Avuncular American

Thank God For Democrats Abroad - But Why Did the DNC Disenfranchise Floridians?

The Good News: You get to vote from abroad, and it's proportional representation

Patriotic duty: my reminder to all expatriate Democrats that Thursday January 31 is the final deadline to register at www.VoteFromAbroad.org to participate online in the Global Presidential Primary (if you can't vote online for some reason, check Democrats Abroad for information on physical voting centers).  This historic opportunity to vote as "The 51st State" gives overseas Americans (all 6 million of them) a chance to show their strength in numbers, rather than being discounted as an afterthought, with their votes dispersed among 50 states plus the District of Columbia.  The icing on the cake is that the vote is proportional, a word that doesn't even elicit a hit at the Republican National Committee (RNC) site.

Speaking of those states... Given foreign nomadic wanderings over much of my adult life, how do I identify myself when answering the question, "Where do you come from?"  Is it the state of my birth?  My late parents left Pennsylvania the same month as I joined the US Foreign Service, so their adopted state of Florida became mine.  I've been a Florida voter since 1979.

So it is with more than a passing concern that I read that the Democratic National Committee (DNC, headquartered in Washington, D.C., and chaired by former Vermont Governor Howard Dean) has dissed (or essentially disenfranchised) the Democratic voters of Florida:

The DNC issued the following statement today after the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida in Tallahassee upheld the Party's right to enforce its primary rules:

"We're pleased the court ruled in our favor, recognizing the constitutionally protected right of the Democratic National Committee to enforce its rules and treat all state Democratic parties in a fair and equal way," said Democratic National Committee Communications Director Karen Finney. "The DNC is committed to protecting the right to vote for every American, and we look forward to continuing to work together to ensure that Florida turns blue in 2008."

The above was issued by the DNC on December 5, 2007.

I suppose, to be fair, I should cover the background to this spat between Democrats (Washington) and Democrats (Florida).  I guess that the DNC side would again underline its "constitutionally protected right... to enforce its rules," and that we should all respect that.

The Bad News: Become a Florida Democratic delegate, but pay your own way to the Convention

But hold on a minute: how about the basic American right to vote?  Are Florida Democrats to be deprived of their franchise at this crucial stage, just because their state committee couldn't work out a compromise with the DNC's "rules panel?"  Here's the Florida Democrats' website FAQ on the imbroglio:

Q: What role will Florida delegates have if the DNC does not permit them to participate?

A: Although the DNC has said it will not recognize delegates from Florida, the Florida Democratic Party plans to appeal to the eventual Democratic nominee for President to be seated at the Convention. While there are no guarantees that this will happen, the Party will continue the delegate selection process to elect the actual delegates to the Democratic National Convention and will use the results of the January 29th Presidential Preference Primary to determine the apportionment of those delegates.

In a last minute bid to ingratiate herself with Florida Democrats, Senator Hillary Clinton on Friday was quoted in the Miami Herald that she would "ask my Democratic convention delegates to support seating the delegations from Florida and Michigan."  The paper noted that Clinton is leading 2 to 1 in Florida.

To its credit, the Ft. Lauderdale "Sun-Sentinel" has continued to play the game, coming out with an endorsement of Senator Barack Obama - in the event that Democratic readers wanting to make a symbolic vote might be swayed by the editorial.  But you can feel the heartbreak in the message:

Disappointingly, the Democrat presidential candidates kept their pledge to not campaign in Florida. The Democratic National Committee has also warned that Florida's primary this Tuesday won't count toward assignment of delegates to this summer's national convention.

Nonetheless, there is a vote, and it's an important one for a host of reasons. Not least of which is that whoever wins the popular vote in the Sunshine State, a place that has been a house of horrors for the party in the past two presidential elections, can claim to be the popular front-runner headed into Super Tuesday.

The South Florida Sun-Sentinel Editorial Board recommends voters choose Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

Rules are important, sure.  Every state cannot be first to hold its primary.  But is it not a Pyhrric victory for the DNC to so treat a state that was the determining factor in the 2000 election that resulted in 8 years of George W. Bush?  Is that a way to welcome the very voters the DNC wants to "turn blue in 2008?"

Happy Birthday, Monsieur le Président

(Photo Source: IMDB)

No, today is SOTU day in the United States.

But in France, it is the President's birthday - Nicolas Sarkozy is 53 today.

It's not a holiday, but there has been some fun.  At the President's expense, mostly.  France Inter - for Americans, this nationwide radio station has some aspects of the Stateside NPR - had a cute rendition of Marylin Monroe's public ode to JFK, with inevitable references to current girlfriend singer Carla Bruni's guitar-strumming.

This injection of the personal into French media coverage of their head of state has been one of the recurring themes in the half-year since Sarkozy's election in summer 2007.  One of the best summaries of the resulting desarroi in French media and political circles has been "Love and Politics" in The New Yorker by veteran Sarkozy-watcher Adam Gopnik

What distinguishes the ballad of Carla and Nicolas from similar tales is that this time the media is not trying to pry into the private life of a public man; this time, a public man is trying desperately to parade his private life in front of the media. Sarkozy not only performed for the press, welcoming photographers along as he and Bruni holidayed in Egypt and walked on the beach in what used to be called bathing costumes; he insists, to everyone’s embarrassment, on talking about their bonheur and their approaching marriage at press conferences. This is not tacit complicity, of the Princess Di-and-the-tabloids kind; it is Presidential leadership. Sarkozy wants people to think about his sex life, in the way that Bill Clinton didn’t want people thinking about his.

There is no shortage of serious subjects in France these days:

• The world's biggest banking fraud/loss at Societe Generale
• The first elections (municipal) since the 2007 Sarkozy presidential and parliamentary victories
• Presidential visits abroad, most recently to India

These topics are covered, sure.  But many people are convinced that just when news starts getting dicey for the Presidential palace, out comes some photo op involving the President and his friend.  Or some hint at forthcoming news, like rumors of an incipient wedding.  The difference, as Gopnik shows, is that it is Sarkozy who usually is the source.

Just don't try to go too far, though, in referring to the Prez and his squeeze.  Ryanair, the Irish low-cost airline, is being threatened with a Presidential lawsuit for its advertising campaign using a photo of the loving couple, with references to flying Ryanair to bring the "whole family to the wedding."

It is one thing for Sarkozy to oppose an Irish capitalist capitalizing on his love affair.  It is quite another to use Presidential influence to suppress the press.  Today, the latest in a long line of episodes of quasi-censorship: "Direct 8," a newish private TV channel owned by Sarkozy friend Vincent Bollore (whose private yacht was the scene of the very first Sarko-show with former wife Cecilia just after the election victory) canceled a show entitled "Sarkozy et les femmes."   Noblesse oblige.

Earlier, there have been several incidents of a similar nature involving the print media:  Sarko buddy Arnaud Lagardere, publisher of Paris Match, fires the editor when Sarkozy was still Minister of Interior, for an early eruption of lese majeste; a flurry of recent books about the former - and very short-lived - French First Lady, Cecilia, some of which were held up; and a mostly silly episode of airbrushed love handles during the Presidential visit to New Hampshire last year.   

Adam Gopnik again on the good old days:

Those who loved the dignity and the sporadic secrecy and the sudden intimacies of traditional French civilization are bound to long for the days when President Mitterrand would go on long walks alone to old bookstores, and then make love to his mistress on the way home to his wife, patting his love children on the head while making sonorous pronouncements about life and destiny. The ballad of President Bling-Bling and Carla Bruni is a reminder of a deep and permanent truth, which the French once knew better than anyone: there are worse things in this world than a little organized hypocrisy.

So, happy birthday, Mr. President, but let's resolve to see, read, and hear a bit less on your private life in your 54th year, and hope that you get back to business.

SOTU 2003: Unparalleled History

Yes, it's time again for one of our "Parallel History" episodes, going back 5 years to this day in 2003, when the US was $1,200,000,000,000 ($1.2 trillion: I think I have my zeros right) richer, and not yet mired between the Tigris and the Euphrates.

SOTU or "State of The Union" 2003 was also delivered on January 28.  Here is what bears recalling from President Bush's second SOTU speech:

• Saddam Hussein is mentioned 19 times; Osama Bin Laden not once

• "Saddam Hussein had biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax — enough doses to kill several million people. He hasn't accounted for that material. He's given no evidence that he has destroyed it."  [Question: whatever became of the investigation into the anthrax scare in the US of fall 2001?]

• There are lots more scary statistics: "38,000 liters of botulinum toxin; 500 tons of sarin, mustard, and VX nerve agent; 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents."  [Question: while we know now that these weapons were either destroyed by Saddam or had ceased to function, guess what weapons continue to cause death and destruction to US forces and Iraqi civilians alike?  Answer: plain old high explosives, left unguarded in the aftermath of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld's headlong rush to Baghdad.]

• The President who made "waterboarding" a household term was exercised by Saddam's brutal practices: "The dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages — leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind, or disfigured. Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained — by torturing children while their parents are made to watch. International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape. If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning." [But Saddam was using all of these barbaric methods when Ronald Reagan sent Donald Rumsfeld as a goodwill messenger, when Saddam was the enemy of our enemy, Iran.]

• "The United States will ask the U.N. Security Council to convene on February the 5th to consider the facts of Iraq's ongoing defiance of the world. Secretary of State Powell will present information and intelligence about Iraqi's legal — Iraq's illegal weapons programs, its attempt to hide those weapons from inspectors, and its links to terrorist groups." [Stay tuned for another chapter of Parallel History on February 5.]

• "Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity.  We Americans have faith in ourselves, but not in ourselves alone. We do not know — we do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving God behind all of life, and all of history.  May He guide us now. And may God continue to bless the United States of America." [Question: is it blasphemy when you invoke God's name five times in a speech presaging war on false pretences?]

Just to show that SOTU wasn't all about Iraq, you'll be happy to know that the President also had good domestic news:

• "To bring our economy out of recession, we delivered the largest tax relief in a generation." [five years later, what will the President say tonight about how his leadership has landed the US not only in another recession, but in a massive nationwide loss of housing values, the fall of the dollar as a world reserve currency, and a worldwide stock panic?]

• "Our second goal is high quality, affordable health care for all Americans. The American system of medicine is a model of skill and innovation, with a pace of discovery that is adding good years to our lives. Yet for many people, medical care costs too much — and many have no coverage at all. ...We must work toward a system in which all Americans have a good insurance policy, choose their own doctors, and seniors and low-income Americans receive the help they need." [Just watch Michael Moore's "SiCKO" for a look at how well George W. Bush has handled this one.]

• "I have sent you Clear Skies legislation that mandates a 70-percent cut in air pollution from power plants over the next 15 years. I have sent you a Healthy Forests Initiative, to help prevent the catastrophic fires that devastate communities, kill wildlife, and burn away millions of acres of treasured forest.  I'm proposing $1.2 billion in research funding so that America can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles.  With a new national commitment, our scientists and engineers will overcome obstacles to taking these cars from laboratory to showroom, so that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen, and pollution-free.  Join me in this important innovation to make our air significantly cleaner, and our country much less dependent on foreign sources of energy." (emphasis added) ["Clear Skies" - an exercise in Orwellian black-is-white terminology if there ever was one - and other tree-hugging mimicry from the Administration that made the United States much more dependent on foreign sources of energy, and stood in the way of world consensus on countering climate change.]

• "Our fourth goal is to apply the compassion of America to the deepest problems of America. For so many in our country — the homeless and the fatherless, the addicted — the need is great. Yet there's power, wonder-working power, in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people.  Americans are doing the work of compassion every day — visiting prisoners, providing shelter for battered women, bringing companionship to lonely seniors. These good works deserve our praise; they deserve our personal support; and when appropriate, they deserve the assistance of the federal government.  I urge you to pass both my faith-based initiative and the Citizen Service Act, to encourage acts of compassion that can transform America, one heart and one soul at a time." [Remember, this was said two years before Bush utterly failed his "compassion" test in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.]

Sorry to burden readers with old SOTU when tonight you can listen to brand new SOTU.  By the way, all SOTUs, dating back to George Washington's, are available at Infoplease.  For Washington readers who want a serious after-action report on tonight's SOTU, the Brookings Institution has a roundup Tuesday morning.

The News From (and To) America: NPR, VOA, Democracy Now!... Or Army STRATCOM?

Civilian News Broadcast by Civilians

When an expatriate like Avuncular American "tunes in" to the news these days, it's going to be a mix of internet, radio, and TV.  Though we're in rural France these days, at home in Brussels the usual mix is BBC World Service on the AM radio dial, BBC World on our Belgian cable TV, and of course, everything that the internet can provide.  Which includes that wonderful invention, podcasts.

So, thanks to a free iTunes link to "Democracy Now!," I can listen to Amy Goodman's daily hour of news from a decidedly "alternate" viewpoint.  But DN! is only alternate in the sense that it's likely to cover news that the mainstream is not even aware of, or devotes zero resources to cover.  But wait a minute: what "resources" does it take to produce the kind of hard hitting journalism that is the stock-in-trade of Democracy Now?  In most cases, a long distance phone call.

My podcasting brings me Goodman's program with a one-day time lag, so I can comment on yesterday's (Thursday, January 24, 2008) broadcast, where Goodman makes a phone call to Gideon Levy of Israel's "Ha'aretz" newspaper.  Though Democracy Now has a left-of-center, pro-Palestinian sensibility, only those Americans (and others listening to the podcast) who heard the program could imagine an Israeli journalist commenting thusly on the Gaza "breakout" into the Egyptian Sinai: when you conduct an "experiment," said Levy, of keeping Gaza Palestinians locked up in a "human cage," what reaction can you expect?  He went on to say that the "Israeli public is indifferent" to the plight of the 1.5 million people in Gaza, a sentiment that, again thanks to Democracy Now's January 22 show, was confirmed by none other than Israeli PM Ehud Olmert, who said: "we will not let them live comfortable lives; let them walk."  Perhaps only Olmert - and maybe George W. Bush, who joked about Israeli checkpoints to an incredulous Palestinian audience during his recent trip - could juxtapose "comfortable" and "Palestinian refugee" in the same sentence.

Democracy Now's serious journalistic credentials and shoestring budget are the subject of a comprehensive two page article by Danielle Follett and Thomas Boothe in the January issue of "Le Monde Diplomatique."  Le Monde Diplomatique provides a condensed English version of its article in "Spreading the Word: ’Democracy Now’ Is Cheap, True, Non-Corporate News" on its English website.  Le Monde says that even members of the US Congress listen to Democracy Now, and get leads for investigations.

National Public Radio (NPR) and TV's Public Broadcasting System (PBS) also provide much internet programming - thank you, PBS, for making such invaluable programs as "Now" and "Frontline" available on the web.  I long for the day when I can succeed in getting an NPR signal on a satellite radio, but for now, I can get a bit of NPR on the net.  Thankfully, NPR also uses the BBC as a major source for international reporting for which it may not have local resources.

As a former Foreign Service Officer, I understand why the Voice of America (VOA), funded by the State Department to provide news to foreigners, cannot broadcast to Americans - the Smith-Mundt Act of 1948, which sought to shelter Americans from propaganda from their government (I wonder if the White House finds that notion as "quaint" as the protections of the Geneva Conventions?).  But here's what I don't quite follow: how come NPR - a world class broadcasting institution increasingly funded by listeners and corporate donors - has not supplanted VOA as the voice of the United States abroad?  VOA's budget ($166 million in 2006) buys radio coverage in large parts of the world, but its US Government funding "taints" its news coverage (News Item: "US Official Says...") in ways that BBC's underwriting by the British government does not.  BBC's competitors are commercial - in world TV terms, that means CNN - whereas VOA is competing with what - Al Jazeera? Radio Caracas or Radio Havana?

News Brought To You By...The US Army

The US Government should be interested in how America is portrayed in the world, and Americans who want their country to be seen by the world as something other than a planetary policeman should be concerned too, especially when the United States military is not shy about playing the propaganda card.  Thanks to the vigilant John Brown of Public Diplomacy Press and Blog Review, we have this account of Donald Rumsfeld's recent speech at the "Network Centric Warfare Conference 2008" via Sharon Weinberger of Wired:

We need someone in the United States government, some entity, not like the old USIA . . . I think this agency, a new agency has to be something that would take advantage of the wonderful opportunities that exist today. There are multiple channels for information . . .

"Some entity..." Might that not be the US Army's Office of Strategic Communications?

“It’s about communicating to our audience what’s going on in the Army, and explaining it terms or concepts people can understand, so that they can be a part of achieving the goal,” said Col. Nelson McCouch, who heads the strategic communications division in Office of the Chief of Public Affairs.  The role of OCPA’s strategic communications is to develop and implement plans for getting internal and external media to support the Army’s campaign plan with articles that explain what’s going on, McCouch said.

There are two other ‘legs’ that support the effort to disseminate information – the Office of Congressional Legislative Liaison and the Office of Strategic Communications. OCLL’s strategic communications team is responsible for making sure the Army’s messages are delivered to legislators on the Hill in a timely fashion, said Col. Wayne Sauer, who heads that office.  “The Army wants Congress to know what’s going on so they can do something about it during the congressional cycle,’’ Sauer said.

In the Office of Strategic Communications, the mission to deliver the Army story is similar to OCPA. Whereas OCPA focuses informing Soldiers, family members and the public at large through the media, STRATCOM’s audience is expanded to target senior Army leaders – active and retired – business and social executives, and academic and think-tank representatives.  “We are trying to instill a culture of engagement so that everyone at all levels tells the Army story the same way,’’ said Patti Benner, STRATCOM director.

Now, some of this "strategic communication" is plain old lobbying of Congress, to which the US military has always been attentive - just check the US defense budget.  But what kind of operation is this, when US taxpayer funds are spent to encourage the spending of yet more taxpayer dollars?

"Strategic Communications" can be directed inwards - "soldiers, families, the public at large" as mentioned above, or outwards, as in the military version of public diplomacy:

Strategic communication means massing information among all agents of public information at a critical time and place to accomplish a specific objective. It avoids the destructive effects of mixed messages that result from not massing information. Dribbling out mixed, unsynchronized information instead of massing the release of unequivocal messages backed by a substantial body of facts is especially destructive during times of crisis, or when the government and military find themselves under enormous public or political pressure, fastidious public scrutiny, and emotional criticism.

This helpful explanation is from Brigadier General Mari K. Eder, who was until recently the Army's Deputy Chief of Public Affairs.  "Massing information," avoiding messy democratic "fastidious public scrutiny" because of "unsynchronized information" - that sounds like something the Army could manage with a few billion more.

Before the United States goes so far down the road of "synchronizing" news via the US military, consider the bang-for-buck that a little bit of independent journalism gets you: Amy Goodman, according to Le Monde, gets circa $60,000 per year for her efforts.  With that paltry sum, Congress gets information it would not otherwise have, listeners hear news that they never hear anywhere else, and American journalism maintains some credibility in the eyes of the world.  Money well spent.

January 21, 2009: Ms. or Mr. President, Start Your Tenure In Davos

(Photo Source: World Economic Forum)

As of today, Americans and the rest of the world can say that "in less than a year..."  Whatever your political convictions, the incontestable fact is that George W. Bush will have ceased to be President of the United States, and someone else will have taken up the reins of power.  After the ceremonies and festivities of Inauguration Day January 20, 2009, there will be a new resident on Pennsylvania Avenue.

What that president does - whether Clinton "44" (as opposed to Clinton "42") or Obama One (I will leave it to others to speculate on which Republican might successfully distance himself from the disasters of Bush "43" to make it to the White House in 2009) - will be of paramount importance to resurrecting "Brand America."  And it's not just the reputation - as crucial as that is - of the United States that will need a boost.  The American economy will need immediate remedial treatment, if the country is to get back its leadership role in the world.

You don't see the limits of American military power juxtaposed with those of its economic power illustrated any more succinctly than in today's New York Times by Roger Cohen's op-ed "U.S. Soldiers and Shoppers Hit the Wall"

Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have pushed the U.S. armed forces to the limit. Many soldiers have scarcely seen their families in recent years. But a much larger American army, the one that's spent this century shopping, is even more overextended and its pain is now coming home to roost.

I have no idea what economic shocks are in store for us in 2008.  But it is probably not overly pessimistic - nor terribly original - to say that the coming year will see further bleak developments in the ongoing credit crisis.  Again, Roger Cohen

"The median American family is going into what looks like a recession owing more than 100 percent of its income," Warren [Elizabeth Warren of Harvard] said. No wonder Citigroup just set aside $4.1 billion to cover possible defaults on home-equity loans, credit cards and auto loans - shoes that have yet to drop.

So even though Senator Hillary Clinton has said that Iraq (as in, "extrication from") would be tackled immediately ("Starting Phased Redeployment within Hillary's First Days in Office"), that yearly gab-fest in the Alps, the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, might actually be a chance to unveil some world class economic policies.  The timing is interesting: Davos 2009 will be within days of the Inauguration.

For the next American president, getting the economy (starting with the US, but also the world's) on a healthier track will underpin everything else.  Why is the US in Iraq in the first place?  According to former Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, who helpfully told us in May 2003

The truth is that for reasons that have a lot to do with the U.S. government bureaucracy we settled on the one issue that everyone could agree on which was weapons of mass destruction as the core reason.

Despite his later - short lived - World Bank presidency, Wolfowitz was not known for his economic acumen.  Alan Greenspan, former US central banker, was known for his guru-like knowledge of the economy - and this is what he said about the reasons for the invasion of Iraq: "the Iraq War is largely about oil."

If you recall, the Bush-Cheney administration's very first order of business when it came on board in January 2001 was to conduct secret Energy Policy consultations with oil industry leaders.  Note: a barrel of oil cost around $23 on Inauguration Day 2001.  Some energy policy.

So here's the chance for President Number 44 to reach "open covenants, openly arrived at" (Woodrow Wilson's phrase): start in the open - a Presidential address at Davos would garner world attention - and stay in the open.  A more appropriate, high level forum, days into the presidency, could not be found.  Turning the page on Bush/Cheney is a topic that concerns not only Americans - the world is counting down, too.

The Persian and/or Arabian Gulf: Arms Packages for Our Best Friends

I could have made this post one in my "Parallel History" series, but I'll try to keep to the "5 years ago today" theme for that, so that we can look at how the US invasion of Iraq came to pass.

For this post, I simply want to comment on the soon-to-be-concluded Bush Middle East tour, especially the place where he spent the lion's share of his week: the Gulf, particularly Saudi Arabia.  My only contact with that part of the world was two years spent in Oman - one of the places where the President did not go.  So I defer to those who track Gulf matters, notably these comments from Lebanon's "The Daily Star," quoted in "Snuffysmith's Blog," which show that Gulf commentators were less than enthralled by Bush's call to arms (or at least vigilance) against Iran:

US President George W. Bush used his speech in Abu Dhabi on Sunday to reiterate many of the same accusations about Iran that we have heard him throw around since his first weeks in office seven years ago. Back then, Iran's president was Mohammad Khatami, a reform-minded leader whose efforts to promote inter-cultural understanding earned him the recognition of international institutions such as the United Nations, which acted on his suggestion to proclaim 2001 the Year of Dialogue Among Civilizations. The ensuing election of Khatami's hard-line successor, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has made Bush's talk of the Iranian "threat" an easier sell, but Arab audiences still seem less worried today about the possibly nefarious aims of the Islamic Republic than they are about the US president's proven track record of stirring up chaos and instability in the region.

Our own favorite Bush-watcher, Maureen Dowd of the New York Times, has caught the spirit of the Bush swing through the land of "Louis Farouk" gilt and "Saudi Gaudy" bling in her op-ed today:

In Abu Dhabi, Sheik Khalifa bin Zayed al-Nahyan gave the president — dubbed “the Wolf of the Desert” by a Kuwaiti poet — a gigantic necklace made of gold, diamonds, rubies and emeralds, so gaudy and cumbersome that even the Secret Service agent carrying it seemed nonplussed. Here in Saudi Arabia, the king draped W. with an emerald-and-ruby necklace that could have come from Ali Baba’s cave.

Time’s Massimo Calabresi described the Kuwaiti emir’s residence where W. dined Friday as “crass class”: “Loud paintings of harems and the ruling Sabah clan hang near Louis XVI enameled clocks and candlesticks in the long hallways.”

Now you know where "Louis Farouk" was invented.

But consider this little historic gem, thanks to the January 16, 1979 item from BBC's "On This Day"

1979: Shah of Iran flees into exile

The Shah of Iran has fled the country following months of increasingly violent protests against his regime.

There have been calls for the Ayatollah's return - and news of the Shah's departure was greeted with mass celebrations across Iran.

British and United States' ex-patriates living in Iran - regarded as symbols of westernization - have been the frequent target of attacks. Thousands have left the country.

In the Seventies, I remember the precursor to today's British Airways - the British Overseas Airways Corporation or BOAC - going to the expense of printing identical English-language brochures for their Arab and Iranian clients.  Identical in all respects but one - the map.  For the Iranian market, the body of water that separates the Arabian Peninsula from the rest of Asia was marked "Persian Gulf" (the nomenclature used by most of the world).  You guessed it: for the Arab market, the brochures showed the "Arabian Gulf."

In those days, when the Shah was still on his gilded throne, no expense was too much for the American administrations who for decades hailed him as a bulwark of stability, a solid advance post against the encroachments of the then boogie man, Soviet Communism.  No weapons system was too sophisticated, no expense too great for the "Shah of Shahs" (read Ryszard Kapuscinski's 1982 classic study of the same title, a must-read on the sources of the Iranian Revolution).

But decades of multi-billion dollar arms deals, in the end, did the Shah of Iran absolutely no good whatsoever in the face of righteous wrath from his oppressed population.  Fast forward to 2008: in our wisdom, what makes the West (remember, the UK and France have been arming the Saudis with multi-billion pound and euro weapons systems too) so sure that the Saudi monarchy will last longer than the Shah's Pahlavi dynasty?

And should it not survive, what will become of all those weapons that the West is happily selling to the Saudis?   Ask the Iranian Army - they're used to maintaining American equipment.

Warning: The Following Is Blatant Political Advertising

(Photo source: Democrats Abroad)

Since this is a non-commercial blog, this is not paid political advertising.  And since I'm a Democrat, newly active in "Democrats Abroad," I can tout the advantages of voting Democratic all I want to, without worrying about equal time for other parties.

But since I want to be read by a wide range of nationalities, persuasions, and parties, I hereby provide a link to that other principal American party, the party of George W. Bush.  Go ahead and vote for them if you dare.

For Americans abroad - all six million of us - Democrats Abroad offers one HUGE advantage over the Republicans: the chance for votes to be counted as a block.  Thanks to votefromabroad.org, an overseas American registered with Democrats Abroad can have their votes for Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards - and whoever else will be in the Democratic race by early February - counted as the "51st State."

What's more, the Democrats Abroad primary can be accomplished over the internet.  Now, if you've ever experienced the frustration of not receiving your home state absentee ballot in time, or having your mail back to the States delayed, or having your strange postmark from overseas disqualified by a hometown poll worker, the "VoteFromAbroad" 21st century approach is the solution.

There, I've done it.  Party political broadcast from "Avuncular American," Democrat and proud of it.  But please, overseas Americans, just be sure to vote.

Mr. President: Give Marion Jones a "Scooter" Get-Out-of-Jail Pass

This is what Judge Kenneth M. Karas said Friday of his decision to send former track and field star Marion Jones to jail for six months:

"I want people to think twice before lying,” Karas said. “I want to make them realize no one is above the law."

Ms. Jones had been found guilty of perjury, of lying to federal agents.

This is what former White House Spokesman Tony Snow said of President George W. Bush's commutation of the jail sentence for former Presidential Assistant (and Chief of Staff to Vice President Richard Cheney) Lewis "Scooter" Libby:

"He [President Bush] thought any jail time was excessive. He did not see fit to have Scooter Libby taken to jail."

The AP wire of July 3, 2007 noted that Snow told

reporters at a White House briefing that even with Bush's decision, Libby has a felony conviction on his record, two years probation, a $250,000 fine and probable loss of his legal career. "So this is hardly a slap on the wrist," Snow said. "It is a very severe penalty."

Readers will recall that Mr. Libby's perjury conviction was in connection with the disclosure of the identity of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame - the underlying crime that in fact was never prosecuted.  His perjury was what got him convicted and sentenced to jail; his White House protectors were so eager to avoid his spilling the beans on the genesis of the underlying crime that he was kept away from jail.

Ms. Jones' actual use of performance-enhancing drugs, the underlying "crime" for which she has already forfeited Olympic Gold Medals, was not the central issue in the trial.  Like the Libby trial, it was the perjury that was adjudicated.

Unlike "Scooter" Libby, Marion Jones apparently does not have a sugar daddy.  Though she is a mother of four year old and seven month old sons, Judge Karas indicated that he was not moved by the prospect of their separation from their mother.  On the other hand, President Bush said that Libby's "wife and young children have suffered immensely" from Libby's trial and the prospect of imprisonment (full text of commutation here).

Mr. Bush, please consider the following:

Black Americans land in prison at six times the rate of white Americans, according to a new study from the Sentencing Project.

Just as you would not want the world to think that Mr. Libby was given preferential treatment because of his White House connections, you should not want the world to assume that Ms. Jones is getting jail time because of her skin color.  Please issue a commutation, and be assured that you would be doing the right thing.

New Hampshire National Security Primary: The Iranian Swiftboat Effect?

(Photo source: US Navy)

They weren't "Swift boats," at least not in the US Vietnam-era sense, when American "brown water navy" gunboats chugged up the Mekong Delta, under the command of young officers like John Kerry (who later came to suffer from the slander-and-retreat tactics of the "Swift Boat Veterans For Truth" campaigning for the re-election of President George W. Bush in 2004).

No, the Iranian boats in the Strait of Hormuz on Sunday were really high speed "cigarette boats," the kind that smugglers use to evade coastal police and customs controls.  Or that terrorists could use to ram an explosive charge into US warships patrolling the Persian Gulf.

Watching the video for the first time on TV, I was amazed that the US Naval officers had not opened fire on what looked like very, very threatening behavior.  Look at the video again (here, along with interesting commentary by the Weekly Standard's Stuart Koehl, a defense analyst at Johns Hopkins University's SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations).  Koehl provides some useful detail on the US Navy's defensive improvements since the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, but then gives it all away when he enthuses "if we had had video this good at the Gulf of Tonkin, the world might be different today."  What does he mean: if the Tonkin "incident" had been a better fabrication, we might have "won" Vietnam?

In the Persian Gulf on Sunday, either the Rules of Engagement ("ROE") were so restrictive as to preclude opening up with everything you have, or - if you somehow "know" that it's just dangerous-but-playful behavior, not really threatening - then just turning on the video camera.  Assuming that every sailor has a video camera, when are we going to see further footage, say, from the cruiser at the tail of the convoy, to which the Iranian speedboats were closest?  In other words, I am perplexed by this curious incident, which the Iranians first called "normal," before they claimed that the video footage had been fabricated (see Wonkette for an amusing take on the incident, which, thanks to National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, we learn "was not a smart thing to do," but then added that his comments should not be seen as a threat (?)).

Now, to New Hampshire, and the primary election on Tuesday which catapulted Senators John McCain and Hillary Clinton to the front of their respective parties' campaigns.  Wait a minute: aren't these the same two members of the Senate Armed Services Committee who are known for their national security "experience?"  Whatever Rudy Giuliani's pretensions to the mantle of the "tough-on-terrorism" candidate, among Republicans it is still John McCain who has been in harm's way in combat, and has serious knowledge of security matters.  And Hillary Clinton has done much to burnish her national security credentials, starting with her vote authorizing the Bush invasion of Iraq, and standing with the administration in its recent effort to label the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization.

Check the exit polls from New Hampshire.  While I have yet to see anyone cite the Iranian Persian Gulf incident as a reason for voting for either McCain or Clinton, national security "experience" is front and center among voters' concerns.

So, back to the Iranians, who cannot have been unaware of their confrontation's timing - the Sunday before the first non-caucus primary election in the home of the "Great Satan" - and its potential impact on US elections.  What if the Navy's ROE had resulted in shooting?  That would have had its effect - in the Middle East and in the US - and not just in New Hampshire.  Just whose side are the Iranians on?  Don't they want Barack Obama's arguments favoring talking to the Iranians to prevail?

Better analysts than me - the respected British International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) - reported on the eve of the 2004 Bush-Kerry match that the US invasion of Iraq "helps al-Qaeda recruit."  Others have noted how many Republican pundits have long preached on the inevitability of a Hillary Clinton candidacy for the Democrats in the 2008 general election - almost as if they want that to happen (all the better to have another Clinton to Swift Boat rather than a Barack Obama?).  I am not suggesting an Ahmedinajad-RNC cabal to thrust Senator Hillary Clinton back into front runner-ship, but I am most definitely saying that while Americans continue to occupy Iraq, and while US Navy ships are in harm's way, unexpected "incidents" can happen anytime.  We had better get used to the notion that events over the horizon - perhaps more than leaking tear ducts - can have an insidious impact on Americans' choice of candidates.

Parallel History, 8 Jan 2003: Future of Iraq Project

Members of the press (and the public) may have missed this State Department notice 5 years ago:

Notice to the Press
Office of the Spokesman
Washington, DC
January 8, 2003

Future of Iraq, Transitional Justice Working Group Meeting

The third session of the Future of Iraq project working group on Transitional Justice will convene on January 9-10, 2003 in Washington, DC.

The State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs will be hosting approximately 15 free Iraqis who have expressed an interest in discussing the law and the transition to democracy in a post-Saddam Iraq. Specific attention will be paid to the progress already made in the areas of prosecution for war crimes and crimes against humanity, rule of law, restoration of the Iraqi legal system, reform of the judiciary, and possible scenarios for amnesty.

For further information regarding the Future of Iraq project, please contact Gregg Sullivan, Deputy Director for Press Affairs, Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, at 202-647-5150.

All Future of Iraq working groups are closed to the press. However, if you are interested in interviewing some of the Iraqi participants at the conclusion of the session, please contact David Staples, Public Affairs Officer, Future of Iraq, 202-312-9839 or 202-374-1216.
Released on January 8, 2003

Not sure what became of the "15 free Iraqis" who showed up at Foggy Bottom five years ago.  Hope they made it through the unruly immediate aftermath ("stuff happens") of the toppling of Saddam Hussein.  And the phase where car bombs decimated entire neighborhoods enjoying the free(d) markets.  Not to speak of the years where a knock on the door at night might be the last time you saw your father or brother or son.

What is certain is that the output of the "Transitional Justice Working Group" wound up in the same circular file that Rumsfeld used for the entire "Future of Iraq Project."  According to "Blueprint for a Mess" by David Rieff, (NYT November 2, 2003 - it was already a "mess" 7 months into the occupation?  Warning to readers: the NYT link above leads to a ten page article)

rivalry between State and Defense was so intense that the Future of Iraq Project became anathema to the Pentagon simply because it was a State Department project. ''At the Defense Department,'' he [Feisal Istrabadi, an Iraqi-American lawyer] recalls, ''we were seen as part of 'them.''' Istrabadi was so disturbed by the fight between Defense and State that on June 1, 2002, he says, he took the matter up personally with Douglas Feith. ''I sat with Feith,'' he recalls, ''and said, 'You've got to decide what your policy is.'''

The Future of Iraq Project did draw up detailed reports, which were eventually released to Congress last month and made available to reporters for The New York Times. The 13 volumes, according to The Times, warned that ''the period immediately after regime change might offer . . . criminals the opportunity to engage in acts of killing, plunder and looting.''But the Defense Department, which came to oversee postwar planning, would pay little heed to the work of the Future of Iraq Project. Gen. Jay Garner, the retired Army officer who was later given the job of leading the reconstruction of Iraq, says he was instructed by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld to ignore the Future of Iraq Project. (emphasis added)

Some day those 13 volumes might be of historical interest, but they certainly weren't used by the Republican National Committee and American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) loyalists who made up the staff of Paul Bremer's Coalition Provisional Authority and "taught" Iraqis decades older than them how to run a country.

Consider this from Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Washington Post correspondent in Baghdad during the CPA days and author of "Imperial Life in the Emerald City: Inside Iraq's Green Zone" (interviewed by Amy Goodman on "Democracy Now," 29 September 2006:

It wasn’t so much you had to have Arabic language skills or experience in the Middle East or expertise in post-conflict reconstruction. What you had to be was a loyal supporter of President Bush. In fact, people who were being selected to go out to Baghdad were asked things in pre-deployment interviews that, you know, would have gotten an employer in the private sector hauled into court. People were asked, “Did you vote for George W. Bush in 2000? Are you a member of the Republican Party?” Two people even told me they were asked whether they supported Roe v. Wade.

I also write in the book that one of O’Beirne’s [note: White House liaison at Pentagon] deputies once sort of pointed to a young man’s resume and pronounced him a, quote/unquote, “ideal candidate to go to Baghdad.” The young man’s chief qualification? He had worked for the Republican Party during the recount in Florida in 2000.

If you already know that Iraq needs a flat tax or new traffic laws, who needs a 13 volume State Department report from a bunch of Iraqi exiles and Middle East experts?

Parallel History, 5 years ago, to be continued in future installments...