Unsolicited opinions

This week's essay is not about Spain, but a couple of other conflicts that affect all of us. I probably don't know any more about them than you do, but we have to try to find out enough to orient our responses or we'll all fall prey to the demagogues. These opinions are not political positions but are tentative, hypotheses open to revision in the light of new information or a logical rebuttal.

Tibet, China and the West
Have the Chinese "invaded" Tibet and are they oppressing the Tibetans, somewhat like the Americans in Iraq? I've read claims that the Chinese population now greatly outnumbers the ethnic Tibetan population of Tibet due to deliberate population transfer by Peking. ("Chinese" in this context means mainly Chinese-speaking Han, though Mongol, Uighur or other non-Tibetan Chinese are also in the region.) First, I doubt that this is true; most sources state that over 90% of the region's overwhelmingly rural population is Tibetan, though Han may be more numerous in specific urban areas. Second, even if it were true, I don't see how uncoerced labor migration, whether or not encouraged by the government, could be offensive to human rights.

We've also seen calls for negotiation by Peking with the Dalai Lama, billed as the "spiritual leader" of the Tibetans. Anybody who allows anybody else to lead his or her "spirit" --Pope, Patriarch, Grand Rabbi, Ayatollah, Lama or shaman -- has to that extent given up a claim to personal, responsible citizenship. I have no way of knowing how many of the monks protesting in Lhasa have truly surrendered their will to that distant, exiled figure; I suspect that the ringleaders among them are just using him as they would a flag, to rally people around their own chosen cause.

My conclusions: I think what motivates the protests is panic in the face of inevitable and necessary social change. Tibet is being forced into the modern world, of which the Han immigrants are willy nilly representatives. And those adventurous Han, struggling to make a decent living (as they understand it) in a strange land, are the first victims. Probably -- almost certainly -- the police have overreacted to the protesters, because that's what frightened policemen do.

Boycotting the Olympics won't do anybody any good. And demanding Tibetan independence of China is just loony -- it can't happen now, or probably for a very long time, and wouldn't do the Tibetans any good. The only way even its advocates conceive it is as another state run by a religious institution, and we have enough of those to deal with. That's something people are still trying to get free of here in Spain.

Encouraging Peking authorities to negotiate with a committee of the protesters there in the country is probably a good idea -- not with the Dalai Lama or any other exile group claiming jurisdiction over people who never elected them.

Some sources I found helpful:
Tibet’s history, China’s power by George Fitzherbert, Open Democracy
Tibet's Population Put at 2.84 Mln in Gov't Survey, All-China Women's Federation
How many ethnic Chinese live in Tibet (population transfer)?, TULARC
Tibet's Economy Depends on Beijing, by Anthony Kuhn, NPR

Victory in Iraq?
The problem with Petraeus' promise of eventual victory in Iraq is that, as he conceives it, it is not a victory of American values and it certainly is not a victory for Iraq. What he's talking about is a victory for the American Armed Forces as an institution. He and Bush want to postpone the embarrassment of televised defeat, and are willing to sacrifice thousands more Iraqi and U.S. bodies so that the brass and pols can save face.

The only argument against U.S. withdrawal is that we would leave the country in a bloody chaos. As though that weren't what our troops have created. So they should stay there and be part of that horrible bloody chaos? Just get out! There is no good solution, no clear way to reduce the violence without killing all the potential killers, i.e., producing more violence. Our military presence is the defeat of American values -- “liberty and justice for all" -- and a costly delay of victory for and by Iraqis.

This week in Spain

Cartoon by Peridis, El País 5 Oct. 2007

The fallout from "Crawford"
José María Aznar (the mustachioed face above) must have been really stung by the revelations of his private conversations with George Bush, in Crawford, Texas, on 22 Feb. 2003, just before Bush launched his "Operation Iraqi Freedom" -- transcripts that showed that he knew Bush had made the decision to invade, even while he was claiming that he and Bush and Blair were still seeking a diplomatic solution. The transcripts were unearthed by a British lawyer who passed them on to El País, which broke the story last Tuesday. (Here's Ernesto Ekaizer's original 25 Sept. front-page article, accompanied by a wonderfully goofy photo of Aznar being petted by Bush.)

The Crawford transcripts compound an enduring embarrassment to Aznar's Partido Popular, the party's responsibility for dragging the country into an unpopular and disastrous war. This famous photo of the Azores meeting with Blair, Bush and Aznar grinning about the easy victory they expected in Iraq is republished every time the Partido Popular tries to duck responsibility.

But Aznar is far from repentant. Just yesterday he delivered what El País describes as "un furibundo discurso", a hellfire and damnation tirade against the now-governing socialists and President José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero in particular, for "rustling through old files to find something diffamatory." Wow! Most amazing, he condemns Zapatero for getting Spain out of Iraq and ending Spain's lapdog subservience to U.S. policy. According to him, Zapatero has taken Spain out of the front ranks of international diplomacy, relegating it "once again to the corner of those countries that don't matter, the club of irrelevant countries." And this man (Aznar) presents himself as a Spanish patriot, defending Spain's integrity and sovereignty. But not, apparently, its independence.

Conflicting nationalisms
Lots of media space has been taken up by some very minor and silly outbursts in Catalonia (the burning of photographs of King Juan Carlos I by young men demanding Catalonian independence) and some potentially more serious confrontations in the Basque country, consisting of threats to the mayoress and a refusal to allow the national flag to be flown at city hall in one small Basque town where nationalists claim to belong to another, non-Spanish country. These smaller nationalisms (Basque, Catalonian, Galician -- and there are others in this very diverse country) get harder and more aggressive in reaction to the kind of Spanish patriotism that Aznar and his cronies demand and that the party's current leader, Mariano Rajoy (shown above reclining upon the "rock" of Aznar) constantly reiterates: exclusivist and denying legitimacy to some very deeply felt and long-standing traditions and loyalties to the respective "patrias chicas" (small homelands). The democratic Constitution of 1978 doesn't let the PP go as far as Franco in suppressing them, but the party has organized huge rallies against the proposed revision of Catalonia's statute of autonomy. This attitude drives many Catalans and Basques, and some Gallegos and other national groups, up their respective walls. And the predictable, if regrettable, aggressive outbursts by Catalans, in their ways, and Basques in other ways, are magnified by the PP to claim that, under the Socialists, "Spain is breaking apart." As though it were any more together when Aznar governed.

Pending issues
Many other things have occurred in Spain this week. They include events related to overbuilding, urban corruption and the crisis of the real estate industry; the huge and amazingly stupid opposition of the Catholic Church and its allies to the proposed "Education for Citizenship"; Spain's involvement and casualties in Afghanistan; the struggle over the official "Historical Memory" of the 1936-39 Civil War. But since all these are ongoing issues, I ought to be able to address them in future dispatches.

I'm going to try to put together a summary like this every week. Let me know what you think of it, and what else you'd like to know about regarding Spain.

Hometown Baghdad » Blog Archive » Episode 37 0f 38 - “One of Thousands”

I just watched episode 37, on the death of a beloved uncle at a U.S. Army roadblock. I don't know if I'm ready to suffer the pain of watching the whole series, on the impossible lives of a middle-class Baghdadi family -- several of whose members are fluent in English -- just trying to go about their business and studies in their U.S.-occupied, multiterrorized city. Hometown Baghdad » Blog Archive » Episode 37 0f 38 - “One of Thousands”

The Growing Toll of Iraqi Civilian Deaths

Be sure to read the reader comments on this important article by our good friend César Chelala. And thanks, César, for stimulating this discussion. The Growing Toll of Iraqi Civilian Deaths - CommonDreams.org - Breaking News & Views for the Progressive Community

What might be the consequences of a rapid withdrawal of "coalition" (i.e., U.S. and British) troops? Moise Naím has argued persuasively -- it's an easy argument to make -- there's no way that any amount of U.S. assistance will make the Iraqi government prepared to provide security, so the immediate consequence might be an increase in violence -- though how things could get any worse is hard to imagine. I've been impressed by Zbigniew Brzesinski's argument, repeated in several recent articles: the U.S. military presence is an OBSTACLE to peace, because it relieves the governing faction from the need to negotiate with its foes. If the government has to defend itself, all by itself, it will either come to terms with its many and varied attackers or succumb, in which case the victors may form some new government. Or, most likely, we may see a repeat of the Somali experience, where nobody wins and everybody loses -- that is, no one faction or coalition of factions has the force to conquer.

The U.S. invasion has just compounded the massive errors by previous imperialisms. But here we are: we can't go back and undo any of it, we just have to figure out where we can go from here. Peace in Iraq, whether as a single country or divided into three or more (a very bad idea, it seems to me, but possibly inevitable given the depth of hostility among Kurds and Sunni and Shiite Arabs and Turkomans)--how to achieve it? A first step is to get U.S. & U.K. troops out of there. Negotiated peace will take far more diplomatic skill and sensitivity than the U.S. neocons have so far demonstrated. A coalition force of foreign troops may indeed be needed to assist whatever government(s) emerge. But the first requirement would be NO U.S. or U.K. MILITARY PARTICIPATION. We've demonstrated our massive incompetence and united almost all Iraqis against us.

Act to protect press freedom

Thanks to Daniel del Solar for forwarding this urgent notice from Martha Wallner about this latest effort by the Bush administration to suppress our right to know and reporters' right to report. Martha writers:

Dear friends, I am forwarding this information about a colleague of mine, Sarah Olson. Sarah does excellent reporting for the National Radio Project program “Making Contact” which is heard on community and public radio all around the country.To listen to a program she recently produced on what pregnant women in prison face – go to: radioproject. Please read about Sarah’s case below and if so moved take one or more of the support actions also described below. Thanks, Martha Wallner

***************************************************************************************************

Sarah Olson, a reporter for Truthout received a supoena in December to testify in the court-martial of 1rst Lt. Ehren Watada, the first commissioned officer to refuse deployment to Iraq. The supoena is to compel Olson to testify that Watada made statements against the war to her that the military has deemed conduct unbecoming an officer. Olson objects to testifying and if she doesn’t she risks 6 mos. in jail (unlike civilian grand juries which can hold you up to 18 mos.) Dahr Jamail, who blogs and reports on Iraq, and who you may have heard on Democracy Now! is also on the witness list although he has not been subpoenaed. He recorded a speech Watada gave to a Iraq Veterans Against the War conference and posted it on the web.

At this juncture, Olson is in urgent need of support, please see below for details.

To read her full interview with Lt. Watada

In a statement explaining why she will not testify, Olson points out that,

“It seems clear that the U.S. Army is attempting to redefine the parameters of acceptable speech and to classify dissent as a punishable offense. Subpoenaing journalists in this case unequivocally sends the message that dissent is neither tolerated nor permitted. Utilize your constitutionally guaranteed speech rights and go to prison. What rational soldier would agree to speak with me or any other member of the media if jail was a likely result?

When the press cannot or does not reflect the vibrant and varied perspectives within our society, it is reduced to a simple transcriber of government press releases. The record of existing dissent is erased, and a dumbed-down, homogenized version of “The American Experience” is all that’s left in its place.”

There is now a website set up to cover Olson’s case where you can learn more and make donations to help defray her legal costs. Olson is also asking people to send letters to the commanding general at Ft. Lewis and to Robert Gates. The addresses are:

Lt. Gen. James Dubik
Commanding General
Fort Lewis and I Corps
Bldg 2025 Stop 1
Fort Lewis WA 98433


Honorable Robert Gates
Secretary of Defense
1000 Defense Pentagon
Washington DC 20301


Finally, Olson is asking for signatures on the following statement:

We, the undersigned journalists, academics, artists and citizens, object to the Army’s decision to subpoena independent journalist and radio producer Sarah Olson and Honolulu Star Bulletin reporter Greg Kakesako, to testify in the court-martial of 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, the first officer to publicly refuse to deploy to Iraq. We are further disturbed by the Army’s decision to add independent journalist Dahr Jamail and videographer Sari Gelzer to the prosecution’s witness list.

It’s a journalist’s job to report the news, not to participate in government prosecutions of political speech. The press cannot function if it is used by the government, and hauling a journalist into a military court erodes the separation between government and press. Turning reporters into the investigative arm of the government subverts press freedoms and chills
dissenting speech in the United States. The press must preserve its ability to cover all aspects of a debate, not just the perspectives popular with the current administration. We believe a journalist’s duty is to the public and their right to know, not to the government.

In the name of the cornerstone values this nation claims to uphold and for which the men and women in the military are fighting, we ask that you to end your insistence that journalists participate in the court-martial of Lt. Watada. We need more information, participation, and debate – inside and outside the military – not less. As the LA Times argued in its January 8th editorial: “It’s time for the Army to back off.”

You can sign the statement by sending an email to Sarah Olson at solson75@yahoo.com indicating your support. Very important–do this TODAY, Sarah needs these letters by Jan. 19th!

For more information and to support Olson and Jamail

For more information on the case of Lt. Ehren Watada
#30

Daniel del Solar
e-mail solarmedia@hotmail.com
cell 510 290 3022

IF you WANT PEACE work for JUSTICE

How Lancet calculated Iraqi death toll

As a sociologist, I say the methodology looks pretty solid to me. Here´s how The Lancet determined that 655,000 Iraqis, over and above the normal death rate for the country, have died as a result of the U.S.-British invasion and its consequences. That´s 20 times as many as Bush is willing to acknowledge. But, alas, it's a very credible figure. "More deadly than Saddam," by Gwynne Dyer The Japan Times Online Articles

Iraq Through a Rebel's Eyes

À propos of my comment below about insurgent "terrorists" in the American Revolution, here's a more developed argument:

"Thomas Jefferson was a rebel, as so many of his comments demonstrated. He also was a gun enthusiast, and not the bird-shooting kind. His gang of insurgents fought the British with the eighteenth century equivalents of assault rifles, RPGs, and roadside bombs — and that is why they are worth recalling when our conversation turns to Iraq." Iraq Through a Rebel's Eyes

Victory in Washington, chaos in Iraq

Our way of keeping up with images of the war has been to watch Univisión (Jorge Ramos talking mostly about himself & his great adventures, but Héctor Guzmán and especially Pavolovic, in Baghdad for the duration, were fine & informative); then we switch to Le Journal, for the French view. (They have subtitles to aid my shaky French.) Le Journal is hardly radical, but it is different from the US take. The French continue indignant about US violations of international law: according to the Geneva Convention, they point out, the occupying power has certain responsibilities to, at least, keep the mobs from sacking and destroying hospitals. But it's total chaos now, with Saddam gone & no other police. But appeals to international law are fruitless with the Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush gang. They are the law. So the only way we are going to be able to turn the enormous force of the United States toward constructive purposes is not by opposing it with the UN, the EU or NATO, but from here, within. We have to take back control of our country. It'll be tough: they stole the last election, but this time, given the triumphalist furor, they may actually win it. But we can't let them win everything. Congressional races, etc., and popular movements are going to be even more important. Well, this is all fresh, and my ideas are not entirely clear yet, but that's what's on my mind right now.

I'm sorry, but the chick was in the way

This must be remembered, long after the smashing of Iraq has ceased.

In yesterday's NYT (Saturday, March 29, 2003), Dexter Filkins reports a conversation with two American Marine sharpshooters, Sgt. Eric Schrumpf, 28, and Cpl. Mikael McIntosh, 20, at their base camp in southern Iraq.

"We had a great day," Sergeant Schrumpf said. "We killed a lot of people."

Both Marines said they were most frustrated by the practice of some Iraqi soldiers to use unarmed women and children as shields against American bullets. They called the tactic cowardly but agreed that it had been effective.

Sgt. Schrumpf tells of seeing an Iraqi soldier standing near some women, and with other men in his unit, opening fire. He saw one of the women "go down."

"I'm sorry," the sergeant said. "But the chick was in the way."

Cowardly soldiers, or heroic women? We have seen them before, shielding their men with their bodies against Ulster Constabulary in Northern Ireland, against the National Guard in the Colorado mine strikes of the 1920s, against the French in Algiers in the 1950s, against American soldiers in Vietnam, and many other places. We are bound to see them again. The chicks and the mamasans and the kids keep getting in the way.

Union resolutions opposing war on Iraq

The National Writers Union is currently debating whether to adopt a resolution against attacking Iraq similar to those already adopted by unions in the coalition Labor Against War. The one passed by New York City's CWA Local 1180 pretty much expresses my views. Saddam is awful, but a massive military attack like the one the US launched on Afghanistan is a reckless and very dangerous way to try to get rid of him. His regime is part of a much wider problem, and unless the US can develop a comprehensive policy for the whole Middle East, including the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and do it in concert with allies in the region and beyond it, we're likely to do more harm than good -- and to cause the deaths of great numbers of people who are no threat to us.

Meanwhile, here's info on the Not In Our Name demo at the UN tomorrow, January 27.

anti-war demo

Big anti-war demo in San Francisco

This is a photo-free weblog. Not because I like it that way especially, but because I haven't learned how to load photos. But do go see this handsome composition, Everything is at Stake, and other photos taken by Daniel del Solar at Saturday's big demo in San Francisco.

Changing history

Kate Coe wrote me today to point out an error in my note on Ralph Lauren and Jay Gatsby (actually a note about a witty article by Cathy Horyn in the NYT). I had written, "It seems that Ralph, not a noted reader, saw the 1974 movie and liked the clothes." (You'll have to click the "Archive" link to the left to find it; it was way back on Jan. 12.) I wasn't paying close enough attention when I read the article. As Kate points out, and Cathy Horyn had made clear, Ralph designed the clothes for the male leads in the 1974 movie.

I thought I could go back and correct it, and it looked like I could. "Blogger" let me open the old note, edit it and republish. But when I looked in the archive, it was still the original text, with its glaring error. I'm glad. Otherwise, we could be going back and back, never admitting to any error. It would be tempting to go back and insert prophecies of things that had already happened.

Speaking of prophecies, Andreas Ramos predicts that the attack on Iraq will come on the night of February 1, regardless of anything the UN or Saddam might do. The reason: It will be the first available moonless night, closely following Bush's Jan. 27 speech, and the air force will prefer bombing on a moonless night. GWB won't want to wait for the next one, March 3, because the desert will be too warm and the issue might be too cold. (Andreas has been fooling around with his astronomy software. He's also been looking at the weather reports in Dante's Inferno, to see if conditions were really as he reported them on those dates. So far, he says, they check out.)

Peace mongering

Today's NYT article on the anti-Iraq war movement would have been much more useful if it contained links to the sites mentioned: Move On; True Majority, and a coalition of church organizations (which the NYT calls "the most mainstream"), Win Without War, and the self-explanatory Business Leaders for Sensible Priorities.

Understanding Iraq

Literature is most direct way I know to experience another life. Before we bomb the country to smithereens, I'd like to understand some things about Iraq, but I haven't found much to help me. From a one-page website on Iraq Arts and Culture: "Dhu al-Nun (b. 1918) is considered a pioneer of modern Iraqi fiction. His novel Al-Duktur Ibrahim is an Iraqi classic. Other well-known writers are poets Muhammad Mehdi El Jawahiri, Wafaa' Abdul Razak and Lamia Abbas Amara." That's good to know, but are these works available anywhere in English? So far the only Iraqi fiction I've located is an anthology, Nancy E. Berg (ed.),�1996, Exile from Exile: Israeli Writers from Iraq. Recommendations welcome--please hit the "Contact" link to the left.

Iraq: The coming non-war against a non-enemy

Just so you don't think this blog is all Venezuela all the time, we are also aware of the criminal stupidity the White House is directing toward Iraq. Thanks to journalist and media savant Daniel del Solar for forwarding this wonderfully clear and irrefutable argument, Happy Imbeciles At War, by Mark Morford. Daniel writes, "happy, mindless cretins move towards war, waste scarce planetary resources and threaten to poison a significant portion of the earth in the course of a "war" to test new war toys and annex East Texas (aka Iraq) happy new year (dont forget to march on January 18th)."

Gulf War II

This is all that needs to be said. For an alternative view, see this lovely site, "Faces of Iraq."