Memorial Day seems an appropriate one to note a recent and historic reminder of the whole point and true cause and catalyst of our current struggle in the Mid East. This past week saw a small episode that passed almost unnoticed mostly due to the current brouhaha over illegal worker and border control reform. However, it was of potentially historic importance if legitimate, and the initial opinion is that it is authentic. On Tuesday, a videotape supposedly by Osama Bin Laden announced regarding Zacarias Moussaoui that among other things said:
Bin Laden Says Moussaoui Not Part of Sept. 11 Attacks
"He had no connection at all with Sept. 11,..."I am the one in charge of the 19 brothers and I never assigned brother Zacarias to be with them in that mission," he said, referring to the 19 hijackers."
He also went on to claim the same for anyone currently held at the GITMO detention facility for dangerous terrorist or Taliban suspects captured in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. One of the statements regarding Moussaoui has the ring of truth and logic:
"Brother Moussaoui was arrested two weeks before the events, and if he had known something - even very little - about the Sept. 11 group, we would have informed the leader of the operation, Mohammad Atta, and the others ... to leave America before being discovered," Bin Laden said."
Such a cancellation did not happen, lending some credence to Osama's claim. However, it does leave hanging the obvious alternative possibility that the schedule for attack was stepped up, accelerated, for the same reason. After all, the reason for the date of the attack remains a mystery and somewhat baffling, coming as it did at a time when if anything, Washington was leaning hard for more restraint in Middle East affairs and even still conducted discussions with the Taliban. Was 9/11 launched on a random day, `asap' out of any obvious context because Moussaoui was captured? At this point, it remains impossible to know.
Rather, what makes this statement important is that Osama Bin Laden himself has laid to rest a persistent if somewhat lunatic fringe myth. Namely, there exists a small but loud body of policy objectors both in the United States and abroad that in their skepticism and objections go so far as to deny that Al Qaida launched the September 11th attacks, or most radical of all, that parts or all of the 9/11 attacks were somehow "staged". To be sure, the context and time has a lot to do with it. In the already over-charged atmosphere of `conspiracy-think' and `cover-ups' generated in the 1990s with charges and counter-charges regarding the Clinton administration and its deceptiveness, and especially the fiasco of the November 2000 presidential election, the events of 9/11 took place in a hyper-skeptic context. After the initial gung-ho unity was allowed to unravel into domestic squabbling in spring 2002, the tabloid back-biting of the 1990's returned full force.
The run-up in fall 2002 to launching the war in Iraq led to strong pressure on both Congress and international allies to participate, with heavy emphasis on the obvious dangers of spread of weapons from Saddam Hussein's outlaw regime to terrorist elements. However, this was done in such a blunt and almost bullying fashion that increasing polarization of the issue took place at home and abroad. This inevitably led to attempts to start trying to `debunk' the genuine and justifying cause of the whole clash, the jihadist attacks on New York and Washington D.C. on 9/11. It is no coincidence that the radical claim that the Pentagon strike in particular had been "staged" first found its strong impetus from a radical French writer. To be eagerly copied, expanded upon and believed by the pro-conspiracy cliques here.
Adding fuel to all this nonsense is the Bush administration's strong tendency toward opaqueness and lack of immediate candor, or more aptly, simple incompetence in public relations handling. The style of mostly non-speaking about some of the more crazy claims has had the unfortunate effect of looking like evasion. This has resulted in the most wild of charges against the White House, most of them grossly unfair, while obscuring the few that might indeed merit closer oversight. The controversy surrounding the intelligence failures regarding Iraq and the conduct and reasons for the invention in Iraq had been allowed to obscure the overall picture of the War against Islamafascist Terrorism. Doubts about Iraq have been allowed to "spill over" into absurd and insane doubts about the catalyst of it all, September 11th.
As recently as spring 2003 some relatives of the 9/11 victims were even questioning who actually perpetrated the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center. Books and online works seeking to even deny the use of hijacked airliners have become numbingly routine. The 2004 Presidential candidate Howard Dean even made the mistake of appearing to give them the slightest credence while simply trying to discuss the phenomena. And right up to this day, just the past month, the persistent absurdity that the Pentagon was not struck by a hijacked airliner was revived with some new security cam footage being released. Less the main point be lost, the bottom line is that there is a school of thought that seeks to call in doubt, if not outright deny, Al Qaida's role in launching 9/11. Most of it belongs to a lunatic-fringe. However, a more thoughtful minority of this segment has simply had basic questions and some doubts in the absence of a loudly voiced 'claiming of credit' in the immediate wake of the attacks. This past week saw a potentially decisive answer to add to earlier ones to those skeptics.
The Truth is that Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda planned and launched the terrorist attacks of 9/11. Period. He has said it himself.
Nor is it the first time, though its offhand manner makes it one of the most forcefully persuasive. The fact is that in November 2001 Bin Laden gave an interview to a Pakistani reporter that carried his words about the 9/11 attacks and was run in Al Jazeera and in common access in the Mideast, and these were also confirmed by the subsequent capture of an enemy videotape after the fall of Kabul where Bin Laden even spoke of the `unexpected effects' and success of the strike on the World Trade Center, and how the fires destructiveness exceeded expectations. These two alone should have buried the whole debate, but it persisted. Not least because it was not called attention to by the federal government. The White House seemed to underestimate the undercurrent of thought that was and is there about 9/11 in the lack of some bombastic `we were responsible' announcement by Al Qaida.
Yet I contend that it is outright folly to confuse the truth of the September 11 attacks by Al Qaida and the War against them and their allies the Taliban in Afghanistan that followed, with the somewhat bellicose and obtuse presentation and execution of the War in Iraq and the removal of Saddam Hussein. The poor public relations handling of the latter should not be allowed to confuse understanding of the former, and the start of the war. It is as if somehow poor diplomacy and press relations had been allowed to obscure the need to engage Hitler after Pearl Harbor had then been allowed to retroactively call into question the fact that Pearl Harbor itself had been attacked by the Axis.
In a climate of run-away partisan bickering and no sober guiding voices from the top, it becomes hard to know which sources or version to trust. In such instances, it is potentially more useful to look at statements by the enemy that are made with completely different motive and which used carefully, can at least remind that they, the enemy, are the ones that remain responsible.
In today's rush of media coverage, with its hit and run style of overwhelming focus one week, and then on to something else the next, its easy to lose track of the linear progression of events. Hence the desire to call attention to Bin Laden's announcement. Made on the behalf of Moussaoui and the GITMO detainees, it doesn't matter if Bin Laden's attempted denying of any role of either is true. What DOES matter is with the tape accepted as genuine, Osama Bin Laden has confirmed yet again that not only did Al Qaida launch the 9/11/01 attacks, but that he himself had a significant role in their planning, and that it was long in preparation.
The fact is that as far back as 1998 Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaida declared war against the United States and the then President Clinton. Al Qaida had been conducting or planning attacks far earlier, since the early 1990's, but the formal fatwa came in 1998, after two devastating bombings of U.S. embassies in August of the same year. The attack on USS Cole followed in October 2000, along with frustrated schemes in 1999 aimed at millennium events. Then came "9/11" in 2001. This war against Islamafascism, against Terr-Jihadism, has nothing to do with President G.W. Bush. In some ways it is a descendent of the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the flashes of terrorism confronted by NATO in the 1980's. More specifically, the current cycle was begun by Saddam's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the aftermath of Gulf War I. We should not let controversy about the wisdom of the Iraq War or its prosecution divert attention from this fact or lead to excessive `retroactive doubts' about the struggle. The press and political parties both have done a spectacularly poor job of keeping this simple chronology and sequence clear in the minds of the public and our allies. Osama Bin Laden's latest tape is a potentially useful reminder of where the focus should go.
On this Memorial Day, it is important to realize that as poor and unimaginative as our civilian political discourse has been, the sacrifices in Afghanistan and Iraq have neither been in vain, or unprovoked. Both campaigns have the potential to transform the breeding ground for Jihadist terrorism that is found in the Arabian area at present. It is high time that our political and public division on this painfully obvious point be addressed and healed.
- Anthony
Monday, May 29, 2006
Monday, May 22, 2006
May 22 : An epic anniversary in history....
Today happens to be the 219th anniversary of the beginning of a relatively unknown, yet awe-inspiring event in the annals of civil history and public power to make change for the better.
In the present time of seeming inertia and inability for frustrated citizens to make much impact on government conditions this is a particularly instructive story. There is a little known and truly inspiring aspect of the tragic history of slavery that with our Amero-centric bias, is often overlooked. Forget the example of the United States, which despite its ideals and intentions to promote freedom first had to split in half, and then fight a Civil War just to get rid of slavery, then suffer for almost precisely another century to get rid of the last of its legal legacies. In many ways, this is rightly a discouraging precedent. On the other hand, Great Britain's slavery had already ended in in the 1830's, and without a civil war.
It is how the British Empire's abolition movement began that is truly inspiring and encouraging to any who feel there is no ability to spark change for the better or to reform the entrenched mindsets of politicians owned by lobbyists. A recent book, "Dark Ages America" by Morris Berman(to be reviewed soon) goes so far as to say that the `levers of change' in America, if not the West, are effectively gone and moribund. In effect, implying that there is little the common person of moderate means can do any more. This is not the American ethos, and is fundamentally defeatist, no matter how convincing. And it need not come to be.
When set against such a projection, the tale of how slavery was brought to a halt in the British Empire is positively enthralling and brings new heart. It is all the sadder that the Civil War and Reconstruction here, are the commonly known models, and that this epic chapter in the West is neglected. On May 22, 1787, twelve men gathered in a London book store and print ship at 2 George Yard for roundtable. In many ways, the anti-slavery crusade was born there, though there were many already existing strands of thought on this, and there was tacit consent intellectually that slavery was barbarous and un-Christian, but seen as an economic linchpin at the time. One Thomas Clarkson was the principal organizer, and the movement would attract men such as William Wilberforce, whose evangelical convictions and missionary work toward India would give him strong perspective and leverage in the movement, Olaudah Equiano a former slave who would hand down harrowing eyewitness accounts of how it was to be one, and John Newton, the former slaver who wrote "Amazing Grace" and who also wrote of a slave captain's side of the story and how came to see it immoral.
The renowned de Tocqueville was to write of this movement later, but unlike the subject of some of his more celebrated writings, most Americans remain unaware of this other and more encouraging example of how injustices could come to be abolished. With India currently setting out on the difficult path of enfranchisement of its lowest caste, the lessons of 1787 apply to all cultures, for discrimination and institutionalized inequality was, and is, a worldwide phenomenon and not just a creation of of the age of Imperialism.
De Tocqueville said of the series of events unleashed by their meeting and efforts "was absolutely without precedent...If you pore over the histories of all peoples, I doubt that you will find anything more extraordinary." Its easy to forget that just over two centuries ago, well over three quarters of the world's people were in bondage of one kind or another, slaves in America, Europe, Ottoman Empire, Africa, serfdom in the Russian areas, peasants in debt bondage in China, etc, etc. Of importance here, is the terrible irony that in 1787, "freedom, not slavery, was the peculiar institution"! Yet the swiftness with which it died is an encouraging signal -- by the end of the 1800s it was outlawed almost everywhere, and the anti-slavery movement had achieved its goal in "little more than one lifetime".
In the process of their goal, they pioneered many of the tools of activists or conscience-raiser groups in use today, like posters, and even mass mailings, let alone boycotts and legal proceedings. Like many ills, a lot of the slave trade had actually depended on public ignorance of just how brutal and inhumane the conditions were, and what the real price being paid for certain luxuries was (the parallel today might be the diamond mines of South Africa or the tennis shoes made in Indonesian sweat shops) . Only five years after they began the movement, 300,000 Britons were refusing to eat the sugar that came from the slave trade in lieu of that which didn't, and the House of Commons has passed laws banning the slave trade. But the House of Lords initially voted down this bill, being comprised of the aristocracy backed by the powerful pro-slave interests; the analogs of the plantation owners and pro-slavery politicians of the ante-bellum South portions of the North and Midwest who in America dragged the country into armed confrontation over this when faced with the abolitionist movement.
But the cause refused to fade, and only gained moral and political headway, and though there were were uprisings and outbreaks of violence and upheaval, for the most part, the transformation came by public process. Thus, a half-century later, a slavers whip and chains were formally buried in a Jamaican churchyard in a ceremony for the last (William Knibb) of the `printing shop crusaders' who was still alive and had lived to see that day! The date was July 31, 1838 and there was even a plaque buried saying "Colonial Slavery, died July 31st, 1838, aged 276 years".
Slavery in the British Empire officially ended at midnight on August 1, 1838. Unfortunately, it still persisted in the United States. For a host of reasons, America proved finally unable to end the `peculiar institution' peaceably and by due process of legislation, and would have to fight a Civil War to end it and then a civil rights movement a century afterward. Slavery and institutional underclass structures also continued to persist beyond 1840 in different forms in the rest of the world: in Russia, most of Africa, and in the Islamic world. In fact, in the Islamic world, it still exists today in the ongoing tragedy of Sudan, elsewhere. In India, it is in the process of being confronted. But in 1838, "in the largest empire on earth, it was ended."
In many ways, this may have been one of the finer moments of Western Civilization's capacity to reform and improve itself, without resort to mass revolution and bloodshed. It is timely to recall this encouraging example as we confront the divisions and disarray of the present and feel that little can be done.
- Anthony
(The most recent book about this is now in trade paperback: "Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the fight to free an Empire's slaves" by Adam Hochschild, Mariner Books 2006).
ISBN 0618619070
In the present time of seeming inertia and inability for frustrated citizens to make much impact on government conditions this is a particularly instructive story. There is a little known and truly inspiring aspect of the tragic history of slavery that with our Amero-centric bias, is often overlooked. Forget the example of the United States, which despite its ideals and intentions to promote freedom first had to split in half, and then fight a Civil War just to get rid of slavery, then suffer for almost precisely another century to get rid of the last of its legal legacies. In many ways, this is rightly a discouraging precedent. On the other hand, Great Britain's slavery had already ended in in the 1830's, and without a civil war.
It is how the British Empire's abolition movement began that is truly inspiring and encouraging to any who feel there is no ability to spark change for the better or to reform the entrenched mindsets of politicians owned by lobbyists. A recent book, "Dark Ages America" by Morris Berman(to be reviewed soon) goes so far as to say that the `levers of change' in America, if not the West, are effectively gone and moribund. In effect, implying that there is little the common person of moderate means can do any more. This is not the American ethos, and is fundamentally defeatist, no matter how convincing. And it need not come to be.
When set against such a projection, the tale of how slavery was brought to a halt in the British Empire is positively enthralling and brings new heart. It is all the sadder that the Civil War and Reconstruction here, are the commonly known models, and that this epic chapter in the West is neglected. On May 22, 1787, twelve men gathered in a London book store and print ship at 2 George Yard for roundtable. In many ways, the anti-slavery crusade was born there, though there were many already existing strands of thought on this, and there was tacit consent intellectually that slavery was barbarous and un-Christian, but seen as an economic linchpin at the time. One Thomas Clarkson was the principal organizer, and the movement would attract men such as William Wilberforce, whose evangelical convictions and missionary work toward India would give him strong perspective and leverage in the movement, Olaudah Equiano a former slave who would hand down harrowing eyewitness accounts of how it was to be one, and John Newton, the former slaver who wrote "Amazing Grace" and who also wrote of a slave captain's side of the story and how came to see it immoral.
The renowned de Tocqueville was to write of this movement later, but unlike the subject of some of his more celebrated writings, most Americans remain unaware of this other and more encouraging example of how injustices could come to be abolished. With India currently setting out on the difficult path of enfranchisement of its lowest caste, the lessons of 1787 apply to all cultures, for discrimination and institutionalized inequality was, and is, a worldwide phenomenon and not just a creation of of the age of Imperialism.
De Tocqueville said of the series of events unleashed by their meeting and efforts "was absolutely without precedent...If you pore over the histories of all peoples, I doubt that you will find anything more extraordinary." Its easy to forget that just over two centuries ago, well over three quarters of the world's people were in bondage of one kind or another, slaves in America, Europe, Ottoman Empire, Africa, serfdom in the Russian areas, peasants in debt bondage in China, etc, etc. Of importance here, is the terrible irony that in 1787, "freedom, not slavery, was the peculiar institution"! Yet the swiftness with which it died is an encouraging signal -- by the end of the 1800s it was outlawed almost everywhere, and the anti-slavery movement had achieved its goal in "little more than one lifetime".
In the process of their goal, they pioneered many of the tools of activists or conscience-raiser groups in use today, like posters, and even mass mailings, let alone boycotts and legal proceedings. Like many ills, a lot of the slave trade had actually depended on public ignorance of just how brutal and inhumane the conditions were, and what the real price being paid for certain luxuries was (the parallel today might be the diamond mines of South Africa or the tennis shoes made in Indonesian sweat shops) . Only five years after they began the movement, 300,000 Britons were refusing to eat the sugar that came from the slave trade in lieu of that which didn't, and the House of Commons has passed laws banning the slave trade. But the House of Lords initially voted down this bill, being comprised of the aristocracy backed by the powerful pro-slave interests; the analogs of the plantation owners and pro-slavery politicians of the ante-bellum South portions of the North and Midwest who in America dragged the country into armed confrontation over this when faced with the abolitionist movement.
But the cause refused to fade, and only gained moral and political headway, and though there were were uprisings and outbreaks of violence and upheaval, for the most part, the transformation came by public process. Thus, a half-century later, a slavers whip and chains were formally buried in a Jamaican churchyard in a ceremony for the last (William Knibb) of the `printing shop crusaders' who was still alive and had lived to see that day! The date was July 31, 1838 and there was even a plaque buried saying "Colonial Slavery, died July 31st, 1838, aged 276 years".
Slavery in the British Empire officially ended at midnight on August 1, 1838. Unfortunately, it still persisted in the United States. For a host of reasons, America proved finally unable to end the `peculiar institution' peaceably and by due process of legislation, and would have to fight a Civil War to end it and then a civil rights movement a century afterward. Slavery and institutional underclass structures also continued to persist beyond 1840 in different forms in the rest of the world: in Russia, most of Africa, and in the Islamic world. In fact, in the Islamic world, it still exists today in the ongoing tragedy of Sudan, elsewhere. In India, it is in the process of being confronted. But in 1838, "in the largest empire on earth, it was ended."
In many ways, this may have been one of the finer moments of Western Civilization's capacity to reform and improve itself, without resort to mass revolution and bloodshed. It is timely to recall this encouraging example as we confront the divisions and disarray of the present and feel that little can be done.
- Anthony
(The most recent book about this is now in trade paperback: "Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the fight to free an Empire's slaves" by Adam Hochschild, Mariner Books 2006).
ISBN 0618619070
Sunday, May 21, 2006
Mayor Nagin's re-election gives New Orleans momentum...
New Orleans re-elected incumbent Mayor Ray Nagin in a close runoff election this past Saturday. Despite some of the criticism and controversy leveled at him during the ongoing hurricane Katrina disaster and the response fiasco that followed it, his re-election not only seems important, but the right thing.
For one thing, as Mayor Ray Nagin pointed out in his dignified and generous victory acceptance speech, in many ways, Nagin at least for the past year, has been a politician subject to a similar brand of vilification and butt of jokes as President George W. Bush. The comparison is apt ---- like Bush, Nagin suffers from a tendency of the public - particularly those watching TV sound-bytes vs reading the more detailed accounts in print - to seek to `blame and scapegoat' the one on top for everything under the sun. A marked tendency to believe the worst characterizations in search of a simple and satisfyingly short answer that can `fit before commercial break'. This in complete disregard of whether the one `on top' even has the authority and jurisdiction to so act. In truth, such moments of crisis provide a valuable insight into the true limits of power and authority, and one might dare posit, suggest in just what areas those powers and authority maybe should be increased or augmented to meet public expectations already de-facto in place. (Example, that FEMA was more administrative in character, is not the public perception of what it was `supposed to be'. Ergo, it needs to become what it was thought to be). A similar insight is found when looking at what the New Orleans clean-up has to really deal with.
First off, the national public dis-information and overall clue-lessness of the sheer magnitude of what happened is very great. (This writer was not excepted from that number -- what I will discuss next was truly shocking to watch). The following elaborate graphic of the unfolding of exactly what happened during those wild hours Hurricane Katrina made landfall tells more eloquently than reports just how big a deal this was. That it overtaxed the experience of any municipal government, and even a state's, in the variety of a challenges posed comes as no surprise.
http://www.nola.com/katrina/graphics/flashflood.swf
If you visited the link, you will see that the winds and storm surges combined, had the effect of `launching' multiple and ever-shifting assaults on the various flanks of New Orleans. Like an enemy army besieging a great city seeking a weakness in its defense, Katrina's effects seemed to show a similar diabolical cunning and changing of tactics. As a historian with eye for detail, I found the actual facts here truly daunting, and yes, in retrospect, somewhat exculpatory in character, toward all levels of the initial government response. I had originally believed there had been a failure of levees on the north shore facing Lake Pontchartrain, with spillover from the Industrial Canal that flooded the 9th Ward and St.Bernard area, coupled with an unlucky breach of the 17th Street Canal, and a bit of water in the French Quarter. This impression itself, more detailed than some descriptions often heard on radio, was still woefully incomplete and far short of the truth. It is when viewing this graphic that one can truly appreciate that what happened was far more. This Hurricane's strength, matched to the peculiar topography of just where it hit, unleashed what in the I/T business is recognized as a cascading series of events.
A similar over-simplification presently stands about the recovery and rebuilding efforts, and what hurdles are faced. Unfortunately, there is not yet a similarly clear account and presenting of the facts of what is involved like the prior graphic does for the storm's strike. Yet enough is implicit from learning what happened and what is going on now to know this: The drama of the New Orleans recovery is in part an internal affair, which though requiring close supervision of how Federal funds and assistance is used, is also a recovery whose details and pitfalls and challenges are known and best left to the residents of NOLA. Off-cuff judgments from outside are not helpful and are demeaning. For example, there has been wild talk about "neglect in the clean-up" without taking any account of how much the Mayor and officials have had their progress and attempts stymied by legal hassles of property ownership or various other pitfalls, that have not yielded even to the extraordinary and obvious circumstances of disaster. Even wrecked cars and houses, which would be normally cleared away after a disaster, are often impossible to move due to legal entanglements of a kind that not as common in prior decades of disaster. Such tomfoolery hampers efforts of the city to reconstruct. Then of course, seeing the true scale of the damage there, and the Mississippi Gulf coast, as my brother did recently, goes a long way to explaining any `lag' in reconstruction.
What this means is, that like the conditions during Katrina itself, the facts behind the hype and the hit-and-run style coverage of TV at present show that the picture is not one so much of gross incompetence, as it is a story of overlapping and conflicting agencies and interests. Because of this, it is a sterling example and re-teaching of an old lesson: the overriding importance and need to have a unified chain of authority with a discernible and accountable capstone. A person where the "buck" can stop. Its all too easy for the sound-byte coverage to overlook that Mayor Nagain does not have such authority, and indeed, no one does. For this reason, navigating the labyrinth of legal and jurisdictional hassles ranging from the sound to the patently absurd will be difficult in the recovery. But a certain momentum is now in the air, and I have little doubt now that New Orleans will return, and is returning.
One of the hurdles to be passed was the distraction that the election campaign necessarily generated. For a variety of reasons, for purposes of morale and continuity, before the election I was of the view that Mayor Nagin should be given a chance as Mayor Guiliani was, to continue to lead his stricken city and provide a bridge of continuity to its road to recovery. Such continuity would also help stave-off a simplistic `scape goat' response that would distract from the fact that the failures in dealing with Katrina were shared by all levels of government, at the state level and federal, and its lessons to be learned by all. The growing tendency to just blame the city was unsound. As the experience of neighboring Mississippi shows, neglect and inertia by confused federal elements was not just a New Orleans phenomena. It would seem given the verdict after a close election, and then a hotly contested run-off, a discernible majority of NOLA residents agreed.
Mayor Nagin has had to bear a great deal of simplistic blame for forces and procedures to a great extent out of his control or unanticipated. Having gone through the crucible and learned its lessons, its right that he be given a chance to apply them and offer both city and nation a point of clear continuity pre-Katrina to post-Katrina; such continuity points can be vital to regaining and reviving momentum after a big loss. Helps to combat the impression of `ending' vs making a `new start'. President Bush has pledged the necessary impetus, and it remains to be seen if New Orleans is, as Mayor Nagin put it, "ready to take off" again. One prays so, and though optimism may seem out of place here, there is an intuition he is right.
- Anthony
For one thing, as Mayor Ray Nagin pointed out in his dignified and generous victory acceptance speech, in many ways, Nagin at least for the past year, has been a politician subject to a similar brand of vilification and butt of jokes as President George W. Bush. The comparison is apt ---- like Bush, Nagin suffers from a tendency of the public - particularly those watching TV sound-bytes vs reading the more detailed accounts in print - to seek to `blame and scapegoat' the one on top for everything under the sun. A marked tendency to believe the worst characterizations in search of a simple and satisfyingly short answer that can `fit before commercial break'. This in complete disregard of whether the one `on top' even has the authority and jurisdiction to so act. In truth, such moments of crisis provide a valuable insight into the true limits of power and authority, and one might dare posit, suggest in just what areas those powers and authority maybe should be increased or augmented to meet public expectations already de-facto in place. (Example, that FEMA was more administrative in character, is not the public perception of what it was `supposed to be'. Ergo, it needs to become what it was thought to be). A similar insight is found when looking at what the New Orleans clean-up has to really deal with.
First off, the national public dis-information and overall clue-lessness of the sheer magnitude of what happened is very great. (This writer was not excepted from that number -- what I will discuss next was truly shocking to watch). The following elaborate graphic of the unfolding of exactly what happened during those wild hours Hurricane Katrina made landfall tells more eloquently than reports just how big a deal this was. That it overtaxed the experience of any municipal government, and even a state's, in the variety of a challenges posed comes as no surprise.
http://www.nola.com/katrina/graphics/flashflood.swf
If you visited the link, you will see that the winds and storm surges combined, had the effect of `launching' multiple and ever-shifting assaults on the various flanks of New Orleans. Like an enemy army besieging a great city seeking a weakness in its defense, Katrina's effects seemed to show a similar diabolical cunning and changing of tactics. As a historian with eye for detail, I found the actual facts here truly daunting, and yes, in retrospect, somewhat exculpatory in character, toward all levels of the initial government response. I had originally believed there had been a failure of levees on the north shore facing Lake Pontchartrain, with spillover from the Industrial Canal that flooded the 9th Ward and St.Bernard area, coupled with an unlucky breach of the 17th Street Canal, and a bit of water in the French Quarter. This impression itself, more detailed than some descriptions often heard on radio, was still woefully incomplete and far short of the truth. It is when viewing this graphic that one can truly appreciate that what happened was far more. This Hurricane's strength, matched to the peculiar topography of just where it hit, unleashed what in the I/T business is recognized as a cascading series of events.
A similar over-simplification presently stands about the recovery and rebuilding efforts, and what hurdles are faced. Unfortunately, there is not yet a similarly clear account and presenting of the facts of what is involved like the prior graphic does for the storm's strike. Yet enough is implicit from learning what happened and what is going on now to know this: The drama of the New Orleans recovery is in part an internal affair, which though requiring close supervision of how Federal funds and assistance is used, is also a recovery whose details and pitfalls and challenges are known and best left to the residents of NOLA. Off-cuff judgments from outside are not helpful and are demeaning. For example, there has been wild talk about "neglect in the clean-up" without taking any account of how much the Mayor and officials have had their progress and attempts stymied by legal hassles of property ownership or various other pitfalls, that have not yielded even to the extraordinary and obvious circumstances of disaster. Even wrecked cars and houses, which would be normally cleared away after a disaster, are often impossible to move due to legal entanglements of a kind that not as common in prior decades of disaster. Such tomfoolery hampers efforts of the city to reconstruct. Then of course, seeing the true scale of the damage there, and the Mississippi Gulf coast, as my brother did recently, goes a long way to explaining any `lag' in reconstruction.
What this means is, that like the conditions during Katrina itself, the facts behind the hype and the hit-and-run style coverage of TV at present show that the picture is not one so much of gross incompetence, as it is a story of overlapping and conflicting agencies and interests. Because of this, it is a sterling example and re-teaching of an old lesson: the overriding importance and need to have a unified chain of authority with a discernible and accountable capstone. A person where the "buck" can stop. Its all too easy for the sound-byte coverage to overlook that Mayor Nagain does not have such authority, and indeed, no one does. For this reason, navigating the labyrinth of legal and jurisdictional hassles ranging from the sound to the patently absurd will be difficult in the recovery. But a certain momentum is now in the air, and I have little doubt now that New Orleans will return, and is returning.
One of the hurdles to be passed was the distraction that the election campaign necessarily generated. For a variety of reasons, for purposes of morale and continuity, before the election I was of the view that Mayor Nagin should be given a chance as Mayor Guiliani was, to continue to lead his stricken city and provide a bridge of continuity to its road to recovery. Such continuity would also help stave-off a simplistic `scape goat' response that would distract from the fact that the failures in dealing with Katrina were shared by all levels of government, at the state level and federal, and its lessons to be learned by all. The growing tendency to just blame the city was unsound. As the experience of neighboring Mississippi shows, neglect and inertia by confused federal elements was not just a New Orleans phenomena. It would seem given the verdict after a close election, and then a hotly contested run-off, a discernible majority of NOLA residents agreed.
Mayor Nagin has had to bear a great deal of simplistic blame for forces and procedures to a great extent out of his control or unanticipated. Having gone through the crucible and learned its lessons, its right that he be given a chance to apply them and offer both city and nation a point of clear continuity pre-Katrina to post-Katrina; such continuity points can be vital to regaining and reviving momentum after a big loss. Helps to combat the impression of `ending' vs making a `new start'. President Bush has pledged the necessary impetus, and it remains to be seen if New Orleans is, as Mayor Nagin put it, "ready to take off" again. One prays so, and though optimism may seem out of place here, there is an intuition he is right.
- Anthony
Monday, May 01, 2006
Folly on all sides in today's `protest' re: illegal immigration
The build up and now arrival of today's (May 1st) `protests' regarding `Immigration Policy' as it is termed has revealed a startling range of folly and muddled thinking on all sides. The demagoguery and hype associated with the issue is all the more perplexing for its blatant disregard of reality and true facts. This is spectacularly true on both sides of the fence, both literally, and metaphorically, but of course, especially true regarding the `illegal's rights' side. So will comment on that first. Before saying so, a Disclaimer: in the post that follows I generally take the immigration debate as referring to specifically the en-masse and growing migration across the United State's borders with Mexico. Other groups are not really at the core of the debate, because they are not coming in such volume and scale.
First off, the entire issue is a proverbial `slam dunk'. Almost by definition, `illegal immigrants' are not going to have any `rights' regarding immigration beyond the globally recognized human rights of all. Which is to say, the same kind of rights tourists and other temporary visitors to this country, let alone citizens, should expect in treatment. But beyond that? No. Anyone who came here illegally has done just that, arrived illegally. In this context, any deference shown must be regarded as a courtesy, not a privilege or right. That there are actually illegal -- or if one prefers, `undocumented residents or workers' -- out in the streets openly protesting or walking off jobs is pretty mind-boggling. It’s a commentary on the national dialogue and pandering of scores of public officials that the issue has become as confusing as it has. It’s really clear-cut, in legalese, at least. America has a right to set the conditions for citizenship, and entry into this country and how the borders are crossed. EVERY nation does this, and with almost no media or journalistic pressure about being `racist' or `discriminatory' in having such a concept as conditions of citizenship per-se.
Quite predictably, this has created a backlash, particularly from more conservative and nationalist quarters, against the illegal issue in general. After all, for illegals to openly demonstrate and complain, when they should be being simply arrested, appears the height of insolence and shows an intolerable degree of scofflaw attitude. Yet it is equally true that the protests for the most part have been very dignified and restrained, however large, and the irony is here that to some degree, it is the over-simple response of the `close the borders' chorus that sparks the effrontery of an open protest like this. Day after day, for two, maybe three years now, we have heard a particularly strong drum beat about `the borders' and the `illegal aliens' problem, etc. Yet at the same time, almost never an embracing of our own role in it --- our continued desire for cheap labor. Like the rather rational and forgivable desire for cheap oil, this on its face makes perfect sense. The middle and lower class do not have the wealth of much of the officials, and the price of goods can matter a lot. Nevertheless, like the oil issue, this point of the citizenry's culpability in the sustaining of "the problem" in question must first be recognized if any change is to be sought. So citizens have every right to be angry at the scofflaw behavior, and particularly the choice of a date (May 1st, May Day Parade) with problematical relationship to capitalism, to say the very least.
On the other hand, there is no denying a lot of pointless demonization and overwrought caricatures regarding both the effects and form of illegal immigration. Sometimes true bigotry is indeed lurking, and in that vein, the writer proposes that we retire part of the word `illegal alien'. Not so much for pc-think reasons, as the more honorable and genuine goal of pc to avoid needless, blunt offense. `Alien' after all, in a post Star-Trek/Star Wars era, not to mention the Alien genre itself, now has strong connotations of `totally Other' and not just `foreign' but `incomprehensible' or `incompatible' without some extensive self-education at the very least. This is hardly true of the majority of immigrants, and especially not true of Mexicans sneaking here in hopes of better pay or even better lives. In short, `alien' is needlessly, well, alienating. In fact, to all the above, it now connotates not human at all. Its time is past, and meaning has changed. Let's retire it to refer literally to as yet un-met extra-terrestrial life.
Conversely, let’s resist any pressure -- particularly by editorial and mass media bullpens -- to have any embarrassment or expectation to refrain from the use of `illegal'. For the illegality of the immigration is the very point, not really what they are doing here. Only a small minority is criminals in the true sense, and should be dealt with like all criminals, either through our system or Mexico's. Hence, "Illegal Immigrants" is a perfectly valid way to refer the "undocumented residents/workers" phrase that is being bandied about, and a lot more honest and to the point. Drop `alien' but keep `illegal'. So this debate and `protest' is really about the supposed rights of illegal immigrants that have come here illegally, in short, invaded. This on its face is absurd, and would not even be an issue, if it were not for the equally dishonest posturing on the American side by some of the major concerned advocates.
What is dishonest? Quite frankly, the continuing pass given to businesses and employers who suffer no penalty when hiring illegal immigrants, thus both fueling and perpetuating the desire of same to migrate here in large numbers. In short, American employers are creating too strong an incentive for mere laws to deter would-be workers desperate for any opportunity or improvement in the situation. This fact has the effect of making all the protestation and great debate sound more than a little ridiculous. After all, we have not even taken strong steps to outlaw the activity that sustains illegal immigration, so why the mass concern over those downtrodden workers simply answering opportunity and the employer's call?
Some will answer, "Things have changed since 9/11, and the threat of terrorism and the War". But this is an evasion. Strictly speaking, the government could still be staging discrete "interceptions" and even liquidations in a covert style of actual enemy operatives trying to sneak into the country, just as they always did on both sides in the Cold War. The War on Islamo-Terrorism is a reason to strengthen border patrol, NOT control of illegal immigrants employed or residing here already. They really are not the same thing.
Second, there is an even more fundamental point. Though I said above that we lack strong punishments or disincentives to business to curtail their use of illegal labor, this does not mean we SHOULD DO SO. Actually, what is far more questionable is the whole point of exactly why some form of temporary worker program could not be set up. How many really want the businesses to stop employing illegal immigrants? To what end exactly? This in a time when almost nothing is done to stop the massive outsourcing of jobs to low-wage earners in foreign lands by business for almost exactly the same reasons as illegals are hired -- -to save a dollar, or rather, millions of dollars.
Isn't the concern rather, the amount of American capital in the form of dollars being sent out of the country? Is that not itself more a side-effect of our continuing use of an income tax, which can be evaded by cash payments, instead of national sales or flat tax, which cannot be evaded by anyone who purchases anything here? If the concern is the amount of untaxed-money being sent to Mexico, then look at ways to either tax that, or see that it is not sent there in objectionable quantities. OR, conversely, simply enforcement citizenship proof as the minimum requirements for access to services ranging from medical, to welfare and schools. This too, would remove the point of `we are paying for illegals to use our services without return' argument.
These are just some initial thoughts, on a problem that is more a problem because it is not being looked at rationally and "as is", but rather through emotional and nationalist lenses that do not see their own role in the conundrum. Or at the minimum, if they truly feel government is not listening - their duty to find and elect officials who will reverse or untangle this mess in a more sober way.
- Anthony
First off, the entire issue is a proverbial `slam dunk'. Almost by definition, `illegal immigrants' are not going to have any `rights' regarding immigration beyond the globally recognized human rights of all. Which is to say, the same kind of rights tourists and other temporary visitors to this country, let alone citizens, should expect in treatment. But beyond that? No. Anyone who came here illegally has done just that, arrived illegally. In this context, any deference shown must be regarded as a courtesy, not a privilege or right. That there are actually illegal -- or if one prefers, `undocumented residents or workers' -- out in the streets openly protesting or walking off jobs is pretty mind-boggling. It’s a commentary on the national dialogue and pandering of scores of public officials that the issue has become as confusing as it has. It’s really clear-cut, in legalese, at least. America has a right to set the conditions for citizenship, and entry into this country and how the borders are crossed. EVERY nation does this, and with almost no media or journalistic pressure about being `racist' or `discriminatory' in having such a concept as conditions of citizenship per-se.
Quite predictably, this has created a backlash, particularly from more conservative and nationalist quarters, against the illegal issue in general. After all, for illegals to openly demonstrate and complain, when they should be being simply arrested, appears the height of insolence and shows an intolerable degree of scofflaw attitude. Yet it is equally true that the protests for the most part have been very dignified and restrained, however large, and the irony is here that to some degree, it is the over-simple response of the `close the borders' chorus that sparks the effrontery of an open protest like this. Day after day, for two, maybe three years now, we have heard a particularly strong drum beat about `the borders' and the `illegal aliens' problem, etc. Yet at the same time, almost never an embracing of our own role in it --- our continued desire for cheap labor. Like the rather rational and forgivable desire for cheap oil, this on its face makes perfect sense. The middle and lower class do not have the wealth of much of the officials, and the price of goods can matter a lot. Nevertheless, like the oil issue, this point of the citizenry's culpability in the sustaining of "the problem" in question must first be recognized if any change is to be sought. So citizens have every right to be angry at the scofflaw behavior, and particularly the choice of a date (May 1st, May Day Parade) with problematical relationship to capitalism, to say the very least.
On the other hand, there is no denying a lot of pointless demonization and overwrought caricatures regarding both the effects and form of illegal immigration. Sometimes true bigotry is indeed lurking, and in that vein, the writer proposes that we retire part of the word `illegal alien'. Not so much for pc-think reasons, as the more honorable and genuine goal of pc to avoid needless, blunt offense. `Alien' after all, in a post Star-Trek/Star Wars era, not to mention the Alien genre itself, now has strong connotations of `totally Other' and not just `foreign' but `incomprehensible' or `incompatible' without some extensive self-education at the very least. This is hardly true of the majority of immigrants, and especially not true of Mexicans sneaking here in hopes of better pay or even better lives. In short, `alien' is needlessly, well, alienating. In fact, to all the above, it now connotates not human at all. Its time is past, and meaning has changed. Let's retire it to refer literally to as yet un-met extra-terrestrial life.
Conversely, let’s resist any pressure -- particularly by editorial and mass media bullpens -- to have any embarrassment or expectation to refrain from the use of `illegal'. For the illegality of the immigration is the very point, not really what they are doing here. Only a small minority is criminals in the true sense, and should be dealt with like all criminals, either through our system or Mexico's. Hence, "Illegal Immigrants" is a perfectly valid way to refer the "undocumented residents/workers" phrase that is being bandied about, and a lot more honest and to the point. Drop `alien' but keep `illegal'. So this debate and `protest' is really about the supposed rights of illegal immigrants that have come here illegally, in short, invaded. This on its face is absurd, and would not even be an issue, if it were not for the equally dishonest posturing on the American side by some of the major concerned advocates.
What is dishonest? Quite frankly, the continuing pass given to businesses and employers who suffer no penalty when hiring illegal immigrants, thus both fueling and perpetuating the desire of same to migrate here in large numbers. In short, American employers are creating too strong an incentive for mere laws to deter would-be workers desperate for any opportunity or improvement in the situation. This fact has the effect of making all the protestation and great debate sound more than a little ridiculous. After all, we have not even taken strong steps to outlaw the activity that sustains illegal immigration, so why the mass concern over those downtrodden workers simply answering opportunity and the employer's call?
Some will answer, "Things have changed since 9/11, and the threat of terrorism and the War". But this is an evasion. Strictly speaking, the government could still be staging discrete "interceptions" and even liquidations in a covert style of actual enemy operatives trying to sneak into the country, just as they always did on both sides in the Cold War. The War on Islamo-Terrorism is a reason to strengthen border patrol, NOT control of illegal immigrants employed or residing here already. They really are not the same thing.
Second, there is an even more fundamental point. Though I said above that we lack strong punishments or disincentives to business to curtail their use of illegal labor, this does not mean we SHOULD DO SO. Actually, what is far more questionable is the whole point of exactly why some form of temporary worker program could not be set up. How many really want the businesses to stop employing illegal immigrants? To what end exactly? This in a time when almost nothing is done to stop the massive outsourcing of jobs to low-wage earners in foreign lands by business for almost exactly the same reasons as illegals are hired -- -to save a dollar, or rather, millions of dollars.
Isn't the concern rather, the amount of American capital in the form of dollars being sent out of the country? Is that not itself more a side-effect of our continuing use of an income tax, which can be evaded by cash payments, instead of national sales or flat tax, which cannot be evaded by anyone who purchases anything here? If the concern is the amount of untaxed-money being sent to Mexico, then look at ways to either tax that, or see that it is not sent there in objectionable quantities. OR, conversely, simply enforcement citizenship proof as the minimum requirements for access to services ranging from medical, to welfare and schools. This too, would remove the point of `we are paying for illegals to use our services without return' argument.
These are just some initial thoughts, on a problem that is more a problem because it is not being looked at rationally and "as is", but rather through emotional and nationalist lenses that do not see their own role in the conundrum. Or at the minimum, if they truly feel government is not listening - their duty to find and elect officials who will reverse or untangle this mess in a more sober way.
- Anthony
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