I recently came across this Anime from a friend’s facebook account. According to the wikipedia article the show is based off a manga comic that satirises politics with mahjong games used to decide international relations.
It’s completely barmy as you can imagine.
Some of the touches, like Kim Jong Il’s son having ‘mickey mouse’ ears are nice nods to real world events and definitely add to the strangeness of the episodes. Anyway, I’ve put up what I can find off youtube so enjoy: Continue Reading »
Fantastic article on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict by Hussein Agha and Robert Malley about why most of the talk about a ‘two-state’/'single state’/other solution to the conflict remains just talk and the current ‘solutions’ are not really such. The whole article is worth a read but the real core of it comes when talking about the current negotiations and the two state solution which is their foundation:
The problem was built into the structure of the negotiations. It is only a slight exaggeration to describe them as a confidence game, a tacit understanding by all sides to elude the historic core of the matter through disingenuous ambiguity. Palestinians hoped they could achieve their goals even as they persisted in denying the Jewish people’s entitlement to even part of the land; Israelis trusted that if they granted Palestinians some kind of state the whole problem would fade away. The US assumed the role of a willing participant. Others, Europeans included, lazily followed.
Failure to deal with basic issues guaranteed their reemergence whenever the parties inched closer to a deal and recoiled from the implications of that last, fateful step. Then what had been obscured came into fuller view, namely that Palestinians were not truly prepared to stipulate that the conflict has been terminated and all claims set aside solely in exchange for an end to the occupation, and that Israel was not prepared to end its occupation in exchange for less.
Establishing two states would resolve the occupation, but that is only one aspect, albeit an important one, of a problem that arose decades before the occupation began. An Israeli leader will be loath to relinquish territory and permit the emergence of an indisputably sovereign Palestinian state at least as long as suspicion lingers that Palestinians have not genuinely made their peace with the new reality, that they are biding their time, and that a future of renewed strife lies in store.
In turn, a Palestinian leader cannot credibly proclaim that the conflict has come to a close if the solution ignores the genesis of the Palestinian plight and the historic core of its national cause. To adopt such a stand would be tantamount to conceding that the refugees—who make up a majority of the Palestinian population, were once its political vanguard, and could well regain that position—had waged six decades of struggle by mistake and endured six decades of suffering in vain. Internal challenges to such an arrangement might not be immediate. But they would be certain and severe, laying bare the fragility of a supposedly historic accord(my emphasis).
Not sure what to make of the writers ideas about either resurrecting the peace process as a version of ‘greater Jordan’ or going back even further to 1948 instead of 1967 and trying to sort things out from there. On the ’1948 plan’ (as it were) I have to admit that I would wonder whether any peace would by default not solve the ’1948 problem’ (something the authors themselves seem to recognise). While they try to suggest that the focus on 1967 has ignored the underlying causes of the conflict that existed in 1948, surely those remained the same leading up to 1967 and any solution on that front will be default solve the 1948 problems?
Regardless, its still worth a look and hopefully on a personal note, blogging will resume on a more regular schedule soon.
Really good article here on how the media has taken incredible power without responsibility in terms of its ability to critique and question without having to deal with the ‘reality’ of governance and how this ‘morality’ can often undermine ‘good’ policies. Though I think the author is perhaps a little bit too harsh, and possibly overstates his case he has some good points and he article is well worth a read regardless.
This point on the mixture between the media’s moralizing and its effects on policy gives a good example:
Because the media confuse victimization with moral right, American troops in Iraq have had occasionally to contend with unsympathetic news coverage, which in an age of mass media has concrete tactical and strategic consequences. Last spring, I accompanied the first United States Marines into Fallujah. After several days of intense fighting, the Marines — reinforced with a fresh new battalion — appeared on the verge of defeating the insurgents. A cease-fire was called, though, snatching defeat from victory. No matter how cleanly the Marines fought, it was not clean enough for the global media, famously including Al-Jazeera, which portrayed as indiscriminate killing what in previous eras of war would have constituted a low civilian casualty rate. The fact that mosques were blatantly used by insurgents as command posts for aggressive military operations mattered less to journalists than that some of these mosques were targeted by U.S. planes. Had the fighting continued, the political fallout from such coverage would have forced the newly emerging Iraqi authorities to resign en masse. So American officials had no choice but to undermine their own increasingly favorable battlefield position by consenting to a cease-fire. While U.S. policy was guilty of incoherence — ordering a full-scale assault only to call it off — the Marines were defeated less by the insurgents than by the way urban combat is covered by a global media that has embraced the cult of victimhood.
Interesting (if biased) post on the current conservative movement placing the ‘birthers’ and their ilk in some historical context:
So the birthers, the anti-tax tea-partiers, the town hall hecklers — these are “either” the genuine grass roots or evil conspirators staging scenes for YouTube? The quiver on the lips of the man pushing the wheelchair, the crazed risk of carrying a pistol around a president — too heartfelt to be an act. The lockstep strangeness of the mad lies on the protesters’ signs — too uniform to be spontaneous. They are both. If you don’t understand that any moment of genuine political change always produces both, you can’t understand America, where the crazy tree blooms in every moment of liberal ascendancy, and where elites exploit the crazy for their own narrow interests.
In the early 1950s, Republicans referred to the presidencies of Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman as “20 years of treason” and accused the men who led the fight against fascism of deliberately surrendering the free world to communism. Mainline Protestants published a new translation of the Bible in the 1950s that properly rendered the Greek as connoting a more ambiguous theological status for the Virgin Mary; right-wingers attributed that to, yes, the hand of Soviet agents. And Vice President Richard Nixon claimed that the new Republicans arriving in the White House “found in the files a blueprint for socializing America.”
.. Is the fascinating headline from this foreign policy article. As you can probably guess from my other articles on the topic, I’m quite interested in the idea that military power (at least in terms of the ‘West’) can/is becoming more based on drones/remote power that is both cheaper and less intensive with regards to manpower. For example the article notes that
According to the Government Accountability Office, $24.5 million will purchase a set of four MQ-9 Reaper hunter-killer drones plus a ground station and satellite relay (while) .. The latest guess of the price for a single F-35 fighter-bomber is $100 million.
When the same article notes that one man can run four drones at the same time, this differential in manpower and price becomes obvious. Though as in pointed out in the other article I linked to, what such a difference in risk to your own soldiers means in terms of Western nations willingness to go to war is anybody’s guess.
Anyway, the foreign policy article has some interesting notes about Afghanistan, including the suggestion that current military planners are looking at the wrong lessons from history and should instead be looking at periods of ‘peace’ (relatively) in Afghanistan, rather than the British / Russian invasions…. All worth a look.
Just one of the things that U.S soldiers have thought Afghan children to say in this Liveleak video:
On one hand, its hard not to appreciate the frustration of (mostly) younger men stuck in the position these guys are in, but somehow, I doubt the U.S media handlers for the army appreciates this sort of thing….
Given Sarah Palin’s recent ‘I’m retiring… or am I?‘ presence in the news, I posted a twitter comment that covered my feelings in a somewhat tongue-in-cheek, if also honest manner. To quote:
Sarah Palin is gone! Woot! Tho now I’m worried that she’ll come back as a zombie politician…
Following this, I was asked on my facebook later why it is that I ‘hated’ the woman, with the same person also saying that he could not understand why so many people had such vehement hatred for her. But here’s the thing. I don’t hate Sarah Palin. I have problems with her politics as a general rule, and and as I said when she first appeared on the scene , I don’t believe that she’s the ‘maverick’ or ‘political genius’ that’s she’s been made out to be, but I will admit I find her commitment to her family and her pro-life beliefs to be an admirable characteristic at least.
Saying all of that though, brings me to the problem I have with her. Which isn’t really a problem with her, but rather with the narrative that exists around her.
(Full disclosure, I’m writing this post largely off my experience of two particular people I know who are strong Republican/Palin supporters, but I’m also trying to use my experience of what Republican followers seem to say anyway)
In this narrative, Sarah Palin is an honest, knowledgeable, hard-working politician who would have been a perfect Vice-President (and later in the narrative great future President) who, despite having as much, if not more ‘experience’ than Barack Obama, was not seen as a credible candidate with the reasons for this being either
A) That she was unfairly beaten down by the ‘Liberal (sneer when you say it for full effect) Media’
B) That she wasn’t given a fair shake because ‘Barack’s Black’ and he wasn’t questioned on things by a biased media/political class
C) Both of the above
D) She’s a woman
Etc.
And the thing is, this narrative continues. What bugs me about this, is that it’s not based on any objective facts. For example, was Palin given a hard time with regards to her CV? Yes. But in fairness, when the best Fox could come up with for her foreign policy skills was ‘she can see Russia from Alaska’ (see bottom of the linked post), what do you expect? Had John McCain even tried to run a campaign of two halves saying: ‘I’ll handle the International ‘stuff’, the VP is here for domestic’, the effect still would have been the same, as really the main thing Palin had was that she was doing an ‘ok’ job as a first term Governor. However, that is not a ringing endorsement for such a major job as Vice-President especially given that Palin really had no major strength’s as a domestic politician either.
Now, did Barack Obama have a CV that was as (if not even more) empty? Yes. Probably. But, and it’s a pretty big ‘but’, he managed to avoid gaffs like the Couric Interview and for the most part seemed to have the presence and knowledge that would be required for a national leader. I mean compare these:
I mean, interviews where Palin came across looking like she had no idea what she was talking about, where she can’t answer questions that really should be answerable by somebody running for the second most powerful job in the world do not exactly inspire confidence. And her attempts didn’t inspire confidence when you look at the results of the U.S election.
Now what about the points A, B and C? Firstly the ‘liberal media’ point.. This is a point I have never understood. Essentially it seems to be that any media that makes the case for liberal politics, or questions the Republican ‘view’ or even just asks questions is ‘liberal’. To a large extent it seems to be simply part of the persecution complex of many Republican politicians. I mean, look at this quote from the BBC article on Palin’s resignation:
At the same time, she said the response in the media to her surprise announcement was “most predictable” and “detached from the live of ordinary Americans”.
“How sad that Washington and the media will never understand; it’s about country,” Mrs Palin wrote.
“Detached from the live (sic) of ordinary Americans”? What does that even mean? That ALL of the American news coverage of her has ‘attacked’ her on some level? Surely asking why a person resigns before the end of her term is a legitimate question?
B – the ‘Barack got an easy time of things because he’s a Black Man’ line. I’ve seen (otherwise sensible) people seriously use this argument which generally seems to run something to the effect of ‘Liberal guilt meant people elected an incompetent Black Man rather than a competent White Woman/Barack wasn’t asked ‘the hard questions because he’s black/etc.
I think I’ve covered this line pretty well in the rest of the post – but I will ask, if Barack was given such a ‘free ride’ by the ‘Liberal Media’ why couldn’t all the people who voted Republican the previous eight years see through the ‘Liberal bias’ and see how ‘useless’ he was? If he was given such a ‘free ride’, why wasn’t Hilary Clinton able to poke holes in his ‘obvious’ weaknesses?
And what about the coverage of the Jeremiah Wright affair? Essentially, Barack Obama was able to convince people that he not only knew what he was talking about, but that he was a good man capable of leading the United States. These arguments for Palin often seem to end up taking a very ‘anti-democratic’ element as the eventual stance of her supporters is that ‘the people’ ‘didn’t know what they were doing’.
The final, and biggest problem I have with Sarah Palin though, is this. She never pretended to even represent ‘all Americans’, but only those whose world-view was similarly narrow, religious and conservative. Though she eventually apologised for the comments, it is hard to not believe that they reflected pretty accurately the reality of how she viewed a lot of her fellow countrymen (and women).
Personally, I think that people that complain about how Palin was ‘treated’ miss the point. To me, their bitterness over the fact that Barack Obama ran a better campaign, and won a fair election has blinded them to many of Palin’s flaws. A woman who tries to claim that people who bomb abortion clinics AREN’T terrorists, who nearly seems willing to claim that anybody who isn’t a Republican isn’t an American, who runs a campaign that is designed to appeal to a very specific section of the population and who claims that everything negative said about her is down to media bias is NOT a national politician. Rather she is a sectional politician with national coverage.
Do I hate Sarah Palin? No. But I have find it hard to take seriously a woman who still seems to be claiming to have national ambitions, despite seeming to have no interest in educating herself as to international politics. A woman who has resigned from a high-profile (in political terms) Governorship before her term is finished and for no apparent reason. A woman who believes that media coverage that asks questions is ‘biased’ and regards not believing what Republicans tell you as ‘being anti-American’. I don’t believe asking these questions or saying these things are unreasonable, or show ‘hatred’ for the woman.
As I said to my supervisor last week when having a quick meeting about my dissertation, the most unexpected problem I have encountered is not a strictly ‘academic’ one but rather, that the topic itself, namely the Lebanon war of 2006 is quite depressing.
I don’t mean ‘depressing’ in a sort of existentialist way of ‘war is hell’ or ‘why can’t people just get along’ sense, but rather that I’m finding it very hard to read about many of the (mostly Israeli) actions that have tremendous human impact and the general human suffering involved, and either maintain some feeling of objectivity and, more importantly (at least for my personal sanity) do not leave me with an unhelpful feeling of anger or disgust directed at the Israeli state..
In many ways this feeling come from several different areas.. Which for my own health and sanity I want to break down to see if I can make sense of the constituent parts:
For starters, I am not exactly what you would call pro-Israel. I generally believe that the Israeli state is sectarian, racist and generally quite unpleasant in its dealings with many of its neighbours and ‘Arab’ citizens (also with ‘Jews’ that don’t make the cut for whatever reason, like the Russian immigrants or the ‘African’ Jews). The main problem I have here is that I can accept that some of my prejudices are just that, and that the alternative states in the region are not exactly ‘good’.. But that still doesn’t excuse or block the fact that for me, the persistent, consistent and obvious abuses committed by Israel.. at the very least make it hard for me to maintain my objectivity.
As an example, one of the things that have gotten to me most in reading about the war is that Israel, in the last 48 hours of the conflict, while negotiating a cease-fire dropped cluster bombs on Lebanon. Apparently, just to kick the Lebanese population ‘while it was down’. Given that I’ve seen articles on the BBC talking about the civilian deaths from this war, there use seems to just be a means of terrorising the population.
So, solution to problem one – find (reasonable) sources, that can explain to me, without using the mindset that they’re ‘just filthy Arabs’ why Israel’s actions are correct or moral.
Problem two – the fact that I’m being bothered by the morality. I’m having a hard time distancing myself from the current situation. While writing this would probably be easier if I could just ‘turn off’ any political senses I have, the general current historical proximity of the events makes this pretty hard, if not impossible.
The other major problem I have is that I’m having a hard time finding a focus in this topic. Partially it is because there seem to be no books on anything to do with the Middle East in which you do not at the very least find gross distortions or lies. But mostly it is just the problem of finding something that I can sink my teeth into enough without getting .. dragged down perhaps? As an example, anything pro-Hezbollah, skirts dangerously close at times to ‘evil hooked-nosed Jews came and ate my baby’… While things like Robert Fisk often spend quite a length of time discussing how ‘this old woman lost her entire family to a disproportionate Israeli attack’… But as I’ve sad in my ‘problem one’, finding anything that isn’t basically the ‘Faux news’ version of the world that supports Israel is nearly impossible.. In terms of my focus, this is making it very difficult to find a focus that I can feel comfortable with.
On the other hand, speaking of my prejudices, I’m not certain that they are a problem. Mainly because I am willing to acknowledge that I have them? But on this factor, I’m not certain.
Anyway, apologies for the rambling, and (probably) incoherent nature of this post, but I had it suggested to me that doing something like this may at least get other people to give me helpful suggestions, or would at least help me sort it out in my own head..
I’m often quite annoyed at the way my local student union occasionally gets itself into a tizzy over the most ridiculous of things, and for some reason this (slightly bitchy) post over at the Economist’s Charlemagne blog caught my eye:
In atmosphere, it combines pomposity with an obsession with perks, a touch of venality (there is much laziness, and sneaky claiming of unjustified expenses), all under a smothering blanket of moral superiority. Nothing excites members so much as their own power and status, and scoring points off national governments or the European Commission, the EU’s turbo-charged civil service. Like a student union with better expenses, it spends inordinate time on subjects which fall outside its legal mandate, like foreign policy, and its views often resemble those of a student union too, in their shrill lack of realism. One national diplomat in Brussels emerged from a recent tussle with the parliament, gasping with irritation: “That place is one big fucking NGO.”