By
Dr. Mahmoud S. Audi
To understand senator Lieberman of connecticut, it is helpful to know where his loyalty lies. It is not where it is normally expected to be. It is not to the people who elected him to represent them and to stand for the interest of their state, in the Senate; it is not to the Democratic Party which gave him the Chairmanship of an important senate committee, even though he had campaigned against their presidential nominee, Barak Obama, in 2008; it is not to America and its standing as the greatest country on Earth: its economy is second to none; its military is ready for peace and ready for war; and its moral compass lights the way for the rest of the world.
His loyalty is to himself, for his own grandiosity and promotion; to the health insurance companies and to the drug maker corporations; to the continued occupation of the Palestinian land by the Israeli military; and to perpetual wars against Islam and Muslim countries.
His stand as the king maker (a boost to his egocentricity) in the debate of the Health Reform bill is as expected to exact concessions as a price for his needed and deserved vote. The gain is not necessarily to benefit the people who had elected him to represent their state.
One way to deal with such an egomaniac is for the timid leader of the Senate to exercise some leadership and tell the Senator that he would strip him of the Chairmanship of the committee which he loves so much; he would not be supported by the Democratic Party in Connecticut; and the annual billions of military aid to Israel would be reduced.
But Lieberman has been around for a long time. He knows how to abuse our democracy. He might also be working on a long term strategy. As a starter, we know that he had campaigned for the Republican nominee, McCain, against the Democratic nominee, Barak Obama, and he spoke at the Republican Convention of 2008 encouraging voter to vote for his long time ally to defeat Obama and the Democrats. He is one of the most aggressive senatorial supporters of the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian land and the oppression of the Palestinian people. Unlike Obama he is a war monger and his finger is always on the trigger—such a person is a trigger happy maniac.
Obama made it clear during the campaign of 2008 that if elected he will give diplomacy a chance; he will respect the United Nations and its institutes; the United States will abide by the protocols of the Geneva Convention on the conduct of wars and the treatment of war prisoners. And after he won the election he made it clear that Islam is the not the enemy, and Islam is not to be feared, by his speeches, in Cairo, Egypt and in Ankara, Turkey, and through a reporter interview for a television station in an Arab country, among other venues.
He also promised the Arab and Muslim leaders that he will work hard to help solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This cannot be achieved without convincing the Israelis that the ways of peace are more beneficial to them and to all the other parties: the Israelis, the Palestinians, the Arabs and Muslims, the United States and the West, and for World peace. Israel with its military might and military superiority will not budge. The only entity in the world that might have the chance to move Israel to reason is the President of the United States. This weapon is very simple and might be very effective: let the leader of the Senate tell the senator that the President would reduced the military aid to Israel, if he does not cooperate. Lieberman and his elks in the Senate might be able neutralize such as a potentially effective tool.
Lieberman also knows that Obama, unlike other presidents, is a hands-on president, especially on the major issues of his presidency. Lieberman knows that he cannot influence Obama to change policy, as he had influenced other Presidents including Clinton and W. with such a relationship what is left to Lieberman to protect Israel from possible modification of the US policy toward the Middle East, is to become the obstructionist we have seen.
This is what he hopes to accomplish. Defeat the health reform bill and all other major initiatives of the President, to declare the failure of the Obama presidency, and to make him easy to defeat come 2012. Then celebrate a new incompetent president (the Republicans have smart people among them but they do not get nominated) who will be handled by right wing ideologues.
Lieberman pays lip service to America but his stance on basic issues shows the real face of the senator from Connecticut. I do not need health reform for myself. But I am for it if it will prevent people from dying because they are poor, or prevent them from experiencing catastrophes in their lives, because they cannot afford the ever expensive medical care in this great country.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Sunday, November 29, 2009
The Afghanistan Plan: My Version
By
Dr. Mahmoud S. Audi
The President will soon announce his plan for Afghanistan. He will talk about his objectives, in the landlocked country, and his strategies to achieve these objectives. The pronouncement will be limited by his desire to please his supporters, and to minimize the impact of the objections of his political adversaries. Unfortunately, most of the discussion will be heated. The demagogues of the media will have a free field day, the pundits will spew their wisdom for the world to ponder, and the disinterested will also contribute to the noise.
So I write about Afghanistan: about what should be our objectives, and how we could achieve them. My knowledge of the culture and the political history of that part of the world have influenced what I have written.
The following should be our objectives.
• The primary goals of our focused and renewed attention to Afghanistan must be the security of our land and the security and safety of our people, wherever they might be.
• The creation, with contributions from friends and allies, of conditions in Afghanistan that will not permit the reestablishment of training camps for individuals and groups who think that violence is the only means of solving their problems with us.
• The establishment of conditions, in the urban and rural communities of Afghanistan, to help them develop their economic infrastructure, such as water supplies and sewage systems, roads and electricity, agriculture and industry, as investment in their future.
Our security depends on our vigilance and our strength; it also depends of the weakness and understanding of our enemies. In my opinion, our security depends on the ability of each of us to stand guard of his or her community against those who want to keep us busy worrying about the next attack on us and on our land. It also depends of our confidence to offer our friendship to those who may think that we are their enemy; let them know that we mean no harm to their peaceful living.
The creation of the humongous Department of Home Land Security has not been the answer. The security needs of the different communities are more likely to be different than the same. But there is a basic need to all of them: each knows best itself and how to protect itself or what it needs to protect itself from human and natural disasters.
The structure of the different departments and agencies of the government before they became components of the Home Land Security Department was more efficient than the current huge multilayered bureaucracy. Each local community needs to protect itself against manmade and natural menaces. They all need, always current, communication systems for simultaneous and instantaneous exchange of intelligence and other information. They need unified codes of communications and unified training in aspect that are relevant to their communities. Moreover, those communities which are at risk more than others, but they do not have the means to protect themselves should be helped. The independent revitalization of all the security departments and agencies along with the installment of qualified leaders and other qualified personnel would produce a more efficient and less expensive structure than the recently established Homeland Security Department.
Our security also depends on those who think that the only way to treat their problems with us is violence. That attitude, rightly or wrongly, is reinforced by what some of us do and what that some say. For examples, there are crowds among us who incessantly say that we decide and the rest of the world must listen. It may be true that the world listens when we speak, but we should also know that the world might react, to what we do or say, in ways that might be harmful to us.
We can reduce the threat of our declared enemies by behaving in a more responsible and mature ways, and not necessarily by killing them. Giving them hope and respecting who they are religiously and culturally might help. But saying to the peoples of the world that they are either with us or against us, and they are with our God or against our God does not help. We should have the inclination to assume and act on the assumption that the world is our friend, although we know that parts of the world are closer to us religiously and culturally than the other parts. That fact should not matter. Humanity is the more encompassing scope than the other yard-sticks.
Yet in every religion, every culture, every ethnicity, every country, every city and every tribe, there is a small group who do not follow the rules of the law. Instead, they use the tools of democracy, such as the freedom of speech, to agitate the people to highjack their governments and convert it to a tool to achieve their selfish and unpatriotic political goals. In none democratic countries, such small groups use arms and other suppressive measures to highjack their governments and change them into tools for achieving power. Let us not judge peoples by what the small groups do.
There are many things that we could do to woo people to our side. But the most potent among them is the empowerment of the United Nations. There are many conflicts in the world, and as its acknowledged leader we must understand them, and understand the opposing points of views. We must not take sides. We must allow the community of nations to work to resolve these conflicts and we must support this community by endorsing and supporting its resolutions. We must regularly remind ourselves that we alone were the main driver to create the United Nations, with the main purpose to resolve peacefully international conflicts. In my opinion, our neutral stand between conflicting parties will reduce the number of our enemies considerably. No other foreign policy will pacify our enemies than the stance of neutralism in our foreign policy.
The second objective is the security of Afghanistan. Simply, the Afghanis must be responsible for the security of the Afghanis and their country. To do this they need help. Help would come if the Afghanis show inclinations to accept modern understanding of their ethnicities, their culture, and their religion. They must learn how to take what improves their lives from the West, and use it as their own. They should also be willing to teach, from what is in their own culture, the West and the rest of the world about what enhances the life and the dignity of the individual. They must also understand that their destiny is peace among themselves, and among their neighbors, and they should learn from us and from others, by example, how to be tolerant.
The creation and adaptation of that paradigm will not and must not be our job in that remote and rocky country. From the security point of view, our job is to train the Afghanis to secure their communities and their borders, and to prevent the use of their land to house and train those who want to harm us. For that object we do not need more American troops in Afghanistan, on the contrary, we need less American troops. We will need 50,000 of American military personnel who in Afghanistan will be focusing on defending themselves, and training the Afghani military and police forces.
For that job, we should give the government of Afghanistan one year to recruit enough police and military personnel. Then we will train them, arm them, and discover and promote leaders among them. Then our military forces will withdraw for good from that troubled land.
Also, the government of Afghanistan will be encouraged to develop its own flavored democracy. We will educate them about democracy and freedom and how freedom strengthens the creativity and the productivity of the people, and how democracy makes people believe that they own their country which makes them more willing to bear arms to defend it. We will not indoctrinate them into our form of democracy and our brand of freedom.
We will tell the government of Afghanistan about the dire consequences of allowing the military training and indoctrination of would be our attackers.
The third objective of the Afghan plan rises from our humanity and our desire to help them rise from the ashes of war and destruction, and live in a peaceful land. That requires the creation of developmental programs to help the people in securing their lives and lively-hood. If the process is successful we could eliminate the killing of people by our bullets, and reduce the exposure of our personnel to being killed by angry bullets. Reaching this end, however, requires, for example, helping the Afghani farmers develop their farms by introducing improved agricultural technologies and knowhow, and introducing new agricultural products. Beyond that, we need to help them develop markets for their agricultural products.
The same approach would be applied toward creating businesses, we should support locally created businesses, and encourage the development of needed projects. We could educate them in such fields by teaching them the ways of the industrial West.
Schools and training programs of all kinds including technical and arts schools should be developed. Students should learn the ways of agriculture, industry, and technology along with culture and religion. They should also learn how to respect the religions and cultures of other peoples.
Mahmoud S. Audi, Ph.D.
Retired professor
22 South Springfield Rd / C-2
Clifton Heights, PA 19018
Email address: draudiphd@yahoo.com
Home phone: 610 626 7494
Cell phone: 484 574 1937
Dr. Mahmoud S. Audi
The President will soon announce his plan for Afghanistan. He will talk about his objectives, in the landlocked country, and his strategies to achieve these objectives. The pronouncement will be limited by his desire to please his supporters, and to minimize the impact of the objections of his political adversaries. Unfortunately, most of the discussion will be heated. The demagogues of the media will have a free field day, the pundits will spew their wisdom for the world to ponder, and the disinterested will also contribute to the noise.
So I write about Afghanistan: about what should be our objectives, and how we could achieve them. My knowledge of the culture and the political history of that part of the world have influenced what I have written.
The following should be our objectives.
• The primary goals of our focused and renewed attention to Afghanistan must be the security of our land and the security and safety of our people, wherever they might be.
• The creation, with contributions from friends and allies, of conditions in Afghanistan that will not permit the reestablishment of training camps for individuals and groups who think that violence is the only means of solving their problems with us.
• The establishment of conditions, in the urban and rural communities of Afghanistan, to help them develop their economic infrastructure, such as water supplies and sewage systems, roads and electricity, agriculture and industry, as investment in their future.
Our security depends on our vigilance and our strength; it also depends of the weakness and understanding of our enemies. In my opinion, our security depends on the ability of each of us to stand guard of his or her community against those who want to keep us busy worrying about the next attack on us and on our land. It also depends of our confidence to offer our friendship to those who may think that we are their enemy; let them know that we mean no harm to their peaceful living.
The creation of the humongous Department of Home Land Security has not been the answer. The security needs of the different communities are more likely to be different than the same. But there is a basic need to all of them: each knows best itself and how to protect itself or what it needs to protect itself from human and natural disasters.
The structure of the different departments and agencies of the government before they became components of the Home Land Security Department was more efficient than the current huge multilayered bureaucracy. Each local community needs to protect itself against manmade and natural menaces. They all need, always current, communication systems for simultaneous and instantaneous exchange of intelligence and other information. They need unified codes of communications and unified training in aspect that are relevant to their communities. Moreover, those communities which are at risk more than others, but they do not have the means to protect themselves should be helped. The independent revitalization of all the security departments and agencies along with the installment of qualified leaders and other qualified personnel would produce a more efficient and less expensive structure than the recently established Homeland Security Department.
Our security also depends on those who think that the only way to treat their problems with us is violence. That attitude, rightly or wrongly, is reinforced by what some of us do and what that some say. For examples, there are crowds among us who incessantly say that we decide and the rest of the world must listen. It may be true that the world listens when we speak, but we should also know that the world might react, to what we do or say, in ways that might be harmful to us.
We can reduce the threat of our declared enemies by behaving in a more responsible and mature ways, and not necessarily by killing them. Giving them hope and respecting who they are religiously and culturally might help. But saying to the peoples of the world that they are either with us or against us, and they are with our God or against our God does not help. We should have the inclination to assume and act on the assumption that the world is our friend, although we know that parts of the world are closer to us religiously and culturally than the other parts. That fact should not matter. Humanity is the more encompassing scope than the other yard-sticks.
Yet in every religion, every culture, every ethnicity, every country, every city and every tribe, there is a small group who do not follow the rules of the law. Instead, they use the tools of democracy, such as the freedom of speech, to agitate the people to highjack their governments and convert it to a tool to achieve their selfish and unpatriotic political goals. In none democratic countries, such small groups use arms and other suppressive measures to highjack their governments and change them into tools for achieving power. Let us not judge peoples by what the small groups do.
There are many things that we could do to woo people to our side. But the most potent among them is the empowerment of the United Nations. There are many conflicts in the world, and as its acknowledged leader we must understand them, and understand the opposing points of views. We must not take sides. We must allow the community of nations to work to resolve these conflicts and we must support this community by endorsing and supporting its resolutions. We must regularly remind ourselves that we alone were the main driver to create the United Nations, with the main purpose to resolve peacefully international conflicts. In my opinion, our neutral stand between conflicting parties will reduce the number of our enemies considerably. No other foreign policy will pacify our enemies than the stance of neutralism in our foreign policy.
The second objective is the security of Afghanistan. Simply, the Afghanis must be responsible for the security of the Afghanis and their country. To do this they need help. Help would come if the Afghanis show inclinations to accept modern understanding of their ethnicities, their culture, and their religion. They must learn how to take what improves their lives from the West, and use it as their own. They should also be willing to teach, from what is in their own culture, the West and the rest of the world about what enhances the life and the dignity of the individual. They must also understand that their destiny is peace among themselves, and among their neighbors, and they should learn from us and from others, by example, how to be tolerant.
The creation and adaptation of that paradigm will not and must not be our job in that remote and rocky country. From the security point of view, our job is to train the Afghanis to secure their communities and their borders, and to prevent the use of their land to house and train those who want to harm us. For that object we do not need more American troops in Afghanistan, on the contrary, we need less American troops. We will need 50,000 of American military personnel who in Afghanistan will be focusing on defending themselves, and training the Afghani military and police forces.
For that job, we should give the government of Afghanistan one year to recruit enough police and military personnel. Then we will train them, arm them, and discover and promote leaders among them. Then our military forces will withdraw for good from that troubled land.
Also, the government of Afghanistan will be encouraged to develop its own flavored democracy. We will educate them about democracy and freedom and how freedom strengthens the creativity and the productivity of the people, and how democracy makes people believe that they own their country which makes them more willing to bear arms to defend it. We will not indoctrinate them into our form of democracy and our brand of freedom.
We will tell the government of Afghanistan about the dire consequences of allowing the military training and indoctrination of would be our attackers.
The third objective of the Afghan plan rises from our humanity and our desire to help them rise from the ashes of war and destruction, and live in a peaceful land. That requires the creation of developmental programs to help the people in securing their lives and lively-hood. If the process is successful we could eliminate the killing of people by our bullets, and reduce the exposure of our personnel to being killed by angry bullets. Reaching this end, however, requires, for example, helping the Afghani farmers develop their farms by introducing improved agricultural technologies and knowhow, and introducing new agricultural products. Beyond that, we need to help them develop markets for their agricultural products.
The same approach would be applied toward creating businesses, we should support locally created businesses, and encourage the development of needed projects. We could educate them in such fields by teaching them the ways of the industrial West.
Schools and training programs of all kinds including technical and arts schools should be developed. Students should learn the ways of agriculture, industry, and technology along with culture and religion. They should also learn how to respect the religions and cultures of other peoples.
Mahmoud S. Audi, Ph.D.
Retired professor
22 South Springfield Rd / C-2
Clifton Heights, PA 19018
Email address: draudiphd@yahoo.com
Home phone: 610 626 7494
Cell phone: 484 574 1937
Saturday, June 20, 2009
President Obama and His Middle East Politics
By
Dr. Mahmoud S. Audi
I voted for Obama last November because he was the better of the two candidates: he understands multiculturalism; he can visualize problems and figure out alternative solutions to them; he understands that no government can obscure reality forever; he understands that our power stands for good and not for evil; he believes (I guess) as I do that God is a God of good and evil is His enemy; he understands that the weak needs the strong to defend him and preserve his rights; the respect of others is not a gift for good behavior, it must be part of our nature, and part of our values. We respect both and talk to both: those who like us and those who do not like us but earnest about peaceful exchanges.
He went to Cairo, Egypt, and talked to the Arabs and Muslims; he went to Ankara and Istambole, Turkey, before that, and talked about the same things. He talked in Europe too, and mobilized the World to work (as I see it) for peace and love among nations. He talked about democracy and freedom, and he talked about the sacrifices that need to be made to achive these and all value related goals. I have enjoyed reading his words, and rejoiced the poetry in them.
Speeches are nice and necessary, but actions ring louder: I want to see Israel stop desecrating the Palestinian land and the holy Christian and Muslim religious sites. I want to see them stop planting concrete while building settlements that transformed Israelis into militant settlers. I want to see Israel be realistic and start to negotiate in good faith with the Palestinians the withdrawal and the security concerns of both peoples, not the security which Israel claims, and not the security which is an excuse for continued occupation, continued building settlements, and continued land grapping: The security that is achieved by peace treaties that are guaranteed by the United Nations and the big guns of the East and West. I want Israel to repatriate the Palestinians who had been scared out of their homes and lands.
Our previous policies have succeeded in dividing the Iraqis into religious sects and political factions. I want our government to disengage with Iraq and give the Iraqis the chance to reunite, like us in the United States, to protect their territories and their people. I want us to listen to the Iraqis and to be good friends to them. I want us help them heal the wounds and close the gushers that our previous polices had created that drained their blood.
Our policy in Afghanistan was wrong from the beginning. We completely ignored history. We also underestimated the difficulty of achieving the unrealistic goals. Our technology and our brave men and women in the armed forces did what they could do. But some of us wanted them to be supermen. They are human beings, and the technology they and others had created had its limits. Stop the operations of our troops inside Afghanistan, and demand from the government that we had created, to form a unity government that represents all the people. The government would be responsible for all activities on its soil. The government would prohibit the creation of militant groups to attack other people.
Our policy toward Pakistan destabilized an ally. The Pakistanis must be left alone to solve their own problems. They had delivered and they will deliver any person whom we think plotted or would plot military attacks against us. Do not ask the impossible from the people of Pakistan. Encourage them to unify and make peace with India. Encourage them to solve the poverty problems of their own people.
The recent history of Iran is vivid in the minds of the Iranians and their leaders. British petroleum companies discovered petroleum in Iran before its discovery in any of the neighboring Arab countries including Iraq and Saudi Arabia. In the early fifties of the last century the democratically elected government of Iran, lead by Prime Minister Musaddaq, nationalized the petroleum industry. The result of that action set the Western intelligence services to create street demonstrations and concocted schemes to disqualify the prime minister. The conspiracy succeeded. The prime minister was removed from office and the Shah was reinstalled as king. In 1979 when a real, albeit religious, revolution wanted to remove the same shah and establish democracy, the Western countries stood with the shah against the revolution.
Mistrust of the West is in the living memory of the Iranians. They see the West as deadset against their Islamic revolution. With this historic package in the background it will be extremely difficult for the Obama administration to make the Iranians trust him or trust any American or British government. The use of military force against Iran, as it has been promoted by local extremist groups and foreign governments will exacerbate the currently bad situation.
However, we can take the word of the Iranian government (we are strong to take that risk) that its nuclear power program is dedicated to peaceful applications only, such as generating electricity. Then we should work on the Israelis to dismantle their nuclear military program, because it would be the justification of the Iranian government to have a military program of its own, to balance the nuclear program of the Israelis. As Americans we must understand that as long as Israel is at war with the Palestinians and others, and as long as it has an active nuclear military program, some country sooner or later would take that as justification for developing its own military nuclear program.
I know that what I have suggested as desired actions are not easy to do. But I want us to declare in nice and committed words that we intend to do them, but in order to accomplish such feats we need to work through the labyrinth of politics. We are a democracy, we are the oldest working democracy in the world, imperfect as it is, it is a blessing which keeps reforming itself. In such democracy interest groups flourish. Some of them ignorantly or willingly seem to be working against our values, our global interests, and our leadership of the World.
Let us pray for the safety of our president, so that we may see how much of his enchanting words would deliver solid results.
Dr. Mahmoud S. Audi
I voted for Obama last November because he was the better of the two candidates: he understands multiculturalism; he can visualize problems and figure out alternative solutions to them; he understands that no government can obscure reality forever; he understands that our power stands for good and not for evil; he believes (I guess) as I do that God is a God of good and evil is His enemy; he understands that the weak needs the strong to defend him and preserve his rights; the respect of others is not a gift for good behavior, it must be part of our nature, and part of our values. We respect both and talk to both: those who like us and those who do not like us but earnest about peaceful exchanges.
He went to Cairo, Egypt, and talked to the Arabs and Muslims; he went to Ankara and Istambole, Turkey, before that, and talked about the same things. He talked in Europe too, and mobilized the World to work (as I see it) for peace and love among nations. He talked about democracy and freedom, and he talked about the sacrifices that need to be made to achive these and all value related goals. I have enjoyed reading his words, and rejoiced the poetry in them.
Speeches are nice and necessary, but actions ring louder: I want to see Israel stop desecrating the Palestinian land and the holy Christian and Muslim religious sites. I want to see them stop planting concrete while building settlements that transformed Israelis into militant settlers. I want to see Israel be realistic and start to negotiate in good faith with the Palestinians the withdrawal and the security concerns of both peoples, not the security which Israel claims, and not the security which is an excuse for continued occupation, continued building settlements, and continued land grapping: The security that is achieved by peace treaties that are guaranteed by the United Nations and the big guns of the East and West. I want Israel to repatriate the Palestinians who had been scared out of their homes and lands.
Our previous policies have succeeded in dividing the Iraqis into religious sects and political factions. I want our government to disengage with Iraq and give the Iraqis the chance to reunite, like us in the United States, to protect their territories and their people. I want us to listen to the Iraqis and to be good friends to them. I want us help them heal the wounds and close the gushers that our previous polices had created that drained their blood.
Our policy in Afghanistan was wrong from the beginning. We completely ignored history. We also underestimated the difficulty of achieving the unrealistic goals. Our technology and our brave men and women in the armed forces did what they could do. But some of us wanted them to be supermen. They are human beings, and the technology they and others had created had its limits. Stop the operations of our troops inside Afghanistan, and demand from the government that we had created, to form a unity government that represents all the people. The government would be responsible for all activities on its soil. The government would prohibit the creation of militant groups to attack other people.
Our policy toward Pakistan destabilized an ally. The Pakistanis must be left alone to solve their own problems. They had delivered and they will deliver any person whom we think plotted or would plot military attacks against us. Do not ask the impossible from the people of Pakistan. Encourage them to unify and make peace with India. Encourage them to solve the poverty problems of their own people.
The recent history of Iran is vivid in the minds of the Iranians and their leaders. British petroleum companies discovered petroleum in Iran before its discovery in any of the neighboring Arab countries including Iraq and Saudi Arabia. In the early fifties of the last century the democratically elected government of Iran, lead by Prime Minister Musaddaq, nationalized the petroleum industry. The result of that action set the Western intelligence services to create street demonstrations and concocted schemes to disqualify the prime minister. The conspiracy succeeded. The prime minister was removed from office and the Shah was reinstalled as king. In 1979 when a real, albeit religious, revolution wanted to remove the same shah and establish democracy, the Western countries stood with the shah against the revolution.
Mistrust of the West is in the living memory of the Iranians. They see the West as deadset against their Islamic revolution. With this historic package in the background it will be extremely difficult for the Obama administration to make the Iranians trust him or trust any American or British government. The use of military force against Iran, as it has been promoted by local extremist groups and foreign governments will exacerbate the currently bad situation.
However, we can take the word of the Iranian government (we are strong to take that risk) that its nuclear power program is dedicated to peaceful applications only, such as generating electricity. Then we should work on the Israelis to dismantle their nuclear military program, because it would be the justification of the Iranian government to have a military program of its own, to balance the nuclear program of the Israelis. As Americans we must understand that as long as Israel is at war with the Palestinians and others, and as long as it has an active nuclear military program, some country sooner or later would take that as justification for developing its own military nuclear program.
I know that what I have suggested as desired actions are not easy to do. But I want us to declare in nice and committed words that we intend to do them, but in order to accomplish such feats we need to work through the labyrinth of politics. We are a democracy, we are the oldest working democracy in the world, imperfect as it is, it is a blessing which keeps reforming itself. In such democracy interest groups flourish. Some of them ignorantly or willingly seem to be working against our values, our global interests, and our leadership of the World.
Let us pray for the safety of our president, so that we may see how much of his enchanting words would deliver solid results.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Gaza truce, death, destruction, then what?
By Dr. Mahmoud S. Audi
On Saturday, December 27, 2008, Israel, outraged by the Palestinian rockets, and driven by electoral politics, took to the sky over the Gaza Strip and, in the manner of “shock and owe”, produced more dead, destruction, pain, bitterness, hate, and terror. The majority of the1.5 million Gazans were terrorized.
Also outraged by the Israeli air to ground smart missiles and artillery targeting schools filled with pupils and civilians seeking shelter, mosques filled with civilians seeking God’s protection, houses occupied by civilians.
Yielding to international pressure, and internal political environment, Israel accepted a truce on Saturday, January 19, 2009, and withdrew its troops and military equipment from the Gaza Strip. The Gaza government accept one week truce to give Israel time to withdraw and end the blockade.
Then what? A truce is a pause between wars, or an opening for conflict resolution, and peace. The GG and Israel had a six months truce that started in June 2008. The Palestinian GG had been able to reduce the number of rockets that were fired from GS to southern Israel from hundreds in May and June, 2008 to less than 20 during the subsequent four months—some of the Palestinian resistance groups refused the truce. The GG did manage to control most of them.
During the same truce, the Israelis stopped all major bombardments in GS, but they did not lift the land, see and air blockade of GS, and it did not stop the killing of prominent Palestinians civilians, including academicians. The blockade has crippled the G economy, and prevented any development of GS. It also suffocated and starved the people. Smuggling was the only means that kept them alive. The smuggling business flourished.
The killing and the destruction will not end the suffering of neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis. On the contrary, the dead left behind people who grief for the loss, and that grief will not go away.
Many Israelis and many Palestinians believe in the two-state solution as an end to the cycle of violence. But to achieve this end the commitment of the United States to it is essential. No other country can do it. Israel awes its strength to the generosity of citizens of the USA. Palestinians trust the US because they believe that, if committed, it can deliver. The Jimmy Carter, former president of the US, model is instructive. He was able to conclude peace agreement in 1979 between Begin, the hawkish prime minister of Israel, and Sadat, the dovish president of Egypt.
Can George Mitchell bring peace between the Syrians, the Lebanese, and the Palestinians on one side and Israel on the other side? Speaking in the name of president Obama, who charged him with the mission, he can do it. But the intervention of the President is crucial. I believe president Obama will do that, and he would be effective. However, the role of Obama would be most forceful during his second term as president. He would have had learned from Jimmy Carter who lost the election for a second term, mostly because of his dedication to the cause of peace in the Middle East and his involvement in the process of creating it.
Similar process could achieve peace between Israel on one side, and Syria and Lebanon on the other side.
But when it comes to Palestine, the story is different. Israelis believe that they can with their local superpower status grab the land of the unarmed Palestinians. At the same time, there are Palestinians who believe that they can establish a democratic state between the river (Jordan) and the sea, thus erasing the dream and the reality of more than sixty years, of Jews to live in their own State in Palestine.
Mr. Mitchell here is the first step you should try:
Peace without disavowing the dream of a larger Israel is not possible, and without accepting Israel as an independent Jewish state is not acceptable.
George Mitchell has these two desired goals to make them unwanted. They are impediment to peace. A document should be prepared which includes these two negative principles and all the positive principles and signed between the Israelis and the Palestinians, the president of the United States, and the other members of the quartet. The contents of this document should be publically announced.
the second step: You do not make peace with those whom you like, it is in the package. You make peace with those whom you do not like.
A warning: the easiest way to fail, Mr. mitchell, is to exclude major players in the politics in the area! Include Lekud and Hamas, but do not include the Neo Cons! these do not want peace, they want dominance.
On Saturday, December 27, 2008, Israel, outraged by the Palestinian rockets, and driven by electoral politics, took to the sky over the Gaza Strip and, in the manner of “shock and owe”, produced more dead, destruction, pain, bitterness, hate, and terror. The majority of the1.5 million Gazans were terrorized.
Also outraged by the Israeli air to ground smart missiles and artillery targeting schools filled with pupils and civilians seeking shelter, mosques filled with civilians seeking God’s protection, houses occupied by civilians.
Yielding to international pressure, and internal political environment, Israel accepted a truce on Saturday, January 19, 2009, and withdrew its troops and military equipment from the Gaza Strip. The Gaza government accept one week truce to give Israel time to withdraw and end the blockade.
Then what? A truce is a pause between wars, or an opening for conflict resolution, and peace. The GG and Israel had a six months truce that started in June 2008. The Palestinian GG had been able to reduce the number of rockets that were fired from GS to southern Israel from hundreds in May and June, 2008 to less than 20 during the subsequent four months—some of the Palestinian resistance groups refused the truce. The GG did manage to control most of them.
During the same truce, the Israelis stopped all major bombardments in GS, but they did not lift the land, see and air blockade of GS, and it did not stop the killing of prominent Palestinians civilians, including academicians. The blockade has crippled the G economy, and prevented any development of GS. It also suffocated and starved the people. Smuggling was the only means that kept them alive. The smuggling business flourished.
The killing and the destruction will not end the suffering of neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis. On the contrary, the dead left behind people who grief for the loss, and that grief will not go away.
Many Israelis and many Palestinians believe in the two-state solution as an end to the cycle of violence. But to achieve this end the commitment of the United States to it is essential. No other country can do it. Israel awes its strength to the generosity of citizens of the USA. Palestinians trust the US because they believe that, if committed, it can deliver. The Jimmy Carter, former president of the US, model is instructive. He was able to conclude peace agreement in 1979 between Begin, the hawkish prime minister of Israel, and Sadat, the dovish president of Egypt.
Can George Mitchell bring peace between the Syrians, the Lebanese, and the Palestinians on one side and Israel on the other side? Speaking in the name of president Obama, who charged him with the mission, he can do it. But the intervention of the President is crucial. I believe president Obama will do that, and he would be effective. However, the role of Obama would be most forceful during his second term as president. He would have had learned from Jimmy Carter who lost the election for a second term, mostly because of his dedication to the cause of peace in the Middle East and his involvement in the process of creating it.
Similar process could achieve peace between Israel on one side, and Syria and Lebanon on the other side.
But when it comes to Palestine, the story is different. Israelis believe that they can with their local superpower status grab the land of the unarmed Palestinians. At the same time, there are Palestinians who believe that they can establish a democratic state between the river (Jordan) and the sea, thus erasing the dream and the reality of more than sixty years, of Jews to live in their own State in Palestine.
Mr. Mitchell here is the first step you should try:
Peace without disavowing the dream of a larger Israel is not possible, and without accepting Israel as an independent Jewish state is not acceptable.
George Mitchell has these two desired goals to make them unwanted. They are impediment to peace. A document should be prepared which includes these two negative principles and all the positive principles and signed between the Israelis and the Palestinians, the president of the United States, and the other members of the quartet. The contents of this document should be publically announced.
the second step: You do not make peace with those whom you like, it is in the package. You make peace with those whom you do not like.
A warning: the easiest way to fail, Mr. mitchell, is to exclude major players in the politics in the area! Include Lekud and Hamas, but do not include the Neo Cons! these do not want peace, they want dominance.
Saturday, January 3, 2009
No! The conflict between the Arabs and the Jews does not go back centuries
(Also published in the Delaware County Daily Times, Thursday, January 15, 2009, p17)
By Dr. Mahmoud S. Audi
Misguided or misinformed, journalists, TV news reporters and anchors, politicians, and innocent lay people, to dismiss the current egregious assault on Gaza as something not to be worried about, have been saying,that the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis “goes back centuries.” It does not. In fact, the Arabs and the Muslims, and the Jews had been the best of citizens of the Arab and the Muslim worlds, including the centuries they had lived together in peace and prosperity in Spain, where they had also suffered together the pains of the Inquisition.
Here, from memory, are some major chronological events and pointers to support the premise of this article:
• Both the Jews and the Arabs are the children of Abraham and they both belong to the same ethnic tribes, the Semites.
• When the Jews fled Egypt with Moses they invaded Palestine and established short lived kingdoms in the conquered land.
• When the Persians expanded their empire to the Mediterranean Sea, they dispersed the Jews away from Palestine. Some of them fled south into the Arabian Peninsula.
• As the Persian Empire weakened, some Jews returned to Palestine and lived in rebuilt and short lived kingdoms.
• During the first century A.D., the Romans dispersed the Jews from Palestine after they had conquered the land east of the Mediterranean Sea. These Jews have become the ancestors of the current European Jews, Arab Jews, Persian Jews, Indian Jews, and other Jews.
• At about seven hundred years after the birth of Jesus, Prophet Muhammad was called upon to carry the message of Islam from God to the world.
• Christian Arabs, Jewish Arabs, and pagan Arabs lived together in Yathrib (the current Saudi Arabian city: Medina). The three communities welcomed Prophet Muhammad when he and his followers fled their home town: Mecca, because his tribe and other Arab tribes refused to accept Islam and vowed to kill the Prophet and his followers. The pagans have converted to Islam, and most of the Christians and the Jews kept their religions; they have become the People of the Book.
• The Prophet of Islam wanted to establish alliances with the two communities to fend against the pagans of Mecca who might invade Medina, but the Jews wanted an exclusive pact with the Prophet and he yielded. However, soon afterwards conspiracies against the young religion started to spawn. They were discovered and eliminated. But they continued. This led the Prophet to declare that there would be no place for the Jews and the Christians in the city. Some of the Arab Jews and the Arab Christians went to what is now known as Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Iraq.
• Later when the Muslim Empire spread throughout the land, the Jews and the Christians went wherever their Muslim cousins and brothers went. They had become among the elite of the Muslim world. Many of them became leading artisans and intellectuals.
• In later centuries the Jews of Europe had become the objects of persecuted in their own countries. They had been despised and put to trial in Christian countries from Russia in the east to France and Spain in the west. They had also been despised in Christian America.
• There were highly publicized trials of Jews in Christian Russia and in Christian France in the nineteen century. That led to a conference of prominent Jewish leaders in Switzerland. The conclusion of the conference was the establishment of Zionism, a political movement, in 1898. The grand goal of the movement is the establishing of the Kingdom of Israel from Egypt to Iraq.
• That year, that conference, and that decision put the Arabs and the Zionists on a collision course that continues to produce violence in that area and in the world.
By Dr. Mahmoud S. Audi
Misguided or misinformed, journalists, TV news reporters and anchors, politicians, and innocent lay people, to dismiss the current egregious assault on Gaza as something not to be worried about, have been saying,that the conflict between the Palestinians and the Israelis “goes back centuries.” It does not. In fact, the Arabs and the Muslims, and the Jews had been the best of citizens of the Arab and the Muslim worlds, including the centuries they had lived together in peace and prosperity in Spain, where they had also suffered together the pains of the Inquisition.
Here, from memory, are some major chronological events and pointers to support the premise of this article:
• Both the Jews and the Arabs are the children of Abraham and they both belong to the same ethnic tribes, the Semites.
• When the Jews fled Egypt with Moses they invaded Palestine and established short lived kingdoms in the conquered land.
• When the Persians expanded their empire to the Mediterranean Sea, they dispersed the Jews away from Palestine. Some of them fled south into the Arabian Peninsula.
• As the Persian Empire weakened, some Jews returned to Palestine and lived in rebuilt and short lived kingdoms.
• During the first century A.D., the Romans dispersed the Jews from Palestine after they had conquered the land east of the Mediterranean Sea. These Jews have become the ancestors of the current European Jews, Arab Jews, Persian Jews, Indian Jews, and other Jews.
• At about seven hundred years after the birth of Jesus, Prophet Muhammad was called upon to carry the message of Islam from God to the world.
• Christian Arabs, Jewish Arabs, and pagan Arabs lived together in Yathrib (the current Saudi Arabian city: Medina). The three communities welcomed Prophet Muhammad when he and his followers fled their home town: Mecca, because his tribe and other Arab tribes refused to accept Islam and vowed to kill the Prophet and his followers. The pagans have converted to Islam, and most of the Christians and the Jews kept their religions; they have become the People of the Book.
• The Prophet of Islam wanted to establish alliances with the two communities to fend against the pagans of Mecca who might invade Medina, but the Jews wanted an exclusive pact with the Prophet and he yielded. However, soon afterwards conspiracies against the young religion started to spawn. They were discovered and eliminated. But they continued. This led the Prophet to declare that there would be no place for the Jews and the Christians in the city. Some of the Arab Jews and the Arab Christians went to what is now known as Israel, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and Iraq.
• Later when the Muslim Empire spread throughout the land, the Jews and the Christians went wherever their Muslim cousins and brothers went. They had become among the elite of the Muslim world. Many of them became leading artisans and intellectuals.
• In later centuries the Jews of Europe had become the objects of persecuted in their own countries. They had been despised and put to trial in Christian countries from Russia in the east to France and Spain in the west. They had also been despised in Christian America.
• There were highly publicized trials of Jews in Christian Russia and in Christian France in the nineteen century. That led to a conference of prominent Jewish leaders in Switzerland. The conclusion of the conference was the establishment of Zionism, a political movement, in 1898. The grand goal of the movement is the establishing of the Kingdom of Israel from Egypt to Iraq.
• That year, that conference, and that decision put the Arabs and the Zionists on a collision course that continues to produce violence in that area and in the world.
Another Gaza Massacre as of Saturday, January 3, 2009 – Equivalent Statistics
Since Saturday 27 December 2008, the Israeli piloted F-16s has dropped hundreds of tons of explosives on Gaza, killing hundreds of men, women, and children without discrimination. The number killed is about 500--about 125 of them were civilians. The total killing is equivalent to 100,000 US citizens, and the civilians killed are equivalent to 25,000 US citizens. The 2000 Palestinians killed by the Israeli war machine is equivalent of about quarter million Americans.
Do you see the travesty, are you outraged? Cry out loud, assert your humanity, stand by the weak and feed the hungry. Cry loud enough,to let the President hear you.
Do you see the travesty, are you outraged? Cry out loud, assert your humanity, stand by the weak and feed the hungry. Cry loud enough,to let the President hear you.
The Suffering of the Palestinians in Gaza
The late Edward Said was a prominent Arab American. He was for decades a distinguished professor at Columbia University, New York. For a while he intellectually participated in framing the plight of the Palestinians. He was born in Palestine and spent most of his life in the USA. He recently died of cancer in New York City.
The suffering of the Palestinians and the current focus on slaughtering the Palestinians, destroying their homes, schools, mosques, in Gaza is not new. Edward Said wrote the following in August 2002, which I received via email from The Friends of Sabeel—North America. “Sabeel” is an Arabic word which means “The Way.” It is the voice of the Palestinian Christians. Sabeel has friends all over the world and they include Muslims and Jews.
"Every Palestinian has become a prisoner. Gaza is surrounded by an electrified fence on three sides: imprisoned like animals, Gazans are unable to move, unable to work, unable to sell their vegetables or fruit, unable to go to school. They are exposed from the air to
Israeli planes and helicopters and are gunned down like turkeys on the ground by tanks and machine guns. Impoverished and starved, Gaza is a human nightmare.
Hope has been eliminated from the Palestinian vocabulary so that only raw defiance remains.
Palestinians must die a slow death so that Israel can have its security, which is just around the corner but cannot be realized because of the special Israeli "insecurity." The whole world must sympathize, while the cries of Palestinian orphans, sick old women, bereaved communities, and tortured prisoners simply go unheard and unrecorded. Doubtless, we will be told, these horrors serve a larger purpose than mere sadistic cruelty. After all, "the two sides" are engaged in a "cycle of violence" that has to be stopped, sometime, somewhere. Once in a while we ought to pause and declare indignantly that there is only one side with an army and a country: the other is a stateless dispossessed population of people without rights or any present way of securing them. The language of suffering and concrete daily life has been either hijacked or so perverted as, in my opinion, to be useless except as pure fiction deployed as a screen for the purpose of more killing and painstaking torture - slowly, fastidiously, inexorably.
That is the truth of what Palestinians suffer."
Edward Said
August, 2002
The suffering of the Palestinians and the current focus on slaughtering the Palestinians, destroying their homes, schools, mosques, in Gaza is not new. Edward Said wrote the following in August 2002, which I received via email from The Friends of Sabeel—North America. “Sabeel” is an Arabic word which means “The Way.” It is the voice of the Palestinian Christians. Sabeel has friends all over the world and they include Muslims and Jews.
"Every Palestinian has become a prisoner. Gaza is surrounded by an electrified fence on three sides: imprisoned like animals, Gazans are unable to move, unable to work, unable to sell their vegetables or fruit, unable to go to school. They are exposed from the air to
Israeli planes and helicopters and are gunned down like turkeys on the ground by tanks and machine guns. Impoverished and starved, Gaza is a human nightmare.
Hope has been eliminated from the Palestinian vocabulary so that only raw defiance remains.
Palestinians must die a slow death so that Israel can have its security, which is just around the corner but cannot be realized because of the special Israeli "insecurity." The whole world must sympathize, while the cries of Palestinian orphans, sick old women, bereaved communities, and tortured prisoners simply go unheard and unrecorded. Doubtless, we will be told, these horrors serve a larger purpose than mere sadistic cruelty. After all, "the two sides" are engaged in a "cycle of violence" that has to be stopped, sometime, somewhere. Once in a while we ought to pause and declare indignantly that there is only one side with an army and a country: the other is a stateless dispossessed population of people without rights or any present way of securing them. The language of suffering and concrete daily life has been either hijacked or so perverted as, in my opinion, to be useless except as pure fiction deployed as a screen for the purpose of more killing and painstaking torture - slowly, fastidiously, inexorably.
That is the truth of what Palestinians suffer."
Edward Said
August, 2002
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