I’ve just had couple of days in Cincinnati not doing politics and hearing only of the splash landing rather than the economic crash landing. But on Saturday things changed. I went to the Freedom Center - the Underground Railroad museum - to learn about this amazing part of the Americian story. The heroism and activism of ordinary people - black and white - who helped slaves escape from the south and provided safe passage for them on their journey to freedom.

New Trouble For An Obama Nominee: Admiral Dennis Blair Aided Perpetrators of 1999 Church Killings In East Timor:..

And was followed by @gregtheveg:

Obama CIA Nominee involved in East Timor genocide

So did @giantpandinha on this tweet

How Obama's new intel chief screwed over Timor

And @allisonkilkenny on this this one

Dennis Blair, Nominee for Dir. of National Intel Connected to E. Timor Massacre

These are just a few examples of what citizen journalists have been tweeting regarding the nomination of Admiral Denis C. Blair as Barack Obama's choice to be the US Director of National Intelligence. And this should lead us to embark on our own fact-finding mission to establish the veracity of these serious accusations which the retired United States Navy official faces: during his tenure as Commander-in-Chief of the U.S. Pacific Command, he would have played a critical role in backing the Indonesian occupation of East Timor in the 1990's, an invasion that led to the killing of approximately 1,400 Timorese and the displacement of 300,000 people. Did Intelligence Chief Aid Perpetrators of 1999 Church Killings of East Timor Civilians?, asks twitter user @samsimon.

Allan Nairn has a comprehensive and shocking overview of the nomination implications on his blog, bearing in mind that in 1999, “in the midst of massacres of East Timor civilians and churches, Admiral Blair gave support to the perpetrators, the armed forces of Indonesia.”:

Two days after a massacre at Liquica that left flesh hanging from the church walls, Blair contacted the Indonesian commander, offered him US aid, and according to classified US cables, failed to tell him to stop the attacks. Reassured by the evident support from Blair, then the US Pacific Command chief, the Indonesian commander, General Wiranto, escalated the attacks.

The Indonesian forces subsequently struck the Red Cross and the Bishop's residence, killing more than a thousand as they went, burning churches and raping nuns.

They were trying to derail a free election, taking place under UN auspices, that eventually ended Jakarta's illegal occupation of East Timor.

Readers of Timor Loosae Nação published the piece of news and commented on it, concluding that the U.S. foreign policy does not change with the change of the President:

“A noticia anterior e um grande tabefe para os timorenses que se jubilaram pela eleicao de Obama.“

Another piece of news, published here, raised a controversial discussion. Robert Merkel started by saying:

This attitude - that keeping the Indonesian military happy was more important than saving the East Timorese - was very common amongst western diplomats dealing with Indonesia back in 1999 and earlier. It was a pretty slimy piece of realpolitik, but understandable; relations between Indonesia and western countries (particularly Australia, the closest, who took the major role in the peacekeeping operation that oversaw the transition to independence) did take a beating after East Timor's independence.

To which Erik coldly replied:

yes - we must be careful. The needs of the Indonesian dictatorship had to be carefully weighed against the Timorese people. After all, although we are discussing great numbers of deaths in relative terms - more than 10 per cent of their population, it was a small number in absolute terms - only 1-2 hundred thousand deaths. When you look at this you realize why realpolitik reasons would triumph.

A very different point of view is given by Gary Farber, from Amygdala. He has a very factual post with a lot of references, and is disgusted with other bloggers' apathy:

More confirmation (unofficially, still) of the Blair nomination. Where are all the big name left blogs on this? Why is almost everyone silent? Are people going to suddenly discover the problems only after the nomination is official? Why can't I get anyone to listen to me about this, he said forlornly?

The demonstration of outrage about the 1999 crimes has just started, and people have been gathering signatures on a Petition for the Prosecution of Crimes Against Humanity in East Timor. You can find bloggers joining this cause everywhere (check the East Timor Law and Justice Bulletin header).

At the same time, another petition is taking place, concerning specifically Blair's involvement in those crimes. According to John:

Dennis Blair's sordid record when it comes to East Timor and Indonesia disqualifies him for intel chief. The East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) has more here or sign their petition here.

Despite all the activism and debate arising online, some doubt Timor will be more than a ‘pebble in the shoe' for him [Admiral Dennis Blair] while others, like Charles Lemos say that he was following orders after all:

… If he disobeyed orders from the Clinton Administration to deliver a message to Indonesia's military authorities then he clearly is not fit to be Director of National Intelligence. Expect to hear more in the coming days from Indonesia experts on Admiral Blair.

Quite a lot of build up just to end by blaming America for the world’s problems.  Same sad song, Nth verse.

Although it would be wrong to say that the U.S. blameless in regard to its current low level of esteem around the globe, the nearly 20 years since the end of the Cold War have caused a lot of people living in countries that should remember the very real danger they passed through thanks to Uncle Sam’s protection to forget the world security dynamics of the 1950s, 60s, and 70s.

Yes, during the Cold War the U.S. supported bad people in Iran, Chile, and Nicaragua, among others, and fought bloody, ambiguous wars in Korea and Vietnam that prematurely ended or shattered many innocent lives.

But an objective observer has to question the degree of injury the U.S. dealt directly to Muslims even during the height of its obsessive Cold War zeal.  Arguably the worst thing the U.S. has done to followers of Islam was to set up the scenario through which the Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in Iran in 1979 and set up a totalitarian Islamic state that is still controlling speech and thought in Iran today while ensuring that no economic or social progress can be made there. 

As for America’s recent folly in Iraq, it’s a matter of common knowledge that the vast majority of Iraqi dead were killed by other Iraqis and imported Muslim terrorists and not by American troops.  True, we probably should not have deposed Saddam Hussein; however, that doesn’t change the facts about who did what to whom afterward.

No, Muslims’ anger toward the U.S. is primarily about Israel - the Jews who must be destroyed for Islam to be satisfied.

Understand that while the Palestinians in Israel have been aligned with Muslim nations and terrorists groups for several decades, there was not a great deal of Islamic fervor among residents of Palestine prior to that strategic alignment.  Neither is Jerusalem of any particular consequence to Muslims, historically speaking.  Its value is as a ransom, the prized possession of another faith held hostage.  Fundamentally, it’s America’s support for the Jews makes that us the enemy of Islamic radicals, not our actions in the world, though those often hurt relations as well.

MPACUK’s claim that America has made Islam violent is a fabrication.  Where are the murderous Vietnamese, who by rights should be setting off bombs in New York with all the fervor of a radical Wahabi?  They don’t exist.  Radical Muslims chose the path of violence deliberately, because they believe in it and that it can achieve their aims for them. 

But suppose you are a 16-year-old Muslim male with an opportunity to consider your potential futures and make a logical decision about how to spend the next 6 years of your life.  What makes more sense, becoming a foot soldier in the mullahs’ terrorist army or getting an education and making a place for yourself in civilized society?  The latter option is clearly more advantageous for you and your progeny save for one consideration:  Islam.

This is particularly obvious when one reads articles like this one in which the Houston Chronicle reports that many Egyptians are too poor to afford meat during the Eid al-Adha.

Their lives don’t have to be that way.  There’s nothing inferior about Arabs’ genes, intellect, or abilities.  But they, like the Iranian and Iraqi people, are hobbled by their governments and the prison of their religion.

“What does it say about me, and this country, when I have to ask the butcher to give me bones that he used to throw to the dogs?”  An Egyptian woman asked rhetorically.

What indeed.  One thing is certain: the rhetoric that terrorist apologists like MPACUK push on Muslims everywhere does absolutely nothing to help them ensure better lives for their children.  Quite the opposite.

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

(Tip of the hat to Bob Cesca.)

Krugman argues that the New Deal created jobs, improved the country’s economy, and pulled it out a terrible depression.

Writing for the Wall Street JournalAmity Shlaes explains that Krugman’s reasoning isn’t sound.

Looking at the statistics from the 1930s and early 1940 it becomes clear, Shlaes writes, that the New Deal’s spending did not improve the economy. Rather, the extra spending meant that taxes had to go up which hurt businesses, their ability to compete and their willingness to hire workers.

Additionally, the New Deal gave much more power to unions who then demanded massive wage increases even though businesses could ill afford them.

Statistics show, Shlaes writes, that ‘one man in four was unemployed when Roosevelt took office. They show joblessness overall always above the 14% line from 1931 to 1940. Six years into the New Deal and its programs to create jobs or help organized labor, two in 10 men were unemployed.’

Other stats, noted by one Lee Ohanian, show that ‘even late in 1939, total hours worked by the adult population was down by a fifth from the 1929 level.’

‘To be sure,’ Shlaes goes on to write about statistics cited by Krugman and others, ‘Michael Darby of UCLA has argued that make-work jobs should be counted. Even so, his chart shows that from 1931 to 1940, New Deal joblessness ranges as high as 16% (1934) but never gets below 9%. Nine percent or above is hardly a jobless target to which the Obama administration would aspire.’

The reason for the above is that ‘the notion that government could engineer economic recovery by favoring the public sector at the expense of the private sector’ was proved false. ‘New Dealers raised taxes again and again to fund spending. The New Dealers also insisted on higher wages when businesses could ill afford them. Roosevelt, for example, signed into law first his National Recovery Administration, whose codes forced businesses to pay an above-market minimum wage, and then the Wagner Act, which gave union workers more power.’

‘As a result of such policy, pay for workers in the later 1930s was well above trend. Mr. Ohanian’s research documents this. High wages hurt corporate profits and therefore hiring. The unemployed stayed unemployed. “If you had a job you were all right” — the phrase we all heard as children about the Depression — really does capture the period.’

Although the New Deal undoubtedly helped some - it created jobs for many unemployed, who would not have been able to take care of their families without the emergency job; it created programs to help and assist the poor - it was far from a perfect policy. One could even go so far as to argue that the New Deal’s approach hurt the economy’s ability to recover; economists could very well argue, and they do, that the country’s economy would have recovered faster if Roosevelt would have implemented less far reaching and costly programs.

Of course the real debate is less about how to revive the economy and more about politics in general terms: people like Krugman want the government to become more powerful, bigger, and directly involved in improving society, helping low income households and closing the gap between the rich and the poor as much as possible. Grand New Deal plans are meant to reshape society, not (merely) to help the economy recover; most research clearly shows that a more fiscally conservative approach is in the nation’s long term interest.

President-elect Barack Obama has moved to the center with regards to foreign policy in recent weeks, but he seems less inclined to do the same on most important domestic issues. How he deals with the economy, and whether or not he will advocate a new New Deal, will be a sure sign of things to come domestically in the next four years. It could very well be that his foreign policy will be realist, even hawkish realist, but that (some of) his domestic policies will be very liberal indeed.

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.

Arsineh, a Yerevan-based designer, photographer and blogger, writes on her blog (also posted on Cilicia):

My hope continues… Samantha Power is back, not only as part of Obama's trasition team, but as part of the State Department agency review team on the president-elect's official Web site. I hope she bites Clinton's head off. Now let's get a real position on Genocide.

My next blog was interestingly enough going to be about my prediction on when the Genocide issue achieves recognition in the United States under an Obama administration. Given the inevitable appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, my hope was diminishing. I started to imagine a different scenario, one that would delay proper Genocide recognition into a second term, and eventually call for recognition without proper reparations (a risky precedent… admit genocide without risk?).

[…]

Dr. Power, I salute you.

Unzipped, an England-based Armenian blog, also writes that Power is back and gives background on the Harvard professor's stance on Armenian issues.

Few weeks ago I wrote about speculations on potential return of Samantha Power to Obama’s foreign policy team. Samantha Power is a Pulitzer Prize winning author and renowned anti-genocide and human rights activist. She is pretty influential and considered as “pro-Armenian”. In February 2008, Samantha Power has taped a “powerful 5-minute video reviewing presidential hopeful Barack Obama's support for Armenian issues, and encouraging Armenian Americans to vote for him in the upcoming primaries”, as reported by the Armenian National Committee of America.

[…]

The video Unzipped is referring to is available on YouTube and was prepared by Samantha Power to gain Armenian-American support for Barack Obama during the Democratic primaries. Armenians consider Power a friend, especially when she was one of the few Americans to stand up to nationalist sentiment in Fall 2007 when it came to recognizing the Armenian Genocide. Writing in Time magazine on October 18, 2007, Power said it was in America's best interest to recognize the Armenian Genocide instead of arguing that America should not anger its ally Turkey by bringing up bitter history. While Obama was able to stay out of the controversial debate in 2007, several months after her Time article Power argued that the Illinois Senator would have the nerve to recognize the Armenian Genocide as president.

Power’s powerful YouTube message to Armenian-Americans paid off. Armenians throughout America organized in large numbers to support Barack Obama.

Back with Obama, Power has reignited hope among many Armenians. But some have wished for more. Joseph at the ArmenianGenocide forum:

Samantha Power is back on the Obama team and will be working at the State Department. This is good for Armenians, as she will give a direct challenge to Hillary Clinton { Hillary WILL betray us} and will be a honest broker in a institution where honesty and integrity is a very rare commodity. Still, would have loved to have Samantha Power as our Sec. of State.

For the first time, federal legislation has set aside the day after Thanksgiving - for this year only - to honor the contributions American Indians have made to the United States.

This is the same logic that turns Columbus Day into the lat day of Hispanic Heritage Month. The United States has to take an ugly truth of historical fact and the ways it reverberates today and make it into a second tier holiday.

Congress passed legislation this year designating the day as Native American Heritage Day, and President George W. Bush signed it last month.

Meanwhile, the government out of the other side of its mouth will encourage people to shop and spend today, as an act of service for the nation.

Via / News One

They fought the terrorists after they had called with relatives, family members and lovers who informed them that two other planed were hijacked earlier that day, resulting in the attacks on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon. 

Since they knew all the passengers in those other flights had died, the passengers of United 93 decided to take a chance and fight; they knew that doing nothing would result in their imminent death.

Sadly they failed. They were able to kill two of the four terrorists, but the other two flew the plane into the ground. None of the passengers, or the terrorists, survived.

It is a heartbreaking story, and one with quite some emotional impact for Americans, of course, but also for people like me: Muslims. The terrorists killed in the name of Islam. They hijacked the plane, they put all those passengers through hell, all in the name of my beautiful religion, which teaches me love and compassion, not hatred.

Every time I heard them say “la illaha illala” (there is no God but God) I got angry. In the end I was even shouting at the screen telling them they were fake Muslims and asking God whether he would curse their souls. When the passengers started running through the front of the plane, trying to take out the terrorists, I was shouting them along, even though I knew they failed and died. 

During the movie I noticed I was swearing at the terrorists thinking to myself “they killed so many innocent people that day, all in the name of my religion, thereby doing more damage to it than any other person in the history of mankind. May they rot in hell.” 

No, my thoughts were not very compassionate and loving; instead, I was filled with anger and righteous indignation. I saw and heard them recite prayers many Muslims know and may recite at certain occasions. I heard them say “Bismillahir-Rahmanir-Rahim” constantly, which filled me with disgust; this is a sentence I use before eating, before starting an exam, and so on, and I now saw it being abused by a bunch of aggressive, hateful, radical idiots. 

I am glad I watched the movie… but I only hope I can say these words soon again without being reminded of those criminals who killed innocent people while reciting these holy words.

©2008 PoliGazette. All Rights Reserved.