Avuncular American

"I have in my hand a list" - Ghosts of McCarthy at State?

This has been a tough week for American diplomacy.  First and foremost, the very notion that hyperactive adult disorder sufferer Rudy Giuliani could take it upon himself to play diplomat (or, as one CNN pundit called him, "international man of mystery") in Ukraine was bad enough.  No, I take that back.  That the President of the United States would send his voluble personal lawyer on a mission to usurp the Senate-confirmed US Ambassador to Ukraine - why use a pro when you have such a gifted amateur?  And of course the rest will be history.  That was bad enough.

Then we had this: POTUS threatening with execution (in so many words) legally-protected whistle blowers in front of an audience of diplomats and staff of the US Mission to the United Nations.  Some reacted with nervous laughter at the image of McCarthy era lists of suspects ("I have here in my hand a list) within the State Department.

But it's not just a fever dream of those momentarily in the august presence of the Commander in Chief.  No, McCarthyism appears to be back at the State Department, as the Washington Post reported on this weekend of Impending Impeachment talk.  While most of the world assumed that Hillary Clinton's State Department tenure was a matter for the history books, in Trump World, she remains a clear and present danger, and all those State Department staffers whose reports wound up on her desk are now sweating the "up-classification" (a new term for this retired Foreign Service Officer) of their previously unclassified communications.

It's a pressure tactic, of course, but one that has a potentially career-ending bite: lose your security clearance for ex post facto "transgressions" and you are rendered useless in Washington and at overseas American embassies.

It's only the latest twist in what could be termed Trump's war on American diplomacy.  We know that he has, from the very beginning of his presidency, considered himself "the only one who counts" in matters of state.  "Rex, don't waste your time" on North Korean affairs, when Trump took on that portfolio all for himself.

When Putin ordered the reduction of hundreds of US diplomatic staff in Russia in 2017, Trump welcomed the move, thanking the Russian president for "saving the US a lot of money."  Never short of ideas on how to accommodate Vladimir Putin, Trump then offered up the former US Ambassador to Moscow for interrogation.

Then, in his infamous telephone conversation with the Ukrainian president, Trump opined that the recently recalled US Ambassador to Ukraine, career American diplomat Marie Yovanovitch, would "go through some things" - surely one of the most threatening things a US president ever uttered, until, that is, his execution chatter at the USUN gathering.

So, where does all this leave us?  The coming days will see a parade of State Department officials appearing (or not) before House Committees investigating the Ukraine affair.  Some of those summoned are career officers, others are political appointees.  American diplomacy, if not on trial, will be the focus of Trump critics and Trump loyalists alike.

One thing is certain: for those people who have faithfully served their country, under Democratic and Republican administrations alike, staying on at State in this atmosphere is increasingly problematic.  It seems like a lifetime ago when - on September 18 - career Foreign Service Officer and Deputy Assistant Secretary Elizabeth Fitzsimmons penned her "Love Letter" to State in the New York Times.  Subtitled "Why I stay. Yes, even now," you have to wonder how long she and others will persevere when reputations are being sullied for being in the service of this administration.

Gerald Loftus

US Foreign Service Officer, retired

No rules: Trump's international disorder

No need to belabor what the entire world now knows (in case it had any doubts) - Donald Trump, world class bad boy, wants to have everything his way, all the time.  Even if His Way is the antithesis of the American way of fair play, of playing by the rules.  His Way or the highway.  Okay, no surprises here.  Except His Way might change from one tweet to the next.

"No rules. Great Scotch."  William Lawson's ad campaign has been fun: a bunch of randy shirtless Scots in kilts making off with the competition's women and downing their "no rules" whiskey.  Try now to transpose that to the world of relations between countries.  No wait, try applying that to crossing the street.  "No rules" might just get you killed.  Rules, norms, well, they exist for a reason.  The law of the jungle, survival of the fittest, might makes right - all these are things that we're supposed to have evolved away from.  Trump Man is a throwback to an age where it's every man for himself.

William Lawson's wild Scotsmen get away with playing soccer by firing cannon balls at their adversaries.  Which is fine because their competition is always a bunch of losers who deserve to lose their women to the Lawson team.  Problem is, in international relations, you can't count on the other side to always be dweebs.  Sometimes, they have nukes and nasty intentions (Russia, for example), and other times, they have nukes plus an economy that's almost as big as yours (China).  But these are rival powers.  Since when do you make war with your own side (see G-7, or as it's been downsized, to G-6 plus 1)?  Since when?  Since Trump arrived in the White House, January 20, 2017.

I don't know how this will end, but it certainly doesn't look good for the good guys.  Whose side, we ask, is Trump on?

Democracy 2018: The 3,000 county strategy

http://lachazedepeyre.fr/election-presidentielle/

Are the Russians coming - back?  Just 10 months to go before the November midterm elections.  Don't count on Twitter Man to do anything about countering renewed Russian interference; he won't even admit to their tampering in the 2016 election.  More on that later.

Over a dozen years ago, Democrats launched the "50 State Strategy," an effort to rebuild from the grass roots.  Too soon to tell whether this will pay off in November, but early signs from Alabama and Virginia are encouraging.

But it really is more than 50 states.  When you realize that every single one of the United States' 3,142 counties (or parishes in Louisiana) run their own electoral system, the amount of organizing becomes prodigious.

Or how about a "117,000 polling place strategy?"  That's the number from the US Election Assistance Commission, which says that it's increasingly difficult to recruit and retain the some 900,000 poll workers deployed.  Most of whom are senior citizens, with a quarter of them aged 70 or more.

Now, I'm not saying that the front line against the KGB is composed of septuagenarians.  But the seven or eight poll workers per voting station have plenty on their minds dealing with the long lines of people who manage to make time on a Tuesday in November, squeezing in their democratic duty between the windows of going to work or school before polls open, or joining the last minute voters in the hours after work before polls close.

Why are the lines so long?  In some cases, it's for reasons of voter suppression.  Pesky minorities or young people might vote Democratic, so why not close polling places where they live?  In 2016, hundreds of such polling places were eliminated.

The American Way of Voting - always a working day, as opposed to weekend voting in most advanced democracies - is somewhat of a mess in the best of times, and the doubts about the reliability of the myriad systems in place among the 3,000 plus counties are compounded when you throw Russian meddling into the mix.  Money would help: two Democratic members of Congress have proposed using the $400 million left over from the 2002 Help America Vote Act to improve the security of electoral infrastructure.

That illustration at the beginning of this post?  It may be the best chance of beating hacking and manipulation by hostile foreign powers.  Yes, the very modern French use transparent plexiglass urns for all of their elections, with a paper trail consisting of... paper ballots.  And somehow, this works like magic, so much so that the results are tabulated nationwide and are announced at the outset of the evening news at 8:00 PM, without fail.

Don't count on the White House "Election Integrity Commission" for help; it is open to hacking, apart from its obvious slant in favor of voter suppression efforts.  UPDATE January 4: the White House just announced the dissolution of the Commission. 

So, what will it take, Congress, to make this the top bipartisan national priority, right now?  $400 million is a good start, and maybe trading in hackable voting machines for some clear plexiglass boxes?

It's that, or letting this man cast the deciding vote.  Your choice.

(image at right from The Daily Mail)

 

100 Days of Inaptitude

Apologies to Gabriel García Márquez ("100 Years of Solitude") for the title of this post.  Trump's first 100 days have been anything but literature, unless you're into comic books.  I found "words that end in tude" thanks to Freedictionary.com, and I was tempted to use "crassitude" or even "turpitude."  God knows there's been a daily dose of crass, and the turpitude, well, the FBI is looking into that.

But inaptitude, connoting unfitness, seemed particularly apt.  (Not to be confused with ineptitude, though there's been a fair amount of that too).

If we've learned one thing since January 20, it is that the Orange One is spectacularly unfit for the office of President.  And yet, he is (President, that is).  And he's unhappy that the "ridiculous" yardstick of 100 days in office is being applied to his record thus far.  However, who set the 100 day goal?  From donaldjtrump.com, the "100 day Action Plan"

The list ends with "This is my pledge to you."  Oh well, so who's counting?  I personally hope some of these things take a 1,000 days, or maybe never ("cancel billions in payments to UN climate change programs").

House of Un-American Hyperactivity

There was a time, weeks that seem like eons ago, when the White House was the very symbol of American steadfastness, stability, and respectability.  Many of us mourn the departure of Barack Obama from the premises, but it had to happen, we knew it would happen.  And Kennedy's "Camelot" was of course never such a thing, only a myth that became all the more romanticized once it all ended in Dallas.  In all the political dramas and thrillers we've seen on the screen, the White House is that pillar that exemplifies the United States.  Until, as in Mars Attacks! or Independence Day, aliens come to blast the place to smithereens.

Or, as with the current denizen of the place (on most weekdays), he turns it into something unrecognizable, a White House of Un-American Activities.

Upside down White House in Wisconsin Dells, photo by almiruh

There's no point in enumerating all the executive orders and declarations (bet you didn't know that Inauguration Day is now the National Day of Patriotic Devotion).  Some of them, like his Muslim Ban, are in a state of suspended animation, declared unconstitutional by Federal courts and under appeal by the Trump administration.  The Ban created such a worldwide uproar that it diverted attention from equally nefarious moves, like the elevation of conspiracy theorist Stephen Bannon to the National Security Council (and utter confusion over the role of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the Director of National Intelligence, the experts and "adults in the room").

Then there's the sneaky little order - his very first, in the hours after his swearing in - where Trump the Populist added millions of dollars to the mortgages of American home owners.  Another, signed with some fanfare to the applause of lobbyists and brokers, makes transparency for Mom & Pop investments in retirement plans more opaque and could cost them billions.

Newt Gingrich, when he called last year for a reinstatement of the McCarthy era House Un-American Activities Committee or HUAC, had other things in mind of course.  For him, and for Trump, "un-American" activities are those done by immigrants, foreigners, judges and Democrats (probably).  When we know that the real un-American is Mr. President, who has already turned his back on all that is decent about the country, and who has become the one-man symbol, the world over, of rapaciousness and misogyny.  Thanks to Mr. Trump, we all know about narcissism and the ravages of sociopaths.  But until now, none of their ranks made it to the Oval Office.

So what to do?  Certainly not tweet or like or share your disdain for this man and his dangerous coterie of courtiers.  Or, do all of that, but first register to vote, and then vote in every single election for the next four years and more.  Complaining without consequent, effective action is not acceptable.

In the great World War II movie The Guns of Navarone, the Gregory Peck character, all angry righteousness, says to a cynical David Niven:

"You think you've been getting away with it all this time, standing by. Well, son... your bystanding days are over! You're in it now, up to your neck!"

Yes, "standing by" and not turning out to vote (at least in sufficient numbers in the right places) got us Donald Trump in the White House.  We're in it, up to our necks, and only we can get ourselves out of it.

Appel du 20 janvier

[Sorry, anglophones, but I had to write this one in French, an attempt to get it published in the Belgian press today.  Since that didn't happen, my readers get to see it here.]

Ceci a été inspiré par l'excellent "Appel aux Américains libres" d'Antoine Buéno, sur France Inter à la suite de l'élection du 8 novembre dernier aux Etats-Unis.  Ma tribune n'est pas drôle comme le podcast, mais s'adresse aux européens qui s'inquiètent - comme beaucoup d'américains - en ce 20 janvier 2017.

Appel du 20 janvier: un américain parle aux européens

Si aujourd'hui, vous vous êtes réveillé avec une vague angoisse, c'est peut-être en connaissance du fait qu'à la fin de journée, l'adulte intelligent qu'est le président Barack Obama sera remplacé par Donald Trump. Après la cérémonie d'investiture, le déni ne sera plus possible; Trump investit la Maison Blanche. Que faire?

Pour les américains ayant voté pour Hillary Clinton - près de 3 millions de plus que les électeurs du candidat républicain - Trump représente le plus grand clivage politique que le pays ait connu depuis la fin de la guerre civile en 1865. Certes, la Grande Dépression anéantit quasiment l'économie américaine dans les années trente, mais il n'y eut pas de véritable poussée extrémiste. Il y eut bien des charlatans engagés dans la politique, mais ils n'accédèrent jamais à la présidence. Des présidents médiocres aussi, mais jamais à la tête d'une superpuissance mondiale et nucléaire.

Quand il faut se référer aux magazines de psychologie pour essayer de comprendre un président ultra-narcissique, il y a problème: une dichotomie dans notre fascination pour Trump. Nous ne pouvons nous empêcher de regarder, tout en nous moquant du style "Louis Farouk", les photos des appartements couverts de dorures de la Trump Tower. L'internet nous inonde des sorties incessantes de Trump. Mais il ne faut pas nous laisser intimider par sa dernière tirade publiée sur Twitter; il dira sans doute le contraire demain. Gare aussi à ceux qui se contentent de se gausser du comportement bouffonesque de cette ex-star de télé-réalité. Aujourd'hui, il est président.

Aux Etats-Unis, la résistance à tout ce que représente Trump s'organisera surtout au niveau local. Ces villes qui passent des lois en faveur d'un salaire minimum décent, ces états qui continuent à installer panneaux solaires ou éoliennes face au réchauffement de la planète, nié par Trump. A Washington, la minorité démocrate au Sénat va peiner à restreindre la vague de nominations d'idéologues ou d'acolytes peu qualifiés aux postes les plus importants, où la tendance Trump est de mettre le loup dans la bergerie (un avocat des plus grandes banques d'investissement pour "contrôler" Wall Street; un promoteur de toutes les énergies fossiles à l'agence pour la protection de l'environnement, etc.). Le plus grand défi pour les Démocrates: préserver l'héritage des présidents Roosevelt, Johnson, et Obama, pour sauvegarder les acquis en matière de droits civiques, de pension vieillesse et d'assurance santé, ciblés de longue date par le parti républicain.

Et l'Europe, que peut-elle faire pour assurer que le choix malheureux d'une minorité des électeurs américains ne pénalise pas l'Europe et n'affaiblisse pas les institutions issues de la deuxième guerre mondiale? Si Trump approuve le Brexit, c'est son affaire, et ses commentaires anti-Union Européenne devraient inciter les pays membres à lui répondre "None of your business". Et barrer la route à ceux qui veulent imiter Trump ce côté-ci de l'Atlantique.

Les propos de Trump sur l'OTAN - il traite l'alliance atlantique d'obsolète, et a fait comprendre que la mise en oeuvre de l'Article V définissant la stratégie de défense commune en cas d'attaque serait assujettie à une participation financière accrue - ces propos devraient inciter les chefs d'état et de gouvernement européens à resserrer leurs liens. Non seulement à défendre l'OTAN (et à rappeler à Trump que l'Article V fut invoqué pour la première fois au lendemain des attaques du 11 septembre 2001, quand l'OTAN mobilisa des avions AWACS pour défendre les Etats Unis), mais aussi à renforcer une défense strictement européenne.

Ready or not, here he comes

This is it.  Tomorrow, January 20, is Inauguration Day in the United States, and you know what that means.  Donald Trump will change his acronym from PEOTUS to POTUS.  With that title go other titles like Commander in Chief, and unofficial ones like "leader of the free world."

Let's see if he comes to deserve them.  President Barack Obama famously said "words matter," so let's see if Mr. Trump, once he starts signing his name on White House stationery, can think before he tweets, or can link words to consequences.

Robin Wright in the New Yorker, writing about her conversations with diplomats in Washington trying to interpret Trump for their capitals, presents their dilemma: “Every day I send back the same cable saying, ‘We don’t really know’" what to make of Trump's pronouncements.  Friends are confounded and dumbfounded, foes can't believe their dumb luck.

How can you lead anything, like NATO for example, when you call the organization both "obsolete" and "important" in the same sentence?

When I wrote on November 9, the day after the 2016 presidential election, that we needed to bone up on our history books (especially one about the upset election by a minority German vote-getter who came to power in 1933), many readers wrote to share their concerns.

One referred to the next four years as the "new season of Presidential Apprentice," and several had awakened thinking that it was all a nightmare (see Nicolas Vadot's nice "Nightmare before Christmas 2016" dedication on my copy of his book).  Some admitted to crying, they were so distraught at this hard-right turn in American politics.  An Englishman, talking to Brexiteers who expressed solidarity with Trump voters, said he felt like a liberal in Munich in the 1930s.  And from Germany, someone who saw Stephen Bannon, the "alt-right" presidential counselor, as "the American Julius Streicher," the rabid anti-Semite who was judged at Nuremberg.  My book review apparently wasn't the only reminder of analogies with the dangers of the 1930s: Sinclair Lewis' It Can't Happen Here, his 1935 novel on the rise of a crass, nativist populist in America, sold out on Amazon after the November 2016 election.

Only one reader (not an American voter) thought I had gone too far in the 1932-2016/Germany-US comparison.  He felt that Trump had some useful observations on the dangers of globalization, and on improving relations with Russia (more on that below).  Another, an American historian of 20th century Europe, took solace in the "checks and balances" in America that didn't exist in Thirties Germany.

Now, on those potential safeguards, a word of caution: given the collection of Trump appointees to head agencies and departments that they have a proven record of opposing (Rick Perry, named to the Energy Department, famously said he wanted it abolished - but couldn't remember its name), and the unseemly speed to confirm them before they even complete vetting procedures, can anyone seriously believe that his own party will provide checks and/or balance?  Despite winning a minority of the popular vote, Trump shows no inclination whatsoever to govern cautiously.  On the contrary, he sees his Electoral College victory as a landslide, and he and his party are pushing full steam ahead on ramming through appointees and policies that often are the antithesis of his own supposed "populist" campaign blather.  I would truly like to know if those who chose to regard Trump's election with equanimity have been reassured by anything he's said or done in the past two months.

And on that Russia thing... can anyone, given the overwhelming evidence of Russian meddling in the American presidential elections, still believe that Trump can be trusted to foster American interests - NATO and Western security - when dealing with Russia?  The man never misses a chance to praise Putin, for God's sake.  And Trump puts him on a par with Angela Merkel - seriously?

This may upset the reader who objects to my Thirties analogies, but there was another politician back then who promised great things: "Give me four years, and you will not recognize Germany." We know how that ended.

Be careful what you ask for.

The Longest Night

The book's yellowed cover is a testament to its longevity and continued relevance.  It was a textbook in my university history class, published in 1965 when the fall of Hitler was barely twenty years in the past.  It continues to be required reading in many classes, both in the US and Europe.

Author William Sheridan Allen chose to name the German town that was the focus of his research "Thalburg," his "Middletown, Germany" in the words of reviewer Walter Laqueur.  Just a typical town in 1930s Germany, which thanks to subsequent editions, we now know is Northeim.

I've been re-reading it in light of the rise of Donald Trump as the Republican Party candidate, and now after his victory in yesterday's 2016 Presidential election.  Here are some passages (in blue).

"This [book] is an attempt to understand one of the central political and moral problems of the twentieth century: how a civilized democracy could be plunged into a nihilistic dictatorship."

I have just spent most of election night and the day after speaking to groups here in Brussels - students at the main French-speaking university, and three hours on Belgian TV commenting live on the final returns leading up to Trump's speech - as a concerned expatriate voter.  I was well behaved, ever the diplomatic Avuncular American.

Now that the deed is done, I can share my deepest concerns with readers.  But I'll let William Sheridan Allen and The Nazi Seizure of Power do most of the talking.

"Nazi propaganda consists entirely of a perpetual appeal to whatever is swinish in man."  Dr. Kurt Schumacher, SPD, Reichstag speech February 1932.

"Swinish" is a good 20th century word that certainly describes what the world has been watching at Trump rallies.  Though it accurately reflects the bombastic, boorish content favored by President Elect Trump, it probably is unfair to the swines.

"There were two groups of Nazis in Thalburg," said a former civil servant, "the decent ones and the gutter type.  In the end, the gutter won out."

Last month I made a trip back to south Florida for a family bereavement.  We're talking suburban Fort Lauderdale, not the Everglades.  And yet, of all the political bumper stickers on display while waiting at traffic lights, not a single one was for Hillary Clinton.  It was all for Trump on those pickup trucks, along with assorted gun totin' homilies - "Marines kill people" (not a condemnation, on the contrary, just a proud statement of a state of mind).

"Most of those who joined the Nazis did so because they wanted a radical answer... people wanted a hard, sharp, clear leadership - they were disgusted with the eternal political strife of parliamentary party politics."

The only words that need to be replaced might be "Nazi" and "parliamentary" to update this to 2016.  Think "gridlock" and other ways to blame-share what has been Republican obstructionism over the eight years of President Obama.

"Anyone who went regularly to Nazi meetings, or read the pamphlets, or even slogans chalked on the walls, should have been able to discern the vulgar and violent aspects of the NSDAP (Nazi party)."

Who needs pamphlets these days when you have a multitude of Tweets straight from the man himself?  Trump's almost single-handed campaign and nonstop utterances are amply documented for all to see; no one can say they were duped by his charm.

"The failure of the middle class parties to withstand the Nazi electoral drive was caused by... the inadequacy of their followers' commitment to (or understanding of) democracy."

Early indications of voter turnout in the 2016 election show it hovering slightly above 50%.  Does that mean that almost half of the US voting population "lacked a commitment to democracy" by their failure to vote?  Trump was elected with 24% of the popular vote, meaning 76% of the electorate did not vote for Trump; here is a great graphic provided by Ryan McMaken of the libertarian think tank Mises Institute.  Historical footnote: in 1933 Adolf Hitler became Chancellor after his Nazi party garnered 33% of the vote.

Back to Allen's The Nazi Seizure of Power:

"The Depression not only created the climate of fear in which the Nazis throve, it also embittered political processes.  The root of the problem was the division into two groups of absolute opponents, each of which meant to destroy the other..."

Fear - we have that in spades, as well as an embittered political process.  On the eve of the election, The Atlantic quoted Brookings Institution's Thomas Wright, who had Tweeted

Pretty clear this is the most important election anywhere in the world since the two German elections of 1932.  No other election has had the capacity to completely overturn the international order—the global economy, geopolitics, etc.

Well, we've had our election, and the world awakened today to find that perhaps after all things won't be the same again.  Will a future historian one day write about how, in 2016, a typical American suburb stood as a microcosm of the "movement" (as President Elect Trump termed it last night) that has swept all opposition before it?

Gerald Loftus

(First published November 9, 2016 - the day after the election of Donald J. Trump)

National Fixer Upper

In a blog post on the doldrums currently besetting France, a photo of a "For Sale" sign on a forlorn house might have been more appropriate.  But how much more pleasant to contemplate the reflection in the river Aulne (part of the Nantes-Brest Canal) of Chateaulin, a market town at a key crossroad leading to Brittany's Crozon peninsula, where we spent the better part of August.

Chateaulin has its position to thank for its relative economic health - you can't avoid the place with its single bridge across the river.  But this past month has revealed many smaller towns and villages in Brittany's scenic central Finistère where it's deadsville - those sales signs have been up for a long time, and people aren't buying.

August is supposed to be deadsville in France: whole companies close down, even government ministers are allowed some time off.  But that's exactly when things livened up this year, with a roller coaster ride of ministers and former ministers breaking ranks and criticizing political and economic decisions, leading to yet another government shakeup.

And one of the areas singled out for reform has been a disastrous housing policy.

In Brittany's Finistère, we passed through countless towns where it's hard to see how to counter the decline in the real estate sector.  How can young people, even if not among the ranks of the unemployed, afford to buy a house?

There are lots of "fixer uppers," of course, but government policy will have to provide lots of encouragement.  Zero percentage loans - so far reserved for new construction - are now also to be extended to older home purchases.

Maybe that's what France, and perhaps the United States, need to help spur economic activity where it's most needed.  A kind of national fixer upper campaign, where the laudable goal of home ownership - strong in both countries - would be supported by wise fiscal policies.

The DIY way to economic revival.

End of Mubarak, End of Maalesh

The old joke about Egyptian society ruled by the IBM ethic - Inshallah, Boukra, Maalesh (God willing, mañana, It doesn't matter) - needs a bit of revision after the resignation under popular pressure of Hosni Mubarak.

God willing, democracy will come to take root.  Note the word democracy, not elections, though credible electoral processes are certainly welcome. Inshallah.

Tomorrow - boukra or mañana - in a more democratic Egypt may bring stability and prosperity, but the danger for now is a letdown after the euphoria.

But maalesh, that fatalistic default position where today's woes are regrettable but will certainly be there tomorrow, has suffered a serious blow.  Despairing Egyptians, faced with the stultifyingly corrupt practices of a civil service that could turn the simplest of administrative procedures into a lifelong quest, used to jump off the roof of the infamous Mogamaa Building off Tahrir Square.

Maybe that was urban legend, but the truth is that they summoned up the courage not only to block access to the all-powerful Mogamaa, but also to block a President-for-life, and his hereditary plans for a "republic" in name only.

Mubarak and his sons, no doubt, counted on the famous Egyptian quality of contentment or qanaa, a tranquility of the spirit that put up with three decades of impunity.  But every good quality, when abused, has its limits.  Maalesh - no more.