jointly taken is to call, in a televised joint appearance, for a vote recount in disputed constituencies and a rejection of illegal ballots.
Instead, Ahmadinejad defended the result and proved himself by his actions to be ever more inclined to be a dictator rather than an elected leader. He was supported by Iran's self-proclaimed Supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, who predictably promised a bloody suppression of peaceful street protests against the flawed ballot result. It was precisely that bloody suppression that so heartbreakingly claimed the life of Neda Salehi Agha Soltan. She is a slain innocent in the perilous journey towards Iran's democracy.
Iran's needless, mindless self-sabotaging suppression of The People's ballot has given the US, (a state sponsor of terror in West Asia and South Asia), an opening to assert itself as a champion of freedom and liberty in West Asia. The US is not. All the evidence proves the US is not. Iran therefore played right into the hands of the US. Instead of conducting a fair election, Iran chose to be brutally repressive of its own people. In fact Iran caused an internal division of its own electorate by pitting Moussavi's supporters, generally more educated, more female and more affluent, against Ahmedinajad's more traditionalist, more religious and more male supporters. The stolen election has unnecessarily caused disharmony among the fascinatingly diverse and divergent elements of the Iranian public.
The theocratic government of Iran created this dangerous wedge between its own people and Iran gave the US an opportunity to assert itself as the champion of freedom and civil liberties in West Asia. The US plays the Democracy card while invading, occupying, droning, displacing civil societies across regions. The US has been the main culprit in destabilizing democratic processes in Iran over several decades, beginning with the overthrow of Mossadegh, the propping up of the Shah and the support of Iraq against Iran in a bloody decade long war. The US continues to be a major force for destabilization throughout West Asia, which the US from its neo-imperial vantage point of dominant power calls the Middle East.
It remains to be seen whether Neda's brutal death will ignite and rekindle Iran's dormant democracy. It remains to be seen whether Iran's civil society will resist equally the 1) forces of Iran's repressive state apparatus, and also 2)turn its back on US attempts to gain strategic depth in Iran, by pretending to be a voice for civil rights and democracy in West Asia.
Q. If Iran's govt cannot accurately count electoral ballots, can Iran be trusted to safeguard the nuclear weapons it is developing?
A point to ponder -- the answer appears to be a qualified NO.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-------------
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/14/AR2009061401757.html
Washington Post copyright
The Iranian People Speak
By Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty
Monday, June 15, 2009
The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people. Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin -- greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday's election.
This Story
While Western news reports from Tehran in the days leading up to the voting portrayed an Iranian public enthusiastic about Ahmadinejad's principal opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, our scientific sampling from across all 30 of Iran's provinces showed Ahmadinejad well ahead.
Independent and uncensored nationwide surveys of Iran are rare. Typically, preelection polls there are either conducted or monitored by the government and are notoriously untrustworthy. By contrast, the poll undertaken by our nonprofit organizations from May 11 to May 20 was the third in a series over the past two years. Conducted by telephone from a neighboring country, field work was carried out in Farsi by a polling company whose work in the region for ABC News and the BBC has received an Emmy award. Our polling was funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
The breadth of Ahmadinejad's support was apparent in our preelection survey. During the campaign, for instance, Mousavi emphasized his identity as an Azeri, the second-largest ethnic group in Iran after Persians, to woo Azeri voters. Our survey indicated, though, that Azeris favored Ahmadinejad by 2 to 1 over Mousavi.
Much commentary has portrayed Iranian youth and the Internet as harbingers of change in this election. But our poll found that only a third of Iranians even have access to the Internet, while 18-to-24-year-olds comprised the strongest voting bloc for Ahmadinejad of all age groups.
The only demographic groups in which our survey found Mousavi leading or competitive with Ahmadinejad were university students and graduates, and the highest-income Iranians. When our poll was taken, almost a third of Iranians were also still undecided. Yet the baseline distributions we found then mirror the results reported by the Iranian authorities, indicating the possibility that the vote is not the product of widespread fraud.
Some might argue that the professed support for Ahmadinejad we found simply reflected fearful respondents' reluctance to provide honest answers to pollsters. Yet the integrity of our results is confirmed by the politically risky responses Iranians were willing to give to a host of questions. For instance, nearly four in five Iranians -- including most Ahmadinejad supporters -- said they wanted to change the political system to give them the right to elect Iran's supreme leader, who is not currently subject to popular vote. Similarly, Iranians chose free elections and a free press as their most important priorities for their government, virtually tied with improving the national economy. These were hardly "politically correct" responses to voice publicly in a largely authoritarian society.
Indeed, and consistently among all three of our surveys over the past two years, more than 70 percent of Iranians also expressed support for providing full access to weapons inspectors and a guarantee that Iran will not develop or possess nuclear weapons, in return for outside aid and investment. And 77 percent of Iranians favored normal relations and trade with the United States, another result consistent with our previous findings.
Iranians view their support for a more democratic system, with normal relations with the United States, as consonant with their support for Ahmadinejad. They do not want him to continue his hard-line policies. Rather, Iranians apparently see Ahmadinejad as their toughest negotiator, the person best positioned to bring home a favorable deal -- rather like a Persian Nixon going to China.
Allegations of fraud and electoral manipulation will serve to further isolate Iran and are likely to increase its belligerence and intransigence against the outside world. Before other countries, including the United States, jump to the conclusion that the Iranian presidential elections were fraudulent, with the grave consequences such charges could bring, they should consider all independent information. The fact may simply be that the reelection of President Ahmadinejad is what the Iranian people wanted.
Ken Ballen is president of Terror Free Tomorrow: The Center for Public Opinion, a nonprofit institute that researches attitudes toward extremism. Patrick Doherty is deputy director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. The groups' May 11-20 polling consisted of 1,001 interviews across Iran and had a 3.1 percentage point margin of error.
For more on polling in Iran, read Jon Cohen's Behind the Numbers.
=================================================================================
Iran's SELF-STYLED, UNELECTED "supreme leader" which pretty much means 'look at me I'm TOP DOG MULLAH and I am embarrassingly selfpromoting' -- Khamenei-- bears responsibility for Neda's brutal killing.
Ahmadinejad's leadership is dependent of the support of the clerics, (all male no surprise), and NOT the electorate. Ahmadinajad cannot succeed because his victory is bloodstained by the dying gasp and the rolling eyes of an innocent. Ahmadinejad's victory was not accomplished by ethical means, necessary for the full expression of participatory democracy.
But wait -- both Khamenei and Ahmadinajad are effective in controlling US neo-imperial designs in the West Asia region. That's important.
Neda's death has lent a bloody clarity, as well rendered more complex the internal and external geopolitics of Iran:
People everywhere who support the ethical development of civil societies in all nation-states, regions, culture areas and spaces, had hoped that Iran's elections would be fair. We had hoped that Iran's ancient civilization and staggering contribution to world culture would be vindicated by a vibrant and authentic expression of the people's aspirations. Instead, Iran's election have proven to be highly irregular, if not outright fraudulent.
3 million more votes were "cast" than there were registered voters! Did dead people vote? Did non-existent people vote? Did certain people vote multiple times? What an unholy mess for this self-described Islamic Republic.
Could Iran learn a lesson in electoral politics and vote counting from secular democratic India which recently conducted a massive and fair election; has more followers of Islam than Iran; and has more followers of Islam than any country except Indonesia? Yes Iran can.
Yes, Iran take a page out of India's flawed but fair election Lesson Plan. Iran, Be open, transparent, take responsibility for discrepancies in the vote count. Show that you can be discursive, not prescriptive. Discussion that bends towards Justice and in fact leads to Justice is the cornerstone of Ethical Democracy.
Obviously, the first strategic step that both Ahmadinejad and MirHossein Moussavi should have jointly taken is to call, in a televised joint appearance, for a vote recount in disputed constituencies and a rejection of illegal ballots.
Instead, Ahmadinejad defended the result and proved himself by his actions to be ever more inclined to be a dictator rather than an elected leader. He was supported by Iran's self-proclaimed Supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, who predictably promised a bloody suppression of peaceful street protests against the flawed ballot result. It was precisely that bloody suppression that so heartbreakingly claimed the life of Neda Salehi Agha Soltan. She is a slain innocent in the perilous journey towards Iran's democracy.
Iran's needless, mindless self-sabotaging suppression of The People's ballot has given the US, (a state sponsor of terror in West Asia and South Asia), an opening to assert itself as a champion of freedom and liberty in West Asia. The US is not. All the evidence proves the US is not. Iran therefore played right into the hands of the US. Instead of conducting a fair election, Iran chose to be brutally repressive of its own people. In fact Iran caused an internal division of its own electorate by pitting Moussavi's supporters, generally more educated, more female and more affluent, against Ahmedinajad's more traditionalist, more religious and more male supporters. The stolen election has unnecessarily caused disharmony among the fascinatingly diverse and divergent elements of the Iranian public.
The theocratic government of Iran created this dangerous wedge between its own people and Iran gave the US an opportunity to assert itself as the champion of freedom and civil liberties in West Asia. The US plays the Democracy card while invading, occupying, droning, displacing civil societies across regions. The US has been the main culprit in destabilizing democratic processes in Iran over several decades, beginning with the overthrow of Mossadegh, the propping up of the Shah and the support of Iraq against Iran in a bloody decade long war. The US continues to be a major force for destabilization throughout West Asia, which the US from its neo-imperial vantage point of dominant power calls the Middle East.
It remains to be seen whether Neda's brutal death will ignite and rekindle Iran's dormant democracy. It remains to be seen whether Iran's civil society will resist equally the 1) forces of Iran's repressive state apparatus, and also 2)turn its back on US attempts to gain strategic depth in Iran, by pretending to be a voice for civil rights and democracy in West Asia.
Q. If Iran's govt cannot accurately count electoral ballots, can Iran be trusted to safeguard the nuclear weapons it is developing?
A point to ponder -- the answer appears to be a qualified NO.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-------------
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/14/AR2009061401757.html
Washington Post copyright
The Iranian People Speak
By Ken Ballen and Patrick Doherty
Monday, June 15, 2009
The election results in Iran may reflect the will of the Iranian people. Many experts are claiming that the margin of victory of incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was the result of fraud or manipulation, but our nationwide public opinion survey of Iranians three weeks before the vote showed Ahmadinejad leading by a more than 2 to 1 margin -- greater than his actual apparent margin of victory in Friday's election.
This Story
While Western news reports from Tehran in the days leading up to the voting portrayed an Iranian public enthusiastic about Ahmadinejad's principal opponent, Mir Hossein Mousavi, our scientific sampling from across all 30 of Iran's provinces showed Ahmadinejad well ahead.
Independent and uncensored nationwide surveys of Iran are rare. Typically, preelection polls there are either conducted or monitored by the government and are notoriously untrustworthy. By contrast, the poll undertaken by our nonprofit organizations from May 11 to May 20 was the third in a series over the past two years. Conducted by telephone from a neighboring country, field work was carried out in Farsi by a polling company whose work in the region for ABC News and the BBC has received an Emmy award. Our polling was funded by the Rockefeller Brothers Fund.
The breadth of Ahmadinejad's support was apparent in our preelection survey. During the campaign, for instance, Mousavi emphasized his identity as an Azeri, the second-largest ethnic group in Iran after Persians, to woo Azeri voters. Our survey indicated, though, that Azeris favored Ahmadinejad by 2 to 1 over Mousavi.
Much commentary has portrayed Iranian youth and the Internet as harbingers of change in this election. But our poll found that only a third of Iranians even have access to the Internet, while 18-to-24-year-olds comprised the strongest voting bloc for Ahmadinejad of all age groups.
The only demographic groups in which our survey found Mousavi leading or competitive with Ahmadinejad were university students and graduates, and the highest-income Iranians. When our poll was taken, almost a third of Iranians were also still undecided. Yet the baseline distributions we found then mirror the results reported by the Iranian authorities, indicating the possibility that the vote is not the product of widespread fraud.
Some might argue that the professed support for Ahmadinejad we found simply reflected fearful respondents' reluctance to provide honest answers to pollsters. Yet the integrity of our results is confirmed by the politically risky responses Iranians were willing to give to a host of questions. For instance, nearly four in five Iranians -- including most Ahmadinejad supporters -- said they wanted to change the political system to give them the right to elect Iran's supreme leader, who is not currently subject to popular vote. Similarly, Iranians chose free elections and a free press as their most important priorities for their government, virtually tied with improving the national economy. These were hardly "politically correct" responses to voice publicly in a largely authoritarian society.
Indeed, and consistently among all three of our surveys over the past two years, more than 70 percent of Iranians also expressed support for providing full access to weapons inspectors and a guarantee that Iran will not develop or possess nuclear weapons, in return for outside aid and investment. And 77 percent of Iranians favored normal relations and trade with the United States, another result consistent with our previous findings.
Iranians view their support for a more democratic system, with normal relations with the United States, as consonant with their support for Ahmadinejad. They do not want him to continue his hard-line policies. Rather, Iranians apparently see Ahmadinejad as their toughest negotiator, the person best positioned to bring home a favorable deal -- rather like a Persian Nixon going to China.
Allegations of fraud and electoral manipulation will serve to further isolate Iran and are likely to increase its belligerence and intransigence against the outside world. Before other countries, including the United States, jump to the conclusion that the Iranian presidential elections were fraudulent, with the grave consequences such charges could bring, they should consider all independent information. The fact may simply be that the reelection of President Ahmadinejad is what the Iranian people wanted.
Ken Ballen is president of Terror Free Tomorrow: The Center for Public Opinion, a nonprofit institute that researches attitudes toward extremism. Patrick Doherty is deputy director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation. The groups' May 11-20 polling consisted of 1,001 interviews across Iran and had a 3.1 percentage point margin of error.
For more on polling in Iran, read Jon Cohen's Behind the Numbers.
=================================================================================
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Norway and Ethical Democracy
My published NYT comment #119.
May 14, 2009 10:08 am
May 14th, 2009 10:00 am
Norway and Ethical Democracy
The rest of the world has much to learn from ALL the Scandinavian countries, not only Norway.
Norway's example shows WE, the People, with our elected government, can construct democracies where inequality is lessened through social policy. Norway's example demonstrates We can construct democracies where the Greater Collective Good (GCG, my coinage) is seen as an achievable goal.
The US model of militaristic capitalism in which individualism is the foremost priority, but Democracy is an addendum, accompanied by boom and bust cycles, lack of oversight and regulation, is not a desirable model for the rest of the world, especially not the Global South, in recovery from colonialism, underdevelopment and now neo-imperialism coupled with market fundamentalism.
Chithra KarunaKaran
City University of New York
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
----------------------
NYT copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/business/global/14frugal.html
Thriving Norway Provides an Economics Lesson
By LANDON THOMAS Jr.
Instead of spending its oil riches, Norway saved, and it is now growing in the midst of the global recession.
==================================================================================
May 14, 2009 10:08 am
May 14th, 2009 10:00 am
Norway and Ethical Democracy
The rest of the world has much to learn from ALL the Scandinavian countries, not only Norway.
Norway's example shows WE, the People, with our elected government, can construct democracies where inequality is lessened through social policy. Norway's example demonstrates We can construct democracies where the Greater Collective Good (GCG, my coinage) is seen as an achievable goal.
The US model of militaristic capitalism in which individualism is the foremost priority, but Democracy is an addendum, accompanied by boom and bust cycles, lack of oversight and regulation, is not a desirable model for the rest of the world, especially not the Global South, in recovery from colonialism, underdevelopment and now neo-imperialism coupled with market fundamentalism.
Chithra KarunaKaran
City University of New York
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
----------------------
NYT copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/14/business/global/14frugal.html
Thriving Norway Provides an Economics Lesson
By LANDON THOMAS Jr.
Instead of spending its oil riches, Norway saved, and it is now growing in the midst of the global recession.
==================================================================================
Wednesday, May 13, 2009
Circumventing Democracy To Commit Torture
May 13th, 2009 7:56 am
Circumventing Democracy
How easily the democratic process can be circumvented!
And no Deep Throat to leak "enhanced interrogation techniques" to the Washington Post of the NYT?
Time to cultivate those inside sources.
In fact our custodians of democracy in the three branches of government, are least likely to uphold it.
It takes All the People All the Time to safeguard Democracy.
May I also add that the US is least qualified to lecture any other sovereign nation-state on Democracy, or engage in any activity outside of its borders, to promote it.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
---------------------
NYT copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/opinion/13divoll.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1242216084-xXd8VKeMdCHKxpf43eO95w
Op-Ed Contributor
Congress’s Torture Bubble
By VICKI DIVOLL
Published: May 12, 2009
=================================================================================
Circumventing Democracy
How easily the democratic process can be circumvented!
And no Deep Throat to leak "enhanced interrogation techniques" to the Washington Post of the NYT?
Time to cultivate those inside sources.
In fact our custodians of democracy in the three branches of government, are least likely to uphold it.
It takes All the People All the Time to safeguard Democracy.
May I also add that the US is least qualified to lecture any other sovereign nation-state on Democracy, or engage in any activity outside of its borders, to promote it.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
---------------------
NYT copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/13/opinion/13divoll.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1242216084-xXd8VKeMdCHKxpf43eO95w
Op-Ed Contributor
Congress’s Torture Bubble
By VICKI DIVOLL
Published: May 12, 2009
=================================================================================
Saturday, May 2, 2009
A Language & Practice of Earth Justice
My published NYT comment #54.
May 02, 2009 6:43 pm
Link
May 2nd, 2009 10:51 am
A Language & Practice of Earth Justice
This NYT article (see link listed below) mistakenly takes a top-down approach to Earth Justice (preferable in my view, to "conservation") by focusing on EcoAmerica, a corporate consultancy that basically is in cahoots with the Beltway.
As a participatory citizen in Democracy, whether in India or the US, I don't rely on govt, or its corporate clients, both of whom are major polluters. However I do hold these two powerful entities accountable, (with my activism and my ballot), for their policy and implementation priorities.
Instead of a top-down approach, we need a wide ranging grassroots level daily accountability from ordinary folks like me. For example, you and I can and must exercise an obligation to:
1) use less
2) recycle more
3) leave a measurably smaller footprint on the earth, on which we live, for a glorious but transient moment.
The US is undoubtedly the most wasteful and most avaricious user and disposer of resources of any nation-state on earth. All the self-promoting politicized jargon developed by EcoAmerica will not change that one iota. Unless WE, the People, do.
I'll give an example. I work at a huge urban public university. This university doesn't even have a simple directive mandating everybody on their campuses from the President to the freshman student, to print on both sides of their paper. The uni. refuses to even set their thousands of printers to print on both sides of a page. Multiply that reckless waste a hundred-thousand-fold across the university systems of America.
I once suggested double-sided printing in a memo (which I still have in my email) to my college president, but the idea, while lauded on paper (yes, more paper) predictably fell by the wayside. The conservation directive was never issued.
Education or information or 'new' language as EcoAmerica wastefully purports to do, doesn't change anything if that knowledge does not impact our lived practice in this Earth we share.
Chithra Karunakaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-------------
New York Times copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/us/politics/02enviro.html?scp=1&sq=EcoAmerica&st=cse
Seeking to Save the Planet, With a Thesaurus
By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: May 1, 2009
=====================================================================================
May 02, 2009 6:43 pm
Link
May 2nd, 2009 10:51 am
A Language & Practice of Earth Justice
This NYT article (see link listed below) mistakenly takes a top-down approach to Earth Justice (preferable in my view, to "conservation") by focusing on EcoAmerica, a corporate consultancy that basically is in cahoots with the Beltway.
As a participatory citizen in Democracy, whether in India or the US, I don't rely on govt, or its corporate clients, both of whom are major polluters. However I do hold these two powerful entities accountable, (with my activism and my ballot), for their policy and implementation priorities.
Instead of a top-down approach, we need a wide ranging grassroots level daily accountability from ordinary folks like me. For example, you and I can and must exercise an obligation to:
1) use less
2) recycle more
3) leave a measurably smaller footprint on the earth, on which we live, for a glorious but transient moment.
The US is undoubtedly the most wasteful and most avaricious user and disposer of resources of any nation-state on earth. All the self-promoting politicized jargon developed by EcoAmerica will not change that one iota. Unless WE, the People, do.
I'll give an example. I work at a huge urban public university. This university doesn't even have a simple directive mandating everybody on their campuses from the President to the freshman student, to print on both sides of their paper. The uni. refuses to even set their thousands of printers to print on both sides of a page. Multiply that reckless waste a hundred-thousand-fold across the university systems of America.
I once suggested double-sided printing in a memo (which I still have in my email) to my college president, but the idea, while lauded on paper (yes, more paper) predictably fell by the wayside. The conservation directive was never issued.
Education or information or 'new' language as EcoAmerica wastefully purports to do, doesn't change anything if that knowledge does not impact our lived practice in this Earth we share.
Chithra Karunakaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-------------
New York Times copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/02/us/politics/02enviro.html?scp=1&sq=EcoAmerica&st=cse
Seeking to Save the Planet, With a Thesaurus
By JOHN M. BRODER
Published: May 1, 2009
=====================================================================================
Thursday, April 16, 2009
India Elections 2009 -- Strengthening Democracy Through Lived Practice
My NYTimes Comment #18 published
April 16, 2009 2:23 pm
A Mega Election
There is poverty, hunger, homelessness, disease, the poor can't eat their vote so what is it good for, our Indian democracy has often been tested and found wanting, India still has a long long way to go to satisfy the most basic necessities of her millions.....
Yet , what an election! There are hundreds of candidates and scores of local and regional parties. Everyone seems to be voting! It's creative chaos under the rule of law. Conducted in 5 phases and lasting a month long with 700 million plus voters eligible to exercise their franchise. There's nothing like it, anywhere.
India's Lok Sabha elections are an unprecedented exercise in Democracy.
In 1947, after an historic freedom struggle led by the iconic Gandhi and a host of compassionate leaders like Maulana Azad,(whom Gandhi called his "conscience keeper") India chose to have a nation-state that was NOT based upon religious identity, but on universal principles of individual rights and responsibilities, yet to be realized in full.
That dream of a democratic secular India, building upon an ancient history and a vibrant, composite culture, has frequently failed to meet the most important needs of its civil society.
But despite our many flaws, our many and continuing inequalities, we have persevered and persisted to become a sovereign nation-state that endures, improve the lives of its diverse peoples and strive to become of force for good in the world.
Satyameva Jayate, Inquilab Zindabad and Jai Ho!
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
----------------------------------------------
New York Times copyright
Local Issues Dominate as India VotesBack to Article »
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
Neither of the major parties is likely to prevail in the five-week election without the help of smaller parties.
http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2009/04/17/world/asia/17india.html
================================================================================
April 16, 2009 2:23 pm
A Mega Election
There is poverty, hunger, homelessness, disease, the poor can't eat their vote so what is it good for, our Indian democracy has often been tested and found wanting, India still has a long long way to go to satisfy the most basic necessities of her millions.....
Yet , what an election! There are hundreds of candidates and scores of local and regional parties. Everyone seems to be voting! It's creative chaos under the rule of law. Conducted in 5 phases and lasting a month long with 700 million plus voters eligible to exercise their franchise. There's nothing like it, anywhere.
India's Lok Sabha elections are an unprecedented exercise in Democracy.
In 1947, after an historic freedom struggle led by the iconic Gandhi and a host of compassionate leaders like Maulana Azad,(whom Gandhi called his "conscience keeper") India chose to have a nation-state that was NOT based upon religious identity, but on universal principles of individual rights and responsibilities, yet to be realized in full.
That dream of a democratic secular India, building upon an ancient history and a vibrant, composite culture, has frequently failed to meet the most important needs of its civil society.
But despite our many flaws, our many and continuing inequalities, we have persevered and persisted to become a sovereign nation-state that endures, improve the lives of its diverse peoples and strive to become of force for good in the world.
Satyameva Jayate, Inquilab Zindabad and Jai Ho!
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
----------------------------------------------
New York Times copyright
Local Issues Dominate as India VotesBack to Article »
By SOMINI SENGUPTA
Neither of the major parties is likely to prevail in the five-week election without the help of smaller parties.
http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2009/04/17/world/asia/17india.html
================================================================================
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Lula Blue Eyes & The Whiteness System
March 29th, 2009 9:41 am Comment #273.
March 29, 2009 12:34 pm
In referencing blue eyes, President Lula of Brasil was referencing the Global North, the colonizers, the imperialists, the neo-imperialists, the slave owners, the genociders.
It's not racist, it's not about being against the color blue for eyes, the sky, whatever.
We feel, we have experienced what some fail to see out of those particular peepers.
Lula could have eschewed the rhetorical biomarker and just come straight to the point about unequal power and inequitable distribution of resources, about the origins of poverty, hunger, disease in the Global South. But would such a bland statement catch the eye of the NYT?
Perhaps I missed it in Dowd's column but I also recall that famous TV jousting on Blue Eyes vs. Brown eyes, between Mike Wallace (who brought it up again and again) and the late Shah of Iran. The Shah was making exactly the same point as Lula is. Go Brasil! Go Iran!
As for Obama's brown eyes in the Whites' House, that Change is not one we can (yet) believe in, judging by his planned blue-eyed Cheneyesque escalation of the deadly drone and convoy US/NATO trespass in Afghanistan-Pakistan.
Perhaps, if my child was killed by a US unmanned drone, while I was working in my fields, I would end up as a "militant". The Blue-eyed, green-eyed, you-name-it-eyed "militants" all lumped together in the demonizing mainstream US media as "Taliban" in the Khyber are making the same point as Lula.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
— EthicalDemocracy, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, INDIA
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Op-Ed Columnist
Blue Eyed Greed?
Article
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: March 28, 2009
WASHINGTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/opinion/29dowd.html
NYTimes copyright
---------
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKYlvyZwHHU&feature=related
Shah of Iran, Mike Wallace
YouTube copyright
----------
See my Theory of Systemic Whiteness"
on this blog or Google it!
===================================================================================
March 29, 2009 12:34 pm
In referencing blue eyes, President Lula of Brasil was referencing the Global North, the colonizers, the imperialists, the neo-imperialists, the slave owners, the genociders.
It's not racist, it's not about being against the color blue for eyes, the sky, whatever.
We feel, we have experienced what some fail to see out of those particular peepers.
Lula could have eschewed the rhetorical biomarker and just come straight to the point about unequal power and inequitable distribution of resources, about the origins of poverty, hunger, disease in the Global South. But would such a bland statement catch the eye of the NYT?
Perhaps I missed it in Dowd's column but I also recall that famous TV jousting on Blue Eyes vs. Brown eyes, between Mike Wallace (who brought it up again and again) and the late Shah of Iran. The Shah was making exactly the same point as Lula is. Go Brasil! Go Iran!
As for Obama's brown eyes in the Whites' House, that Change is not one we can (yet) believe in, judging by his planned blue-eyed Cheneyesque escalation of the deadly drone and convoy US/NATO trespass in Afghanistan-Pakistan.
Perhaps, if my child was killed by a US unmanned drone, while I was working in my fields, I would end up as a "militant". The Blue-eyed, green-eyed, you-name-it-eyed "militants" all lumped together in the demonizing mainstream US media as "Taliban" in the Khyber are making the same point as Lula.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
— EthicalDemocracy, Chennai, Tamil Nadu, INDIA
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Op-Ed Columnist
Blue Eyed Greed?
Article
By MAUREEN DOWD
Published: March 28, 2009
WASHINGTON
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/29/opinion/29dowd.html
NYTimes copyright
---------
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKYlvyZwHHU&feature=related
Shah of Iran, Mike Wallace
YouTube copyright
----------
See my Theory of Systemic Whiteness"
on this blog or Google it!
===================================================================================
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
US Sponsors Pakistan's Terror industry in South Asia
My comment which I made to the NYTimes Public editor as well as directly to the co-writers of this NYT article (in the absence of opportunity to make comments on the Times' pages):
The reporters (article below) Mazzetti and Schmitt completely fail to link US military and financial support for Pakistan's ISI, which is specifically mentioned in the article.
The reporters link the ISI to the Taliban, but not the US to the ISI.
How does the NYT expect the concerned but overburdened US public to make the link ( with the available evidence which the article already cites) if NYT's reporters don't?
If the US govt both directly and indirectly finances terror groups, then it must be acknowledged that the US runs a terror industry.
The US government's terror industry arms and finances the ISI which in turn arms and finances competing factions of the Pak-Afghan Taliban. This must also logically mean that the US is a state sponsor of terror.
NYT's reporting on South Asia needs to demonstrate greater acuity.
And who finances Pakistan's terror industry that operates throughout much of South Asia? The United States.
The Times writers fail to make the link between US financing, tactical support and training of the so-called "S Wing" of the Pak ISI, and the current terror operations of the ISI in Afghanistan.
Where is India in all of this? It is India's responsibility to its own citizens, to publicly hold the US accountable for its longstanding backing, finnacing, armed support of Pakistan's terror industry.
But successive Indian govts. will continue to fail to do so. Why? Because India is afraid of the 60-year cosy US-Pak relationship,and it is afraid to challenge the current US-led NATO geopolitical dominance over the South Asia region.
Therefore India is culpable. India lacks ethical responsibility to its citizens and it lacks ethical purpose in the South Asia region. A sovereign nation-state founded on ethical purpose now demonstrates a lack of it.
A Democracy without ethical purpose is a danger to itself.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
----------------
Afghan Strikes by Taliban Get Pakistan Help, U.S. Aides Say
By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: March 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/world/asia/26tribal.html?hp
New York Times copyright
--------------------
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/world/asia/27taliban.html?hp
Pakistani and Afghan Taliban Unify in Face of U.S. Influx
By CARLOTTA GALL 5:14 PM ET
NYTimes copyright
-------------------
Obama to Set Benchmarks in Fight Against Militants
By PETER BAKER and THOM SHANKER
Published: March 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/washington/27prexy.html?hp
NYTimes copyright
===================================================================================
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/US/Pakistan_set_to_reap_35_billion_windfall_from_terrorism/articleshow/4318277.cms
Times of India copyright
Pakistan set to reap $35 billion windfall from terrorism
26 Mar 2009, 1340 hrs IST, Chidanand Rajghatta, TNN
WASHINGTON: Terrorism pays. That may well be the message the United States and its allies send out to the world this week as they line up
billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan despite the country’s military and intelligence agencies being implicated by American officials in acts and practice of terrorism.
Ignoring confirmation about the Pakistan’s continued support and use of terrorism obtained through electronic surveillance and informants, and even brazen affirmation by Pakistani officialdom itself, the Obama administration is set to lavish a bonanza that might eventually add up to more than $ 30-$ 35 billion over the next decade.
About half the windfall will come from the US and the other half from its allies such as Japan, EU, and Gulf countries.
Washington is set to announce its largesse of around $ 15 billion of US tax-payer money in course of its new Af-Pak policy to be unveiled Friday, followed by a conference in Tokyo on April 17 of the so-called ''Friends of Pakistan'' where Islamabad is pitching for $ 10 billion.
This is in addition to the $ 7.6 billion pledged by the IMF and various donors, all at the instance of the United States, which believes Pakistan will disintegrate, with disastrous consequences all around, if it is not rescued with massive amounts of aid.
Congressional staff and sources associated with drawing up the aid package say there will be stringent conditions and tough oversight attached to the assistance, but critics of the policy regard the assurances as credulous. The Indian government has not opposed the package. ''If they (the United States) have not learned from the past, there is little we can do,'' one official said on background, referring to the Reagan era bonanza when untrammeled support for Pakistan’s military emboldened the country to adopt terrorism as a state policy.
That policy is still very much in place, going by a stunning page one New York Times account on Thursday in which Pakistani officials admit first-hand knowledge of ties between the ISI and extremists and even justify. They tell the paper that the contacts are less threatening than the American officials depict and are part of a strategy to maintain influence in Afghanistan for the day when American forces would withdraw and leave what they fear could be a power vacuum to be filled by India.
''In intelligence, you have to be in contact with your enemy or you are running blind,'' the paper quotes a senior Pakistani military officer as describing Islamabad’s strategy of backing the terrorists. But evidently, Pakistan's activity constitutes more than just contact with the enemy.
The NYT account, striking for the candid detail revealed by unnamed US and Pakistani officials, said Pakistan’s support to the Taliban and other militant outfits is coordinated by operatives inside the shadowy S Wing of the ISI. The report says the ISI also shared intelligence with Lashkar-e-Taiba accused in the Mumbai attacks and ''provided protection for it.'' It did say when this cooperation and protection took place.
But other new details reveal that the ISI is aiding a broader array of militant outfits with more diverse types of support than was previously known, even months after Pakistani officials said that the days of the ISI’s playing a double game had ended, the paper reported. One such outfit is the Haqqani network, which by American accounts bombed the Indian Embassy in Kabul with help from the ISI.
The attack killed 54 people, including an Indian diplomat and a military commander. Pakistan’s army chief Pervez Kiyani, a former ISI Director-General, subsequently described the Haqqani network as Pakistan’s ''strategic asset.''
But according to the NYT, the ISI’s S wing not only helps such networks with fuel and ammunition to fight American troops in Afghanistan, but also replenishes its ranks with recruits from madrassas in Pakistan. There is even evidence that ISI operatives meet regularly with Taliban commanders to discuss whether to intensify or scale back violence before the Afghan elections, it said.
None of this appears to have made a whit of a difference in the planned US largesse for Pakistan. If anything, US officials and analysts argue it is all the more reason to rush aid to Pakistan so that its democracy and social sector can be strengthened and it can be walked away from the abyss. ''If there is a better way to do this, we are all ears,'' a senior Congressional aide involved in the process, said. While some analysts say that Pakistan extracts aid by pointing a gun to its own head, key figures in the Washington establishment don't want to take the chance that Pakistan ends up falling into the abyss.
US officials, who typically make strenuous effort to shield the Pakistani leadership from charges of fomenting terrorism, maintain that mid-level ISI operatives cultivate relationships that are not approved by their bosses. They say it is unlikely that top officials in Islamabad are directly coordinating the clandestine efforts. But Pakistani officials themselves appear to scoff at American credulity in the NYT report, saying it is part of their long term strategy to keep their options open when the U.S withdraws from Afghanistan.
That expectation got a boost this week when US President Barack Obama spoke of an ''exit strategy'' in Afghanistan. Although Obama did not specifically refer to any troop withdrawals (on the contrary, he has just directed induction of 17,000 more troops), the fact that Washington is even contemplating an exit strategy seems to justify Pakistan’s outlook of keeping its Taliban and terrorism powder dry.
--------------------------
The reporters (article below) Mazzetti and Schmitt completely fail to link US military and financial support for Pakistan's ISI, which is specifically mentioned in the article.
The reporters link the ISI to the Taliban, but not the US to the ISI.
How does the NYT expect the concerned but overburdened US public to make the link ( with the available evidence which the article already cites) if NYT's reporters don't?
If the US govt both directly and indirectly finances terror groups, then it must be acknowledged that the US runs a terror industry.
The US government's terror industry arms and finances the ISI which in turn arms and finances competing factions of the Pak-Afghan Taliban. This must also logically mean that the US is a state sponsor of terror.
NYT's reporting on South Asia needs to demonstrate greater acuity.
And who finances Pakistan's terror industry that operates throughout much of South Asia? The United States.
The Times writers fail to make the link between US financing, tactical support and training of the so-called "S Wing" of the Pak ISI, and the current terror operations of the ISI in Afghanistan.
Where is India in all of this? It is India's responsibility to its own citizens, to publicly hold the US accountable for its longstanding backing, finnacing, armed support of Pakistan's terror industry.
But successive Indian govts. will continue to fail to do so. Why? Because India is afraid of the 60-year cosy US-Pak relationship,and it is afraid to challenge the current US-led NATO geopolitical dominance over the South Asia region.
Therefore India is culpable. India lacks ethical responsibility to its citizens and it lacks ethical purpose in the South Asia region. A sovereign nation-state founded on ethical purpose now demonstrates a lack of it.
A Democracy without ethical purpose is a danger to itself.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
----------------
Afghan Strikes by Taliban Get Pakistan Help, U.S. Aides Say
By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: March 25, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/26/world/asia/26tribal.html?hp
New York Times copyright
--------------------
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/world/asia/27taliban.html?hp
Pakistani and Afghan Taliban Unify in Face of U.S. Influx
By CARLOTTA GALL 5:14 PM ET
NYTimes copyright
-------------------
Obama to Set Benchmarks in Fight Against Militants
By PETER BAKER and THOM SHANKER
Published: March 26, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/27/washington/27prexy.html?hp
NYTimes copyright
===================================================================================
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/World/US/Pakistan_set_to_reap_35_billion_windfall_from_terrorism/articleshow/4318277.cms
Times of India copyright
Pakistan set to reap $35 billion windfall from terrorism
26 Mar 2009, 1340 hrs IST, Chidanand Rajghatta, TNN
WASHINGTON: Terrorism pays. That may well be the message the United States and its allies send out to the world this week as they line up
billions of dollars in aid to Pakistan despite the country’s military and intelligence agencies being implicated by American officials in acts and practice of terrorism.
Ignoring confirmation about the Pakistan’s continued support and use of terrorism obtained through electronic surveillance and informants, and even brazen affirmation by Pakistani officialdom itself, the Obama administration is set to lavish a bonanza that might eventually add up to more than $ 30-$ 35 billion over the next decade.
About half the windfall will come from the US and the other half from its allies such as Japan, EU, and Gulf countries.
Washington is set to announce its largesse of around $ 15 billion of US tax-payer money in course of its new Af-Pak policy to be unveiled Friday, followed by a conference in Tokyo on April 17 of the so-called ''Friends of Pakistan'' where Islamabad is pitching for $ 10 billion.
This is in addition to the $ 7.6 billion pledged by the IMF and various donors, all at the instance of the United States, which believes Pakistan will disintegrate, with disastrous consequences all around, if it is not rescued with massive amounts of aid.
Congressional staff and sources associated with drawing up the aid package say there will be stringent conditions and tough oversight attached to the assistance, but critics of the policy regard the assurances as credulous. The Indian government has not opposed the package. ''If they (the United States) have not learned from the past, there is little we can do,'' one official said on background, referring to the Reagan era bonanza when untrammeled support for Pakistan’s military emboldened the country to adopt terrorism as a state policy.
That policy is still very much in place, going by a stunning page one New York Times account on Thursday in which Pakistani officials admit first-hand knowledge of ties between the ISI and extremists and even justify. They tell the paper that the contacts are less threatening than the American officials depict and are part of a strategy to maintain influence in Afghanistan for the day when American forces would withdraw and leave what they fear could be a power vacuum to be filled by India.
''In intelligence, you have to be in contact with your enemy or you are running blind,'' the paper quotes a senior Pakistani military officer as describing Islamabad’s strategy of backing the terrorists. But evidently, Pakistan's activity constitutes more than just contact with the enemy.
The NYT account, striking for the candid detail revealed by unnamed US and Pakistani officials, said Pakistan’s support to the Taliban and other militant outfits is coordinated by operatives inside the shadowy S Wing of the ISI. The report says the ISI also shared intelligence with Lashkar-e-Taiba accused in the Mumbai attacks and ''provided protection for it.'' It did say when this cooperation and protection took place.
But other new details reveal that the ISI is aiding a broader array of militant outfits with more diverse types of support than was previously known, even months after Pakistani officials said that the days of the ISI’s playing a double game had ended, the paper reported. One such outfit is the Haqqani network, which by American accounts bombed the Indian Embassy in Kabul with help from the ISI.
The attack killed 54 people, including an Indian diplomat and a military commander. Pakistan’s army chief Pervez Kiyani, a former ISI Director-General, subsequently described the Haqqani network as Pakistan’s ''strategic asset.''
But according to the NYT, the ISI’s S wing not only helps such networks with fuel and ammunition to fight American troops in Afghanistan, but also replenishes its ranks with recruits from madrassas in Pakistan. There is even evidence that ISI operatives meet regularly with Taliban commanders to discuss whether to intensify or scale back violence before the Afghan elections, it said.
None of this appears to have made a whit of a difference in the planned US largesse for Pakistan. If anything, US officials and analysts argue it is all the more reason to rush aid to Pakistan so that its democracy and social sector can be strengthened and it can be walked away from the abyss. ''If there is a better way to do this, we are all ears,'' a senior Congressional aide involved in the process, said. While some analysts say that Pakistan extracts aid by pointing a gun to its own head, key figures in the Washington establishment don't want to take the chance that Pakistan ends up falling into the abyss.
US officials, who typically make strenuous effort to shield the Pakistani leadership from charges of fomenting terrorism, maintain that mid-level ISI operatives cultivate relationships that are not approved by their bosses. They say it is unlikely that top officials in Islamabad are directly coordinating the clandestine efforts. But Pakistani officials themselves appear to scoff at American credulity in the NYT report, saying it is part of their long term strategy to keep their options open when the U.S withdraws from Afghanistan.
That expectation got a boost this week when US President Barack Obama spoke of an ''exit strategy'' in Afghanistan. Although Obama did not specifically refer to any troop withdrawals (on the contrary, he has just directed induction of 17,000 more troops), the fact that Washington is even contemplating an exit strategy seems to justify Pakistan’s outlook of keeping its Taliban and terrorism powder dry.
--------------------------
Sunday, March 15, 2009
A Democratic Moment in Pakistan?
March 15th, 2009 1:27 pm
A Democratic Moment in Pakistan?
The street demonstrations of the "long march" to Islamabad and the clashes in several towns and cities are a shining moment for Pakistanis in their perilous journey towards democracy.
This is especially a moment when no third country should interfere in the process.
The US is already unwisely injecting itself into this process. But ordinary Pakistanis, their lawyers and their political leaders are showing again that they can handle their own affairs.
The Pakistanis deserve praise for their civic participation.
It is hoped that these civil society efforts will bring back an independent judiciary and reinstate the judges removed by Musharraf.
I fervently hope that ordinary Pakistanis will try civil disobedience and non-violence as effective strategies, lessons we learned and practiced across the border in India early on in our own making of an unprecedented democracy (oh yes, still flawed but an admirable and astonishing work in progress).
US and NATO out of South Asia, ASAP.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
— EthicalDemocracy, New York, NY
--------------------------------------------------------------
Mass Demonstration Defies Pakistani Government
Police officers clashed with protesters in Lahore on Sunday as government efforts to suppress a demonstration collapsed.
By JANE PERLEZ
Published: March 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/world/asia/16pstan.html?hp
New York Times Copyright
-------------
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Break-in-Pak-ranks-Sharif-heads-for-capital/articleshow/4268109.cms
Times of India copyright
----------------------
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/15/AR2009031500096_Comments.html
Pakistan Security Forces, Protesters Clash Amid Growing Unrest
By Pamela Constable
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/15/AR2009031500096.html?hpid=topnews
Washington Post copyright
=================================================================================
A Democratic Moment in Pakistan?
The street demonstrations of the "long march" to Islamabad and the clashes in several towns and cities are a shining moment for Pakistanis in their perilous journey towards democracy.
This is especially a moment when no third country should interfere in the process.
The US is already unwisely injecting itself into this process. But ordinary Pakistanis, their lawyers and their political leaders are showing again that they can handle their own affairs.
The Pakistanis deserve praise for their civic participation.
It is hoped that these civil society efforts will bring back an independent judiciary and reinstate the judges removed by Musharraf.
I fervently hope that ordinary Pakistanis will try civil disobedience and non-violence as effective strategies, lessons we learned and practiced across the border in India early on in our own making of an unprecedented democracy (oh yes, still flawed but an admirable and astonishing work in progress).
US and NATO out of South Asia, ASAP.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
— EthicalDemocracy, New York, NY
--------------------------------------------------------------
Mass Demonstration Defies Pakistani Government
Police officers clashed with protesters in Lahore on Sunday as government efforts to suppress a demonstration collapsed.
By JANE PERLEZ
Published: March 15, 2009
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/16/world/asia/16pstan.html?hp
New York Times Copyright
-------------
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/Break-in-Pak-ranks-Sharif-heads-for-capital/articleshow/4268109.cms
Times of India copyright
----------------------
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/15/AR2009031500096_Comments.html
Pakistan Security Forces, Protesters Clash Amid Growing Unrest
By Pamela Constable
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/03/15/AR2009031500096.html?hpid=topnews
Washington Post copyright
=================================================================================
Tuesday, February 24, 2009
50th Anniversary 1959-2009: MLK in the Land of MKG
50th Anniversary 1959-2009 MLK in the Land of MKG
This year Black History Month has especial significance. The White House used to be the WHITES' House. Three hundred years of resistance and struggle have propelled a Black President into leadership of the United States. Obama is 50% white and 50% but such is the power of the "one-drop-rule" of racialized white supremacacism that he cannot possibly stand up and say "Hey I'm Black-white or White-Black." The most he can say, and he did say was self-deprecatingly "a mutt like me."
Without the blood sweat tears of those three hundred years of persistent struggle, such a historic moment might have been even further delayed. Today, during Black History Month in the United States, I am marking for special mention the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's historic visit to India to the several places of Gandhi's activism, assassination and cremation.
Ethical Democracy as Lived Practice is about examining and reflecting upon such ethical moments. Self-in-Society-Studies focuses on this visit and its implications and repercussions.
More to come...
This year Black History Month has especial significance. The White House used to be the WHITES' House. Three hundred years of resistance and struggle have propelled a Black President into leadership of the United States. Obama is 50% white and 50% but such is the power of the "one-drop-rule" of racialized white supremacacism that he cannot possibly stand up and say "Hey I'm Black-white or White-Black." The most he can say, and he did say was self-deprecatingly "a mutt like me."
Without the blood sweat tears of those three hundred years of persistent struggle, such a historic moment might have been even further delayed. Today, during Black History Month in the United States, I am marking for special mention the 50th anniversary of Martin Luther King's historic visit to India to the several places of Gandhi's activism, assassination and cremation.
Ethical Democracy as Lived Practice is about examining and reflecting upon such ethical moments. Self-in-Society-Studies focuses on this visit and its implications and repercussions.
More to come...
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Slumdogs Unite!
http://roomfordebate.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/20/the-real-roots-of-the-slumdog-protests/#comment-20883
New York Times copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/21/opinion/21srivastava.html
Taking the Slum out of 'Slumdog'by By MATIAS ECHANOVE and RAHUL SRIVASTAVA
Published: February 21, 2009
New York Times copyright
--------------------------------
Comment February 21, 2009 9:44 pm Link
The "Slumdog" protests in India, which are quite limited, illustrate several points:
. Slumdog drew attention, albeit Hollywood-Bollywood style, to India's poverty. Neither our politicians nor our civil society can ignore hunger, poverty, homelessness in our country.
. It appears protesters were concerned with the word "dog" than with the word "slum."
Shouldn't they have been more concerned that millions of people live in slums, which by any other name are still places of poverty and inequality of opportunity.
.India has a vibrant and exponentially growing civil society, where protests of various types can take place without beheading or flogging.
.India’s billion plus people are likely to have the whole spectrum of diverse opinions, rather than only a few, because they have been practicing democracy, with lots of trial and error, but it's still democracy for all to see.
.The poor and the disenfranchised are especially vulnerable, more so during an election year, to:
vote-seeking criminal politicians, pseudo-nationalists, and cultural fundamentalists, (occasionally they are all rolled into one).
.Lost in translation — "dog" in English doesn’t translate favorably in a score of South Asian languages, let alone "slumdog."
.The so-called ” slum” kids in the movie are coming to the academy awards — more power to them. The rest of us will have to be content to watch it on TV.
.The vast majority of Indians don’t keep dogs as pets — ill-treatment of street dogs is rampant. Our canine friends in India need a whole lot of loving and more SPCA and PETA protection. If and when that happens every Indian will be happy to be called a dog.
.Controversy will boost Slumdog box office receipts for the movie in India and elsewhere, to stratospheric levels.
Go Oscar! And after that, Slumdogs of the World Unite!
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
— Chithra KarunaKar
New York Times copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/21/opinion/21srivastava.html
Taking the Slum out of 'Slumdog'by By MATIAS ECHANOVE and RAHUL SRIVASTAVA
Published: February 21, 2009
New York Times copyright
--------------------------------
Comment February 21, 2009 9:44 pm Link
The "Slumdog" protests in India, which are quite limited, illustrate several points:
. Slumdog drew attention, albeit Hollywood-Bollywood style, to India's poverty. Neither our politicians nor our civil society can ignore hunger, poverty, homelessness in our country.
. It appears protesters were concerned with the word "dog" than with the word "slum."
Shouldn't they have been more concerned that millions of people live in slums, which by any other name are still places of poverty and inequality of opportunity.
.India has a vibrant and exponentially growing civil society, where protests of various types can take place without beheading or flogging.
.India’s billion plus people are likely to have the whole spectrum of diverse opinions, rather than only a few, because they have been practicing democracy, with lots of trial and error, but it's still democracy for all to see.
.The poor and the disenfranchised are especially vulnerable, more so during an election year, to:
vote-seeking criminal politicians, pseudo-nationalists, and cultural fundamentalists, (occasionally they are all rolled into one).
.Lost in translation — "dog" in English doesn’t translate favorably in a score of South Asian languages, let alone "slumdog."
.The so-called ” slum” kids in the movie are coming to the academy awards — more power to them. The rest of us will have to be content to watch it on TV.
.The vast majority of Indians don’t keep dogs as pets — ill-treatment of street dogs is rampant. Our canine friends in India need a whole lot of loving and more SPCA and PETA protection. If and when that happens every Indian will be happy to be called a dog.
.Controversy will boost Slumdog box office receipts for the movie in India and elsewhere, to stratospheric levels.
Go Oscar! And after that, Slumdogs of the World Unite!
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
— Chithra KarunaKar
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Islam in India: The Secular Democratic Project of Lived Pluralism
Comment #108.
February 18, 2009 11:45 am
a version of my post below appeared on:
Islam in India: The Secular Democratic Project of Lived Pluralism
http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2009/02/18/opinion/18friedman.html
New York Times copyright
February 18th, 2009 8:37 am
-------------------------------
Friedman's piece is both courageous and timely. These are words that must be pondered upon as much by the US State Department as by every South Asian.
People like the 17th century scholar-soldier Dara Shukoh, murdered son of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, the freedom fighter Maulana Azad (Gandhi called him "my conscience keeper") and contemporary outspoken writer Salman Rushdie, who stood up to fatwa, all come out of this proud tradition of thousands of years of LIVED secular pluralism. We people of diverse faiths as well as agnostics and atheists, have lived together, grown tolerant of each other in our lush (rather than harsh) natural environment and in the process, discovered treasures in each others' culture.
In India Democracy is not some borrowed western concept. It has emerged out of a lived experience of discursive mingling of Greek, Hindu,Buddhist and absolutely YES, Islamic ideas, not to speak of Sikh, Christian, Judaic, Zoroastrian, Dalit and indigenous tribal ideas.
The Ayodhya mosque demolition and the post-Godhra pogroms are blots on India's secular plural national conscience and character. Still, a billion plus Indians have maintained restraint in the face of such provocations incited by criminal politicians who have yet to be brought to justice. We cannot rest until they are.
However religious tolerance and secular pluralism are not the same thing as developing uncompromisingly intolerant attitudes and policy about hunger, homelessness and inequality of opportunity. Indians badly need to develop that sort of intolerance.
The Indian secular democratic project of lived pluralism which translates as SOCIAL JUSTICE, has miles to go.
Chithra KarunaKaran
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
No Way no How not Here by Thomas Friedman
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/opinion/18friedman.html?_r=1&hp
New York Times copyright
===============================================================================
February 18, 2009 11:45 am
a version of my post below appeared on:
Islam in India: The Secular Democratic Project of Lived Pluralism
http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2009/02/18/opinion/18friedman.html
New York Times copyright
February 18th, 2009 8:37 am
-------------------------------
Friedman's piece is both courageous and timely. These are words that must be pondered upon as much by the US State Department as by every South Asian.
People like the 17th century scholar-soldier Dara Shukoh, murdered son of the Mughal Emperor Shah Jahan, the freedom fighter Maulana Azad (Gandhi called him "my conscience keeper") and contemporary outspoken writer Salman Rushdie, who stood up to fatwa, all come out of this proud tradition of thousands of years of LIVED secular pluralism. We people of diverse faiths as well as agnostics and atheists, have lived together, grown tolerant of each other in our lush (rather than harsh) natural environment and in the process, discovered treasures in each others' culture.
In India Democracy is not some borrowed western concept. It has emerged out of a lived experience of discursive mingling of Greek, Hindu,Buddhist and absolutely YES, Islamic ideas, not to speak of Sikh, Christian, Judaic, Zoroastrian, Dalit and indigenous tribal ideas.
The Ayodhya mosque demolition and the post-Godhra pogroms are blots on India's secular plural national conscience and character. Still, a billion plus Indians have maintained restraint in the face of such provocations incited by criminal politicians who have yet to be brought to justice. We cannot rest until they are.
However religious tolerance and secular pluralism are not the same thing as developing uncompromisingly intolerant attitudes and policy about hunger, homelessness and inequality of opportunity. Indians badly need to develop that sort of intolerance.
The Indian secular democratic project of lived pluralism which translates as SOCIAL JUSTICE, has miles to go.
Chithra KarunaKaran
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
No Way no How not Here by Thomas Friedman
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/18/opinion/18friedman.html?_r=1&hp
New York Times copyright
===============================================================================
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
US & NATO Out Of South Asia
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
US and NATO out of South Asia
Lesson for Obama and the US:
Perhaps Obama will learn something new, (though that is unlikely), from this latest event in which so-called "militants" have allegedly severed the supply link for US-NATO forces by blowing up a bridge in the Swat Valley adjoining the Khyber Pass terrain (see Yahoo news copyrighted article, scroll below my post).
The US and NATO have NO role in South Asia. Zero, nyet, zilch, nada.
US-NATO forces have killed hundreds if not thousands of innocent Afghan and Pakistani civilians and falsely claimed they have killed "insurgents" or "militants."
Q. Your unmanned U.S. drone can spot an "insurgent" or "militant" from the air because they are wearing T for Taliban or Q for Qaeda T-shirts?
One does not have to be a supporter of the Taliban or Al Qaeda or a so-called "Jihadist" to fairly state that the US forces and NATO forces are in fact the major insurgents and militants in South Asia.
India, Pakistan and other nation-states have a choice. The regional politics of South Asia can be played out, with much trial and error, but mostly with open hearts and minds, by the primary stakeholders -- civil societies of sovereign nation-states of the geopolitical region of South Asia and through their one-state, one vote membership in the General Assembly (not the US-dominated limited-membership Security Council) of the United Nations. Or we can stupidly choose to have self-interested non-regional nation-states dictating and controlling our geopolitics. That's the choice facing South Asia.
Lesson for Pakistan: A vibrant Civil Society in Pakistan is Pakistan's only hope and it will do much to stabilize South Asia. Sixty years of growing state-sponsored terror on Pakistan soil has now backfired on Pakistan. When Pakistan's new leaders claim "we are victims of terror" they are right but not entirely factually accurate. That claim should be restated thus: "We, Pakistan, are victims of terror because the terror we grew on our soil for 60 years, with US help, and exported to Kashmir and Afghanistan has now turned back to bite us." As for Pakistan's leaders saying India should not engage in the "blame game", the question is: Is India NAMING Pakistan as a state sponsor of terror (with US complicity and financing)? Yes, it is.That is naming, not blaming. If the cap fits, Pakistan, wear it.
Lesson for India: That proposed Iran-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline ain't never gonna work. It will be continually sabotaged, just like that bridge that was blow up today in the Swat Valley. The main reason the pipeline will not work is because the US does not want the pipeline, and will not allow the proposed pipeline to succeed. US policy in South Asia and West Asia is driven by anti-Russia, anti-Iran, anti-Palestine, pro-Israel, pro-Zionist expansionist militaristic and capitalistic market fundamentalism strategy to secure and privatize oil and natural gas resources throughout the world. The US is competing with both Iran and Russia for geopolitical influence and control over natural resources, in the South Asia and West Asia (inaccurately called The Middle East) regions.
So India, in terms of the proposed pipeline learn this lesson: Ditch it before you Pay for it. In fact Ditch it before you Build it. Maybe India can think about the pipeline again in five years, that is IF Afghanistan does not fall to the Taliban and Pakistan does not have a military coup, before then.
What India can do now (and it is a lot), is: Improve internal domestic and border and coastal surveillance to protect the people of India, their civil society and their cherished democratic and cultural institutions, by involving civil society , that means PEOPLE, civilians, citizens, residents, Bharat vasis,(not just the army, police and myopic foreign policy bureaucrats) in vigilance, surveillance and protection.
India, In terms of energy policy, Gain energy independence through funding and public-private partnering for green energy R&D in solar and wind sourcing. Exxon Mobil does not own the sun (yet), so India, use it. Go solar, go green, not nuclear.
As for national security, "If you see something say something" is a commonsense, proactive, preventive, pre-emptive, more cost-effective natural security strategy by every quantitative and qualitative measure, than rappeling commandos onto the roofs of hotels and religious and cultural centers in crowded urban areas, AFTER the state-sponsored terrorists have landed.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
========================================
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/world/asia/15pstan.html?_r=1&hp
New York Times copyright
-----------
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090203/wl_nm/us_pakistan_afghan
Yahoo news copyright
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – Suspected militants blew up a bridge in northwestern Pakistan's Khyber Pass on Tuesday, cutting the main route for supplies bound for Western forces in Afghanistan, Pakistani government officials said.
Separately, security forces killed at least 35 Taliban insurgents and wounded many others in an attack Monday night in the Swat Valley, northeast of the Kyber Pass, a military spokesman said.
Militants in northwestern Pakistan stepped up attacks on the road through the Khyber Pass, a crucial route into land-locked Afghanistan, last year in an attempt to deprive international forces fighting the Taliban of supplies trucked in from Pakistan.
The 30-meter (100-foot) iron bridge, 23 km (15 miles) west of the city of Peshawar, was blown up after midnight and administration officials said all traffic along the route was suspended.
"Militants blew up the bridge and it's going to take some time to fix it," said government official Rahat Gul. He declined to estimate how long it might take.
Guards are usually posted on heights above bridges on the road but it was not clear why they had been unable to stop the attack.
Militant attacks over recent months have disrupted supplies but the route had only been briefly closed twice since September.
The U.S. military and NATO's Afghan force have played down the impact of the attacks but nevertheless have been looking for alternative routes.
A NATO force spokesman in Kabul said he had no information about Tuesday's attack.
There are two routes through Pakistan into Afghanistan, one through the Khyber Pass to the border town of Torkham and on to Kabul. The other runs through Pakistan to the border town of Chaman and on to the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
The U.S. Defense Department says the U.S. military sends 75 percent of supplies for the Afghan war through or over Pakistan, including 40 percent of the fuel for its troops.
HEAVY FIGHTING IN SWAT
Pakistani customs officials say about 300 trucks with Western force supplies travel through Torkham every day, compared with about 100 through the Chaman crossing.
With the U.S. military set to send thousands more soldiers to Afghanistan in coming months, perhaps nearly doubling the number to about 60,000, the need for reliable supply routes will become that much more vital.
The chief of the U.S. Central Command, General David Petraeus, said last month agreements had been reached for new routes into northern Afghanistan through Central Asian states and Russia. He did not give details.
In the Swat Valley, security forces pounded militants with artillery as they gathered to launch an attack, killing at least 35 of them, an officer in the military's information department said.
"We opened fire with artillery and mortars on credible information that a group of militants had gathered and was planning an attack in the dark," the officer said.
There was no independent verification of the casualty estimate.
The scenic Swat valley, only 130 km (80 miles) northwest of the capital Islamabad, and not on the Afghan border, was until recently one of Pakistan's prime tourist destinations.
Now the valley is on the front line of the country's struggle against Islamist militancy and has become a test of the government's resolve to check the spread of the Taliban.
(Reporting by Ibrahim Shinwari and Junaid Khan; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Jerry Norton)
US and NATO out of South Asia
Lesson for Obama and the US:
Perhaps Obama will learn something new, (though that is unlikely), from this latest event in which so-called "militants" have allegedly severed the supply link for US-NATO forces by blowing up a bridge in the Swat Valley adjoining the Khyber Pass terrain (see Yahoo news copyrighted article, scroll below my post).
The US and NATO have NO role in South Asia. Zero, nyet, zilch, nada.
US-NATO forces have killed hundreds if not thousands of innocent Afghan and Pakistani civilians and falsely claimed they have killed "insurgents" or "militants."
Q. Your unmanned U.S. drone can spot an "insurgent" or "militant" from the air because they are wearing T for Taliban or Q for Qaeda T-shirts?
One does not have to be a supporter of the Taliban or Al Qaeda or a so-called "Jihadist" to fairly state that the US forces and NATO forces are in fact the major insurgents and militants in South Asia.
India, Pakistan and other nation-states have a choice. The regional politics of South Asia can be played out, with much trial and error, but mostly with open hearts and minds, by the primary stakeholders -- civil societies of sovereign nation-states of the geopolitical region of South Asia and through their one-state, one vote membership in the General Assembly (not the US-dominated limited-membership Security Council) of the United Nations. Or we can stupidly choose to have self-interested non-regional nation-states dictating and controlling our geopolitics. That's the choice facing South Asia.
Lesson for Pakistan: A vibrant Civil Society in Pakistan is Pakistan's only hope and it will do much to stabilize South Asia. Sixty years of growing state-sponsored terror on Pakistan soil has now backfired on Pakistan. When Pakistan's new leaders claim "we are victims of terror" they are right but not entirely factually accurate. That claim should be restated thus: "We, Pakistan, are victims of terror because the terror we grew on our soil for 60 years, with US help, and exported to Kashmir and Afghanistan has now turned back to bite us." As for Pakistan's leaders saying India should not engage in the "blame game", the question is: Is India NAMING Pakistan as a state sponsor of terror (with US complicity and financing)? Yes, it is.That is naming, not blaming. If the cap fits, Pakistan, wear it.
Lesson for India: That proposed Iran-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline ain't never gonna work. It will be continually sabotaged, just like that bridge that was blow up today in the Swat Valley. The main reason the pipeline will not work is because the US does not want the pipeline, and will not allow the proposed pipeline to succeed. US policy in South Asia and West Asia is driven by anti-Russia, anti-Iran, anti-Palestine, pro-Israel, pro-Zionist expansionist militaristic and capitalistic market fundamentalism strategy to secure and privatize oil and natural gas resources throughout the world. The US is competing with both Iran and Russia for geopolitical influence and control over natural resources, in the South Asia and West Asia (inaccurately called The Middle East) regions.
So India, in terms of the proposed pipeline learn this lesson: Ditch it before you Pay for it. In fact Ditch it before you Build it. Maybe India can think about the pipeline again in five years, that is IF Afghanistan does not fall to the Taliban and Pakistan does not have a military coup, before then.
What India can do now (and it is a lot), is: Improve internal domestic and border and coastal surveillance to protect the people of India, their civil society and their cherished democratic and cultural institutions, by involving civil society , that means PEOPLE, civilians, citizens, residents, Bharat vasis,(not just the army, police and myopic foreign policy bureaucrats) in vigilance, surveillance and protection.
India, In terms of energy policy, Gain energy independence through funding and public-private partnering for green energy R&D in solar and wind sourcing. Exxon Mobil does not own the sun (yet), so India, use it. Go solar, go green, not nuclear.
As for national security, "If you see something say something" is a commonsense, proactive, preventive, pre-emptive, more cost-effective natural security strategy by every quantitative and qualitative measure, than rappeling commandos onto the roofs of hotels and religious and cultural centers in crowded urban areas, AFTER the state-sponsored terrorists have landed.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
========================================
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/world/asia/15pstan.html?_r=1&hp
New York Times copyright
-----------
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090203/wl_nm/us_pakistan_afghan
Yahoo news copyright
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – Suspected militants blew up a bridge in northwestern Pakistan's Khyber Pass on Tuesday, cutting the main route for supplies bound for Western forces in Afghanistan, Pakistani government officials said.
Separately, security forces killed at least 35 Taliban insurgents and wounded many others in an attack Monday night in the Swat Valley, northeast of the Kyber Pass, a military spokesman said.
Militants in northwestern Pakistan stepped up attacks on the road through the Khyber Pass, a crucial route into land-locked Afghanistan, last year in an attempt to deprive international forces fighting the Taliban of supplies trucked in from Pakistan.
The 30-meter (100-foot) iron bridge, 23 km (15 miles) west of the city of Peshawar, was blown up after midnight and administration officials said all traffic along the route was suspended.
"Militants blew up the bridge and it's going to take some time to fix it," said government official Rahat Gul. He declined to estimate how long it might take.
Guards are usually posted on heights above bridges on the road but it was not clear why they had been unable to stop the attack.
Militant attacks over recent months have disrupted supplies but the route had only been briefly closed twice since September.
The U.S. military and NATO's Afghan force have played down the impact of the attacks but nevertheless have been looking for alternative routes.
A NATO force spokesman in Kabul said he had no information about Tuesday's attack.
There are two routes through Pakistan into Afghanistan, one through the Khyber Pass to the border town of Torkham and on to Kabul. The other runs through Pakistan to the border town of Chaman and on to the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
The U.S. Defense Department says the U.S. military sends 75 percent of supplies for the Afghan war through or over Pakistan, including 40 percent of the fuel for its troops.
HEAVY FIGHTING IN SWAT
Pakistani customs officials say about 300 trucks with Western force supplies travel through Torkham every day, compared with about 100 through the Chaman crossing.
With the U.S. military set to send thousands more soldiers to Afghanistan in coming months, perhaps nearly doubling the number to about 60,000, the need for reliable supply routes will become that much more vital.
The chief of the U.S. Central Command, General David Petraeus, said last month agreements had been reached for new routes into northern Afghanistan through Central Asian states and Russia. He did not give details.
In the Swat Valley, security forces pounded militants with artillery as they gathered to launch an attack, killing at least 35 of them, an officer in the military's information department said.
"We opened fire with artillery and mortars on credible information that a group of militants had gathered and was planning an attack in the dark," the officer said.
There was no independent verification of the casualty estimate.
The scenic Swat valley, only 130 km (80 miles) northwest of the capital Islamabad, and not on the Afghan border, was until recently one of Pakistan's prime tourist destinations.
Now the valley is on the front line of the country's struggle against Islamist militancy and has become a test of the government's resolve to check the spread of the Taliban.
(Reporting by Ibrahim Shinwari and Junaid Khan; Writing by Robert Birsel; Editing by Jerry Norton)
Friday, January 30, 2009
Self & Society: Ethical Possibility As Lived Practice
First and foremost as an ordinary and reflective person, then and only secondarily as a postcolonial sociologist who teaches foundational theories in Psychology, I am fortunate to have developed for myself, in spaces of academic institutional resistance, the opportunity to conceptually bring the individual "I" and situate that i within the collective "We", an examined union of the natural and the social-cultural.
There is no lived distance between Self & Society. Such a constructed divide lacks temporal possibility because in real time there is no Self without Society. It is Society that makes Self human. Those very few selves who were unfortunate enough to be placed outside of the human social context failed to become human as we know it. Though we are free to mentally manipulate the two, Self and Society, as distinct conceptual categories, in order to further our thought about Self and Society, each necessarily constitutes the other. That symbolic manipulation is a necessary intellectual scientific endeavor in order to contemplate, affirm and establish the interweaving and inseparability of Self & Society, Society & Self.
It has become my life's work and is not dependent on the US academy which pays me meagerly but sufficiently for my own frugality, but continually limits the ethical scope of what I may do. Therefore most of my work must be unpaid and conducted outside of the US academy. Neither the US academy nor its macro-context, the US nation-state, define who I am or who I am becoming.
In my own lived practice, I accept full responsibility for my thoughts and actions. Therefore, I cannot ascribe my thoughts and actions (which I concurrently experience or perform in real time), to others OR to magical forces or fictitious circumstances or fabricated representations outside of myself.
I am responsible for my thoughts and actions, I am fully accountable for my own thoughts and actions.
It is my responsibility to myself, my family, my ancestors, my universal civil society to develop my intrinsic motivation and limit the influence of extrinsic motivation in the ethical pursuit of my own lived possibility.
Others are not responsible or accountable for what I myself think and do. I must accept the responsibility that my thoughts and actions may influence and impact others, sometimes to their detriment, therefore I have an ethical responsibility to anticipate how I may affect these selves, these others who are also equally human and have the same ethical potential as I. This is the goal of the Self in joining with other selves in the pursuit of establishing the Greater Collective Good, an indispensable constituting force of Society.
By the same token I cannot accept responsibility for the thoughts and actions of others, including the thoughts and actions of individuals, financial institutions or governments. These I feel absolutely free to examine, challenge and oppose or support, according to my evolving understanding of my own ethical possibility as a moment-by-moment, daily, seasonal and lifelong lived practice.
It is fortuitous for me to have an opportunity for reflection on Self & Society, on the anniversary of Gandhi's assassination this day in January 1950.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://www.EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
Self & Society: Ethical Possibility as Lived Practice
01/30/09 Gandhi was assassinated on Jan 30, 1950
======================================================================================
There is no lived distance between Self & Society. Such a constructed divide lacks temporal possibility because in real time there is no Self without Society. It is Society that makes Self human. Those very few selves who were unfortunate enough to be placed outside of the human social context failed to become human as we know it. Though we are free to mentally manipulate the two, Self and Society, as distinct conceptual categories, in order to further our thought about Self and Society, each necessarily constitutes the other. That symbolic manipulation is a necessary intellectual scientific endeavor in order to contemplate, affirm and establish the interweaving and inseparability of Self & Society, Society & Self.
It has become my life's work and is not dependent on the US academy which pays me meagerly but sufficiently for my own frugality, but continually limits the ethical scope of what I may do. Therefore most of my work must be unpaid and conducted outside of the US academy. Neither the US academy nor its macro-context, the US nation-state, define who I am or who I am becoming.
In my own lived practice, I accept full responsibility for my thoughts and actions. Therefore, I cannot ascribe my thoughts and actions (which I concurrently experience or perform in real time), to others OR to magical forces or fictitious circumstances or fabricated representations outside of myself.
I am responsible for my thoughts and actions, I am fully accountable for my own thoughts and actions.
It is my responsibility to myself, my family, my ancestors, my universal civil society to develop my intrinsic motivation and limit the influence of extrinsic motivation in the ethical pursuit of my own lived possibility.
Others are not responsible or accountable for what I myself think and do. I must accept the responsibility that my thoughts and actions may influence and impact others, sometimes to their detriment, therefore I have an ethical responsibility to anticipate how I may affect these selves, these others who are also equally human and have the same ethical potential as I. This is the goal of the Self in joining with other selves in the pursuit of establishing the Greater Collective Good, an indispensable constituting force of Society.
By the same token I cannot accept responsibility for the thoughts and actions of others, including the thoughts and actions of individuals, financial institutions or governments. These I feel absolutely free to examine, challenge and oppose or support, according to my evolving understanding of my own ethical possibility as a moment-by-moment, daily, seasonal and lifelong lived practice.
It is fortuitous for me to have an opportunity for reflection on Self & Society, on the anniversary of Gandhi's assassination this day in January 1950.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://www.EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
Self & Society: Ethical Possibility as Lived Practice
01/30/09 Gandhi was assassinated on Jan 30, 1950
======================================================================================
2010 World Rally for Refugees' Right to Return
2010 World Rally For Refugees' Right to Return
2010 World Rally For Refugees' Right to Return
We urgently need a World Rally for Refugees' Right to Return in 2010.
During the 2010 Year of Return Palestinians, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Tamils, Kurds, indigenous Peoples, dislocated Peoples, dispossessed Peoples, de-recognized or unrecognized Peoples,ecological refugees, climate refugees, farmers, refugee growers and displaced gatherers of food, refugee practitioners of traditional forest and bush medicine, refugee craftspeople, ALL will have the unfettered opportunity to return peacefully and without hindrance, they will have the Right to Return.
This has to be a Regugees Without Borders Peoples' Movement.
No government of a sovereign state can hope to succeed, nor does any government or intergovernmental agency have the ethical courage and political will to either order or block the universal human Right to Return. Governments, liberation groups like Hamas, ALL groups that stake a claim for return, member-states of the UN, the agencies and organizations of the UN, need the driving force of borderless civil society to help them focus an entire year on The Right to Return of ALL refugeee Peoples. Only then can the refugee movement succeed. It will not be easy. But such a world movement is fraught with ethical, civilizational possibility.
We, all of us, know of no people who are content to be deprived of the opportunity to live lives in a land of their ancestors' birth. No one is exempt from hope. Is such a year of the RIGHT to RETURN possible?
Can we plan and implement a 2010 World Rally for Refugees' Right to Return? It is an ethical responsibility of borderless civil society everywhere.
Dr. Chithra KarunaKaran
City University of New York
Ethical Democracy as Lived Practice
http://www.EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
2010 World Rally For Refugees' Right to Return
====================================================================================
2010 World Rally For Refugees' Right to Return
We urgently need a World Rally for Refugees' Right to Return in 2010.
During the 2010 Year of Return Palestinians, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, Tamils, Kurds, indigenous Peoples, dislocated Peoples, dispossessed Peoples, de-recognized or unrecognized Peoples,ecological refugees, climate refugees, farmers, refugee growers and displaced gatherers of food, refugee practitioners of traditional forest and bush medicine, refugee craftspeople, ALL will have the unfettered opportunity to return peacefully and without hindrance, they will have the Right to Return.
This has to be a Regugees Without Borders Peoples' Movement.
No government of a sovereign state can hope to succeed, nor does any government or intergovernmental agency have the ethical courage and political will to either order or block the universal human Right to Return. Governments, liberation groups like Hamas, ALL groups that stake a claim for return, member-states of the UN, the agencies and organizations of the UN, need the driving force of borderless civil society to help them focus an entire year on The Right to Return of ALL refugeee Peoples. Only then can the refugee movement succeed. It will not be easy. But such a world movement is fraught with ethical, civilizational possibility.
We, all of us, know of no people who are content to be deprived of the opportunity to live lives in a land of their ancestors' birth. No one is exempt from hope. Is such a year of the RIGHT to RETURN possible?
Can we plan and implement a 2010 World Rally for Refugees' Right to Return? It is an ethical responsibility of borderless civil society everywhere.
Dr. Chithra KarunaKaran
City University of New York
Ethical Democracy as Lived Practice
http://www.EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
2010 World Rally For Refugees' Right to Return
====================================================================================
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Karnataka Journalist Hounded by Hindu Fundamentalists
B. V. Seetaram
Chitra Publications
arrested and handcuffed in Udipi
I'll be following this story as it unfolds in the courts.
India internal terrorism by the Hindu right is a danger to the fragile development of ethical democracy in India
Chitra Publications
arrested and handcuffed in Udipi
I'll be following this story as it unfolds in the courts.
India internal terrorism by the Hindu right is a danger to the fragile development of ethical democracy in India
Delhi Fog Toxic Cocktail Prepared by Capital Bureaucrats
"Thick Fog Hits Delhi" is a misleading newspaper headline in The Hindu January 6. It particular misleads young readers
Why? Because fog in Delhi is not a naturally occurring phenomenon. It is a direct byproduct of unrestricted unregulated air pollution.
Isn't Delhi Pachauri's backyard? What is TERI doing about this costly mess?
I have more thought to develop on this subject at a later time because my blog is now traveling in India.
But it seems to me airlines using Delhi International airport should try to recover losses from fog days. When international passenger and air cargo carriers deliver a blow to the Delhi civil aviation government pocketbook, that maybe (I'm not holding my breath even in the unacceptable Chennai air while writing this entry), when Delhi bureaucrats may shake off their own lethargy (which is not fog -induced), and they may perhaps sit up and take notice.
The failure of Delhi to invest in mass public transit has directly contributed to the air pollution that produces the toxic cocktail called Delhi Fog
An ethical democracy has to protect its vulnerable citizens against toxic pollutants.
Why? Because fog in Delhi is not a naturally occurring phenomenon. It is a direct byproduct of unrestricted unregulated air pollution.
Isn't Delhi Pachauri's backyard? What is TERI doing about this costly mess?
I have more thought to develop on this subject at a later time because my blog is now traveling in India.
But it seems to me airlines using Delhi International airport should try to recover losses from fog days. When international passenger and air cargo carriers deliver a blow to the Delhi civil aviation government pocketbook, that maybe (I'm not holding my breath even in the unacceptable Chennai air while writing this entry), when Delhi bureaucrats may shake off their own lethargy (which is not fog -induced), and they may perhaps sit up and take notice.
The failure of Delhi to invest in mass public transit has directly contributed to the air pollution that produces the toxic cocktail called Delhi Fog
An ethical democracy has to protect its vulnerable citizens against toxic pollutants.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
A Bigger & Better State Department Under Clinton?
NYTimes copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/us/politics/23diplo.html
My Comment #155 on NYTimes
December 23, 2008 11:42 am
Link
http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/12/23/us/politics/23diplo.html?s=1&pg=7
Will a bigger budget and and a more expanded role for State mean a substantive reordering of US foreign policy priorities?
It should cost LESS not more to pull out rather than continue to occupy Iraq; have Israel and the Palestinians work it out between themselves; India and Pakistan are fully capable of developing relations between their nation-states; let Afghanistan manage its own affairs, messy though they might be for some time.
And don't start any new budget-busting conflicts, please.
Defense! Defense! Does not mean going on the offense.
NYTimes readers and posters and everybody else will have to work overtime to keep this new administration focused on making the nation safe, with integrity.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://www.EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
— EthicalDemocracy, New York, NY
=====================================================================================
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/23/us/politics/23diplo.html
My Comment #155 on NYTimes
December 23, 2008 11:42 am
Link
http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/12/23/us/politics/23diplo.html?s=1&pg=7
Will a bigger budget and and a more expanded role for State mean a substantive reordering of US foreign policy priorities?
It should cost LESS not more to pull out rather than continue to occupy Iraq; have Israel and the Palestinians work it out between themselves; India and Pakistan are fully capable of developing relations between their nation-states; let Afghanistan manage its own affairs, messy though they might be for some time.
And don't start any new budget-busting conflicts, please.
Defense! Defense! Does not mean going on the offense.
NYTimes readers and posters and everybody else will have to work overtime to keep this new administration focused on making the nation safe, with integrity.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://www.EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
— EthicalDemocracy, New York, NY
=====================================================================================
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Shoe-ing Bush Out Of Office
Bombing is so passe. Will shoe throwing replace bombing as device du jour?
That relief is urgently needed by a weary and wary polity especially in South Asia and West Asia.
Civil society, on the path to building discursive democracy, cannot possibly accept the throwing of shoes as appropriate and effective political strategy. Instead, we can choose to talk; listen; speak out; protest peacefully non-violently; take legal action; vote; approach our elected representatives; persist and persuade; speak and perform Truth to Power until progress towards the Greater Collective Good (GCG), becomes real and enduring.
Yet, the shoe as powerful political projectile has caught the popular imagination.
Why?
Because in the faltering progress towards civil society and discursive democracy, the flung shoe has to be particularized and contextualized:
Where did the shoe-throwing occur?
By whom?
At whom?
At what event?
What was accomplished?
At a press conference, Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi, reportedly called the visiting US president and author of militarism against Iraq, "a dog" (a disparagement of our wonderful canine friends) before throwing both his shoes one after the other, at him. Bush displayed his reflexes by ducking them in time. The journalist was wrestled to the ground by security and is now in police custody, without an announced release date.
Most concerned persons know the answers to the above critical-thinking questions.
My immediate sense is flinging footwear is perhaps going to catch on in the US and elsewhere. Just yesterday an elderly, disgruntled subway transit rider bent down and attempted to remove his shoe for the ostensible purpose of throwing it at Metropolitan Transit Authority executives at a public hearing in my city. He was immediately removed by NYC cops.
Shoe-throwing, or at the very least, the shoe as political dissent metaphor, may become part of the idiom of resistance against seemingly intractable forces of U.S. militaristic and now criminally irresponsible financial opportunism.
How aptly ironic.
The American electorate (of which I am one but as a vigorous dissenter against US hegemony) and their elected representatives in Congress, who bear responsibility for supporting the invasion and occupation of Iraq will hopefully be joining hands, some time in the not too distant future, with their Iraqi victims.
That moment of recognition of a common humanity and common aspirations cannot come a moment too soon. The shoe is now on the other foot. Exit from Iraq, Reparations for Iraq.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
Comment #36.
December 22, 2008 10:39 am
Link
These are Two Shoes for Dignity.
We have to speak Truth to Power. Occasionally, as in this case, especially when the marauding superpower just doesn't get it, we have to perform Truth to Power.
The US has a long way to go, especially after these last eight years, before it can dare to lecture anyone, anywhere, about Democracy.
The journalist was discourteous. But the US is criminal.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy as Lived Practice
http://www.EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
— EthicalDemocracy, New York, NY
by 2 Readers
=======================================================================================
NYTimes copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/22/opinion/22cohen.html
http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/12/22/opinion/22cohen.html?s=1&pg=2
=====================================================================================
CNN copyright:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/19/zakaria.iraqshoes/index.html
=====================================================================================
AP copyright
Iraqi shoe thrower released; says he was tortured
09/15/2009 3:46:23 AM
By HAMZA HENDAWI Associated Press Writer
The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at former President George W. Bush was released Tuesday after nine months in prison, and he said Iraqi security forces tortured him with beatings, whippings and electric shocks after his arrest.
Muntadhar al-Zeidi, whose stunning act of protest last December made him a hero around the Arab and Muslim worlds, said he now feared for his life and believed that U.S. intelligence agents would chase after him.
"These fearful services, the U.S. intelligence services and its affiliated services, will spare no efforts to track me as an insurgent revolutionary ... in a bid to kill me," he told a news conference at the TV station where he works.
"And here I want to warn all my relatives and people close to me that these services will use all means to trap and try to kill and liquidate me either physically, socially or professionally," he said.
The 30-year-old reporter's act of protest deeply embarrassed Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who was standing beside Bush at a Dec. 14 news conference when al-Zeidi suddenly shot up from his chair had hurled his shoes toward the podium.
Bush, who was on his final visit to Iraq as American president, was unhurt but had to duck twice to avoid being hit.
Al-Zeidi was wrestled to the ground by journalists and al-Maliki's security men.
The reporter said Tuesday that he was abused immediately after his arrest and the following day. He said he was beaten with iron bars, whipped with cords and was electrocuted in the backyard of the building in the Green Zone where the news conference was held.
"In the morning, I was left in the cold weather after they splashed me with water," he said.
He promised to reveal the names of senior officials in the Iraqi government and army who he said were involved in mistreating him.
He explained that his actions were motivated by the U.S. occupation and said that while he is now free, his country is still "held captive."
"Simply put, what incited me toward confrontation is the oppression that fell upon my people and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by placing it under its boots," he said.
That relief is urgently needed by a weary and wary polity especially in South Asia and West Asia.
Civil society, on the path to building discursive democracy, cannot possibly accept the throwing of shoes as appropriate and effective political strategy. Instead, we can choose to talk; listen; speak out; protest peacefully non-violently; take legal action; vote; approach our elected representatives; persist and persuade; speak and perform Truth to Power until progress towards the Greater Collective Good (GCG), becomes real and enduring.
Yet, the shoe as powerful political projectile has caught the popular imagination.
Why?
Because in the faltering progress towards civil society and discursive democracy, the flung shoe has to be particularized and contextualized:
Where did the shoe-throwing occur?
By whom?
At whom?
At what event?
What was accomplished?
At a press conference, Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zaidi, reportedly called the visiting US president and author of militarism against Iraq, "a dog" (a disparagement of our wonderful canine friends) before throwing both his shoes one after the other, at him. Bush displayed his reflexes by ducking them in time. The journalist was wrestled to the ground by security and is now in police custody, without an announced release date.
Most concerned persons know the answers to the above critical-thinking questions.
My immediate sense is flinging footwear is perhaps going to catch on in the US and elsewhere. Just yesterday an elderly, disgruntled subway transit rider bent down and attempted to remove his shoe for the ostensible purpose of throwing it at Metropolitan Transit Authority executives at a public hearing in my city. He was immediately removed by NYC cops.
Shoe-throwing, or at the very least, the shoe as political dissent metaphor, may become part of the idiom of resistance against seemingly intractable forces of U.S. militaristic and now criminally irresponsible financial opportunism.
How aptly ironic.
The American electorate (of which I am one but as a vigorous dissenter against US hegemony) and their elected representatives in Congress, who bear responsibility for supporting the invasion and occupation of Iraq will hopefully be joining hands, some time in the not too distant future, with their Iraqi victims.
That moment of recognition of a common humanity and common aspirations cannot come a moment too soon. The shoe is now on the other foot. Exit from Iraq, Reparations for Iraq.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy As Lived Practice
http://EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
Comment #36.
December 22, 2008 10:39 am
Link
These are Two Shoes for Dignity.
We have to speak Truth to Power. Occasionally, as in this case, especially when the marauding superpower just doesn't get it, we have to perform Truth to Power.
The US has a long way to go, especially after these last eight years, before it can dare to lecture anyone, anywhere, about Democracy.
The journalist was discourteous. But the US is criminal.
Chithra KarunaKaran
Ethical Democracy as Lived Practice
http://www.EthicalDemocracy.blogspot.com
— EthicalDemocracy, New York, NY
by 2 Readers
=======================================================================================
NYTimes copyright
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/22/opinion/22cohen.html
http://community.nytimes.com/article/comments/2008/12/22/opinion/22cohen.html?s=1&pg=2
=====================================================================================
CNN copyright:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/19/zakaria.iraqshoes/index.html
=====================================================================================
AP copyright
Iraqi shoe thrower released; says he was tortured
09/15/2009 3:46:23 AM
By HAMZA HENDAWI Associated Press Writer
The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at former President George W. Bush was released Tuesday after nine months in prison, and he said Iraqi security forces tortured him with beatings, whippings and electric shocks after his arrest.
Muntadhar al-Zeidi, whose stunning act of protest last December made him a hero around the Arab and Muslim worlds, said he now feared for his life and believed that U.S. intelligence agents would chase after him.
"These fearful services, the U.S. intelligence services and its affiliated services, will spare no efforts to track me as an insurgent revolutionary ... in a bid to kill me," he told a news conference at the TV station where he works.
"And here I want to warn all my relatives and people close to me that these services will use all means to trap and try to kill and liquidate me either physically, socially or professionally," he said.
The 30-year-old reporter's act of protest deeply embarrassed Iraq's prime minister, Nouri al-Maliki, who was standing beside Bush at a Dec. 14 news conference when al-Zeidi suddenly shot up from his chair had hurled his shoes toward the podium.
Bush, who was on his final visit to Iraq as American president, was unhurt but had to duck twice to avoid being hit.
Al-Zeidi was wrestled to the ground by journalists and al-Maliki's security men.
The reporter said Tuesday that he was abused immediately after his arrest and the following day. He said he was beaten with iron bars, whipped with cords and was electrocuted in the backyard of the building in the Green Zone where the news conference was held.
"In the morning, I was left in the cold weather after they splashed me with water," he said.
He promised to reveal the names of senior officials in the Iraqi government and army who he said were involved in mistreating him.
He explained that his actions were motivated by the U.S. occupation and said that while he is now free, his country is still "held captive."
"Simply put, what incited me toward confrontation is the oppression that fell upon my people and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by placing it under its boots," he said.
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