Thursday, March 06, 2008
New positive foreign policy scenario revealed
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The prestige of the US abroad is not irretrievably lost. The US has been on a bad tack for five years, but we and our allies can recover our conciliator/peace lover image.
A revelation that Britain’s Prince Harry, third in line for the crown, has for several months risked his life as a soldier in Afghanistan, once more puts the finger on one of the two basic problem areas. Radical terrorist Islamism, as expressed by al Qaida and Taliban, is the most destructive force in the Mideast, maybe more so than the Israeli – Palestinian conflict. The latter has been fed for 60 years by the dictators of the Arab League, fearful that the restless and educated Palestinians might spread democracy and threaten the traditional autocratic Muslim orders. To isolate the threat, Anwar Sadat in Egypt and King Hussein in Jordan conceded Gaza and the Green Zone (West Bank) to Israel, and Saudi King Abdullah in March 2007 essentially prompted the Arab League into accepting Israel’s existence, provided the Palestinian Arabs can return – a no-no for Israel, but the gates have been opened.
The fact that the murderous Islamist radicals are unacceptable for the overwhelming masses of Muslims was expressed by the 2008 popular vote in Pakistan, decisively rejecting the Islamist parties in the al Qaida power base, the North West Frontier Province, home for 21M Pakistanis and 3M Afghan refugees. This was one instance where the armed terror advocates could not terrorize the ordinary electorate. Muslims want normal life, as expressed in the pre-Intifada relations of Palestinians and Israelis, before political troublemakers took over, using people’s inability of self-actualization for radical political and self-aggrandizing purposes. Pakistan is the second largest Sunni country, after Indonesia and about even with India, and the vote should be clearly indicative of the positive attitudes of ordinary Muslims in critical countries, contrary to the dire future Samuel Huntington and other US “Clash of Cultures” advocates warn us about.
Here the US government –Bush, Clinton, McCain or Obama – can emphasize the positive. The winning Pakistani anti-Musharraf parties, PPP, PML-N, and Awami (PPP’s ally), as well as his PML-Q are all largely modernists, in seeking normalcy with economic gains, Making an alliance with the Pakistani moderates in eradicating the Taliban/al Qaida threats may also bring in line – surprise, surprise – the Iranians, who lined up $500M to help Afghanistan’s anti-Taliban government before Bush decided to include Iran in his deadly enemy triad. This policy of the Iranians comes under the chapter of Shiite Farsis’ desire to deter the Sunni al Qaeda attackers who kill Shiites (note persistent bombings of pilgrims at the holy city of Karbala at religious gatherings) and might be more interesting if not more vital to them than supporting Hezbollah’s fight against Israel. Less pressure from Palestinians against Israel would aid normalcy. bring some peace in Gaza and the West Bank and would stabilize the live of the fearful rulers of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, once US withdraws its main forces from Iraq.
This makes the Dream Team of Obama and Richardson more intriguing, as suggested in this column months before the primaries. Imagine the configuration of Obama matching visionary wits with Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and company, while the Hispanic Richardson bear-hugs the Venezuelan anti-US leader Hugo Chavez into acquiescence. I want to keep dreaming, don’t wake me up.
Some wakeups cannot be avoided, when we find that more than 1 in 100 Americans are behind bars.
The Pew Center on the States reports that 2,319,258 US adults are in jail, one of every 99.1. This is a frightening increase from the 2001 figure of 1.329,367, when 70,199 New Yorkers were incarcerated, a rate that ranked just behind the leaders, Texas, California and Florida. The current 2008 US ratio also doubles that of 1995, when 47 in 100 Americans were in prison, one in 112 men and one in 1,724 women. Is it that our moral standards have changed, despite the overwhelming majority of Americans claiming religious convictions? Has the ruthless march of technology, loss of job security, inability to learn new trades and processes, inadequate education, disinterest in low-pay and menial jobs and lack of employment opportunities pushed so many of our fellow citizens over the brink?
James O. Wilson, the sociologist who spearheaded the “broken window” theory responsible for the growth in penalties for early and minor offenses since the 1980s, is not alarmed, and ascribes the increase to the growth in security awareness. One should be alarmed, considering the explosions in proportions of white vs. minority (men and women both) crimes, and disproportionate growth in incarceration vs. education costs.
Locally, New York State prison population has shrunk, since the beginning of this century, to 63,315 end 2006 to 62,620 end 2008, a decline of 1.1%, while New Jersey’s, a smaller population, declined by 2%. NYS’s expenditures for incarceration are $2.682B, 5.1% of general funds, while NJ spends 4.9%. National incarceration costs in 20 years have grown 137%, while higher education has increased only 21%. Voters to note.
The prestige of the US abroad is not irretrievably lost. The US has been on a bad tack for five years, but we and our allies can recover our conciliator/peace lover image.
A revelation that Britain’s Prince Harry, third in line for the crown, has for several months risked his life as a soldier in Afghanistan, once more puts the finger on one of the two basic problem areas. Radical terrorist Islamism, as expressed by al Qaida and Taliban, is the most destructive force in the Mideast, maybe more so than the Israeli – Palestinian conflict. The latter has been fed for 60 years by the dictators of the Arab League, fearful that the restless and educated Palestinians might spread democracy and threaten the traditional autocratic Muslim orders. To isolate the threat, Anwar Sadat in Egypt and King Hussein in Jordan conceded Gaza and the Green Zone (West Bank) to Israel, and Saudi King Abdullah in March 2007 essentially prompted the Arab League into accepting Israel’s existence, provided the Palestinian Arabs can return – a no-no for Israel, but the gates have been opened.
The fact that the murderous Islamist radicals are unacceptable for the overwhelming masses of Muslims was expressed by the 2008 popular vote in Pakistan, decisively rejecting the Islamist parties in the al Qaida power base, the North West Frontier Province, home for 21M Pakistanis and 3M Afghan refugees. This was one instance where the armed terror advocates could not terrorize the ordinary electorate. Muslims want normal life, as expressed in the pre-Intifada relations of Palestinians and Israelis, before political troublemakers took over, using people’s inability of self-actualization for radical political and self-aggrandizing purposes. Pakistan is the second largest Sunni country, after Indonesia and about even with India, and the vote should be clearly indicative of the positive attitudes of ordinary Muslims in critical countries, contrary to the dire future Samuel Huntington and other US “Clash of Cultures” advocates warn us about.
Here the US government –Bush, Clinton, McCain or Obama – can emphasize the positive. The winning Pakistani anti-Musharraf parties, PPP, PML-N, and Awami (PPP’s ally), as well as his PML-Q are all largely modernists, in seeking normalcy with economic gains, Making an alliance with the Pakistani moderates in eradicating the Taliban/al Qaida threats may also bring in line – surprise, surprise – the Iranians, who lined up $500M to help Afghanistan’s anti-Taliban government before Bush decided to include Iran in his deadly enemy triad. This policy of the Iranians comes under the chapter of Shiite Farsis’ desire to deter the Sunni al Qaeda attackers who kill Shiites (note persistent bombings of pilgrims at the holy city of Karbala at religious gatherings) and might be more interesting if not more vital to them than supporting Hezbollah’s fight against Israel. Less pressure from Palestinians against Israel would aid normalcy. bring some peace in Gaza and the West Bank and would stabilize the live of the fearful rulers of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, once US withdraws its main forces from Iraq.
This makes the Dream Team of Obama and Richardson more intriguing, as suggested in this column months before the primaries. Imagine the configuration of Obama matching visionary wits with Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and company, while the Hispanic Richardson bear-hugs the Venezuelan anti-US leader Hugo Chavez into acquiescence. I want to keep dreaming, don’t wake me up.
Some wakeups cannot be avoided, when we find that more than 1 in 100 Americans are behind bars.
The Pew Center on the States reports that 2,319,258 US adults are in jail, one of every 99.1. This is a frightening increase from the 2001 figure of 1.329,367, when 70,199 New Yorkers were incarcerated, a rate that ranked just behind the leaders, Texas, California and Florida. The current 2008 US ratio also doubles that of 1995, when 47 in 100 Americans were in prison, one in 112 men and one in 1,724 women. Is it that our moral standards have changed, despite the overwhelming majority of Americans claiming religious convictions? Has the ruthless march of technology, loss of job security, inability to learn new trades and processes, inadequate education, disinterest in low-pay and menial jobs and lack of employment opportunities pushed so many of our fellow citizens over the brink?
James O. Wilson, the sociologist who spearheaded the “broken window” theory responsible for the growth in penalties for early and minor offenses since the 1980s, is not alarmed, and ascribes the increase to the growth in security awareness. One should be alarmed, considering the explosions in proportions of white vs. minority (men and women both) crimes, and disproportionate growth in incarceration vs. education costs.
Locally, New York State prison population has shrunk, since the beginning of this century, to 63,315 end 2006 to 62,620 end 2008, a decline of 1.1%, while New Jersey’s, a smaller population, declined by 2%. NYS’s expenditures for incarceration are $2.682B, 5.1% of general funds, while NJ spends 4.9%. National incarceration costs in 20 years have grown 137%, while higher education has increased only 21%. Voters to note.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 7:41 AM 
