The Golden Strawberry

Interesting piece here by the ever-readable John Lloyd on the state of the Bear today:

As the Princeton historian Stephen Kotkin puts it in the best short account of the period (Armageddon Averted): "Russia's was not, and could not have been, an engineered transition to the market. It was a chaotic, insider mass plundering of the Soviet era with substantial roots prior to 1991 and ramifications stretching far into the future."

Vladimir Putin, who has captured Paton Walsh's affections at last, benefited from four quite different elements. The first was that the chaos of the 1990s was beginning to sort itself out. New powers, very substantially based on Soviet models (the quote from the anonymous Putin aide, "the solutions are half Soviet", is very apposite here) had settled into place. The division of property had been made - and though it could be unpicked (was, in the case of Mikhail Khodorkovsky's vast holdings, and may still be further), it is at least a basis for a functioning economy. Second, that economy functions, at present, on a vast surge in the oil price - a "boon" that will be a cursed if it stops structural reforms, as it seems to be doing - but for the moment, a great boost to Putin, and to the standard of living of Russians. And third, Putin and his closest aides were KGB men who had fewer inhibitions about the use of force in Chechnya than had the Yeltsinites, and thus felt themselves free to pursue a war of terrible attrition until today's unmistakable, if tenuous, victory.

And fourth is the yearning of the Russians for stability. This is always supposed to be a particularly Russian trait explaining the much vaunted love of autocracy, but which is more sensibly explained, I think, by a general human desire for predictability and security in life.

Because of the four elements above, the Russian president has been able to give this security and to preside over - as Paton Walsh vividly describes - an expansion in the middle class, the class on which Gaidar pinned all his hopes for success; and to benefit from the support of Russians, who see in him a reliable ruler - one even able to reverse some of the national humiliations (as many see it) of the Gorbachev and Yeltsin years.

Russia is a fascinating place. Source of such delights as Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky, but also creator of such monsters as Stalin and Lenin. Still a nation with so much to offer, let us hope that its fledgling democracy is not destroyed by the ever-present and short sighted human demand for 'stability'. As Thomas Jefferson put it:

'Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of liberty.'

The Russians could never be accused of being timid, let us hope that they rise to the challenge, leaving behind the horrors of their past and moving into the new century with a commitment to modern values and human rights. Values which they had to struggle to win from the muck of Bolshevik tyranny.

-posted by Adam

Again, Gene on Harry's Place discussing whether Hezbollah are fascist.

To my mind, fascism means the belief in some sort of "master race" and the commitment to go to any lengths - such as the Nazi Party conquering half of Europe - to promote that "master race".

I don't know if Hezbollah are fascist, but what I did find amusing was someone in the New Statesman saying that Hezbollah are committed to a secular state in Lebonan. Especially when in its founding statement, Hezbollah declares:

Only an Islamic regime can stop any further tentative attempts of imperialistic infiltration into our country.

I don't know who's more mad, them or me....

-posted by Roy

From Harry's Place, Gene's reactions to the tragedy in Qana:

--The town has been a has been used by Hezbollah to launch hundreds of deadly rockets at northern Israeli towns. By any rules of engagement other than hide-and-pray (and Jews in Israel don't play that game anymore), the Israelis had a right to respond militarily to those attacks. Hezbollah had no qualms at all about placing rocket launchers in areas heavily populated by civilians.

--Israel urged civilians to evacuate the area. Again, Hezbollah had no qualms about allowing them (or perhaps forcing them) to say.

--If anyone has evidence that Israeli pilots cold-bloodedly and knowingly dropped bombs on civilians in Qana, please present it. Even if you believe that Israel doesn't care about the deaths of Lebanese civilians, surely you could see how Israel would want to avoid the international opprobium that follows events like these.

--Israel has expressed deep regret for the civilian deaths. Cyncially, you may say; but I can't imagine any more than a disgusting fringe of the Israeli population feeling other than sad at those deaths. When has Hezbollah ever expressed regret for the Israeli civilian deaths it has caused (except, cycnically, for two Israeli Arab children killed in Nazereth)? And does anyone think Nasrallah or other Hezbollah leaders genuinely ache over the deaths of Lebanese children any more than they do over the deaths of Israeli children? Their only concern for any deaths is the propaganda value they can squeeze out of them.

--Just a hint of some of the disgusting hypocrisy unleashed by the Qana attack: President Bashir Assad-- who has been notably silent about the tens of thousands of Syrians slaughtered on the instructions of his late father in Hama in 1982-- has called it "state terrorism." Expect similar rhetoric from Vladimir "Chechnya" Putin. Almost as disgusting are those who leap gleefully on this-- and every other Israeli mistake or failure-- as evidence of the country's inherent and unique wickedness.

--Israel, like any other country, is subject to mistakes and failures in the heat and confusion of war. But if there was any way Israel could have achieved its objective in Qana without taking such a terrible toll, then people need to be held accountable.

--To paraphrase Stephen Spender: unless people care about the deaths of innocent children everywhere, they don't care about the deaths of innocent children anywhere.

Though has anyone any evidence Israel told civilians to leave Qana? I can't find any...

Though I am beginning to agree with Norm. Israel has gone too far now.

Israel's action at Qana is inexcusable. I say this as someone who supports Israel's right to defend itself against those who attack it, those who send missiles against its civilians and who intend its destruction as a state. But if Hizbollah bears the responsibility identified above, Israel also has a clear responsibility under the laws of war to try to minimize civilian casualties; and this applies even in the case where its enemy resorts to the use of human shields (as explained here by Michael Walzer). I don't believe the position of the IDF - that civilians had been warned to evacuate the area - adequately acquits it of that responsibility. It is not a reasonable expectation, especially not in conditions of war, that all civilians living in an area will move away in good time, or be able to do so, when warned by one of the warring parties.

-posted by Roy

A decent article on Comment is Free (!) by Martin Bright:

There are even some on the centre ground of British politics who are beginning to talk about a 'popular front' of progressives opposed to the rise of militant Islam in an alliance modelled on the democrats of left and right who united to oppose fascism in the 1930s. But this will be impossible while deep divisions exist over the conduct of the war in Iraq and Israel's savage attack on Lebanon, both of which will help build support for radical Islam across the Muslim world and in Britain. But the principle is a good one.

Professor Chetan Bhatt of Goldsmith's University in London is one of the few thinkers on the left to have developed a coherent position on the religious right. In an essay to be published later this year, he argues that the left must rethink the way it deals with Islamists at the exclusion of genuinely progressive secular and religious voices within Britain's south Asian Muslim communities. 'The left, despite its knowledge of the horrifying politics of communal and religious sectarianism in south Asia, has often been unable to grasp the existence of the "fascisms of the powerless" or the small communal "fascisms" in everyday civic life. Acknowledging this means facing numerous political directions at once, as painstakingly complicated and difficult as this initially seems.'

Meanwhile, the Foreign Office seems determined to press ahead with courting radical Islamists. Just this month, the British government paid for Yusuf al-Qaradawi to attend a conference in Turkey to discuss the future of European Islam. At home, it funded two Islamist youth organisations, the Federation of Islamic Student Societies and Young Muslim Organisation, to help run a roadshow of Muslim scholars to tour the country. Fosis and YMO, while condemning violence, are ideological allies of the Muslim Brotherhood and Jamaat-i-Islami. It is ironic that conservative thinkers categorise these organisations accurately as part of an Islamist extreme right, while many on the left continue, wrongly, to see them as part of some wider international Muslim liberation movement.

While this situation remains, there is no shame for those on the left opposed to the rise of radical Islam to build alliances with conservatives prepared to call fascism by its real name.

That's my emboldening

How true. Perhaps documents like the Euston Manifesto can help build that consensus.

-posted by Roy

Continuing with our season of posts keeping tabs on the worlds loonies, wingnuts, nutjobs and nutbars I bring you our latest headcase - Mel Gibson.

Loonyquote:

The report says Gibson then launched into a barrage of anti-Semitic statements: "F*****g Jews... The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." Gibson then asked the deputy, "Are you a Jew?"

The deputy became alarmed as Gibson's tirade escalated, and called ahead for a sergeant to meet them when they arrived at the station. When they arrived, a sergeant began videotaping Gibson, who noticed the camera and then said, "What the f*** do you think you're doing?"

A law enforcement source says Gibson then noticed another female sergeant and yelled, "What do you think you're looking at, sugar tits?"

Ha! Gibson has finally been exposed for the fascist arsehole that he is!

Of course, South Park did that years ago. Check out this brilliant little clip.

-posted by Adam

I've often wondered why I found meaningless extended discourse with other people so tiresome. Now I know, thanks to this article:

Do you know someone who needs hours alone every day? Who loves quiet conversations about feelings or ideas, and can give a dynamite presentation to a big audience, but seems awkward in groups and maladroit at small talk? Who has to be dragged to parties and then needs the rest of the day to recuperate? Who growls or scowls or grunts or winces when accosted with pleasantries by people who are just trying to be nice?

If so, do you tell this person he is "too serious," or ask if he is okay? Regard him as aloof, arrogant, rude? Redouble your efforts to draw him out?

If you answered yes to these questions, chances are that you have an introvert on your hands—and that you aren't caring for him properly. Science has learned a good deal in recent years about the habits and requirements of introverts. It has even learned, by means of brain scans, that introverts process information differently from other people (I am not making this up). If you are behind the curve on this important matter, be reassured that you are not alone. Introverts may be common, but they are also among the most misunderstood and aggrieved groups in America, possibly the world.

 More here. 

-posted by Adam

I can't quite believe this.

A teenage chess champion has fallen to her death while competing in an international tournament.

Jessie Gilbert, 19, from Croydon, south London, fell from the eighth floor of the Hotel Labe in Pardubice, in the Czech Republic, on Wednesday morning.

I played her, once or twice, a few years back, when I was taking chess seriously.

It's so, so tragic. She was a pretty good - if not great - player for her age. She was going to go to Oxford in the autumn to study medicine. So, so sad.

-posted by Roy

Through Harry's Place, I was directed to the website for the "other Iraq". It's a peaceful democracy. Didn't think it possible. Neither did I. Take a look.

-posted by Roy

I'm not the biggest fan of David Cameron, but he must be doing something right when he's criticised by Norman Tebbit:

Lord Tebbit has launched the strongest Tory attack on David Cameron since he became the party's leader, warning that he risks alienating its natural supporters.

Writing in The Spectator magazine, the former Tory chairman accused Mr Cameron of ignoring up to five million voters who have deserted the Tories by chasing Labour and Liberal Democrat supporters.

This would all make more sense, as Iain Dale says, were it not for the fact that a Guardian poll said the Tories have their highest poll rating for thirteen years.

Most of Cameron's policies are hype at the moment, as pointed out by Douglas Alexander. When his gazillion think tanks to come back to him, and he has some genuine policies, his rating's only going to go up...

-posted by Roy

Great Post here by Ariana Huffington:

And if Israel wants results -- i.e. victory -- it needs to look to an unlikely duo: Tom Friedman and Greek mythology. Friedman explains the futility of pursuing a purely military solution; my ancestors provide the clues to the only way to win.

First, the futility. In Friedman's flat worldview, everybody now has access to the tools of destruction -- whether it's a military powerhouse like Israel or a stateless terrorist organization like Hezbollah (the same dynamic, of course, holds true in Iraq, where the insurgents' IEDs have neutralized -- c'mon, let's say it, beaten -- the world's greatest superpower).

"When the world is flat," Friedman explained to Tim Russert , "everybody's really got access to the same tools... which give them more and more equal power to innovate, operate, communicate and, unfortunately, destroy. So the real question, then, the real variable, is what imagination you bring to those tools."

Tools and imagination.

Friedman's assertion about the pervasiveness of modern weaponry is born out by the Israeli general who told the New York Times that Hezbollah has "some of the best weapons systems that Iran and Syria have" -- including medium-range rockets, laser-guided antitank missiles, and well-designed explosive mines that can cripple an advance tank. The group has more than 10,000 rockets, including Iranian-made long range missiles capable of hitting Tel Aviv.

So, when it comes to modern battles, the world really is flat. Everyone is armed with the tools of destruction. As a result, imagination becomes all-important (a very scary thought when you consider the overwhelming lack of imagination that Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld have shown in the prosecution of the war in Iraq and the wider war on terror).

Tools and imagination. At the moment, Israel, displaying a Bush-like lack of imagination, is only focusing on trying to destroy Hezbollah's tools. Tools that can -- and will eventually -- be replenished.

And, in the process, they are feeding the extremists' imagination. As Wayne White, a State Department analyst until last year, told Harper's: "From a large and enraged Shiite population, surely there will be thousands of recruits ready to replace Hezbollah's losses in personnel...The Israelis have embarked on a campaign that will most likely make matters worse over the long term."

So even if Israel is completely right, its current strategy is having the wholly counterproductive effect of making its people less safe and less likely to achieve the long-term peace and security they long for.

Imagination is a two-edged sword. First we must use our imagination to figure out a better way of taking on the terrorist threat. And we must also find a way, as Friedman puts it to "reshape imagination" -- the imagination of those currently using it "to poison the world."

The template for this two-pronged approach was laid out by the ancient Greeks in the story of Hercules (Heracles) and the Hydra (who knew a thing or two about terrorizing people).

In the beginning, Hercules took the direct, militaristic approach of trying to defeat the Hydra by lopping off its heads one by one (ie trying to destroy all of Hezbollah's rockets). But he soon realized that as quickly as a head was dispatched two others would spring up in its place.

Hercules then had to pull back and rethink his strategy. Using his imagination, he came up with a plan wherein as soon as he cut off a head, his nephew (his version of the coalition of the willing) would use a torch to sear the wound shut, thus preventing the eradicated head from regrowing.

Then came the real challenge: trying to figure out how to neutralize the Hydra's last remaining head -- its immortal head -- which could not be harmed by any weapon. This immortal head is the equivalent of the hearts and minds of those who choose terrorism. Like Hercules, we will never win the war on terror, unless we can figure out a way to capture and bury this immortal head.

It can't be done by using weapons alone. And until the Israelis embrace this lesson -- and deal with both the tools and the imagination of our increasingly connected world -- all their victories will remain pyrrhic.

Perhaps. But it seems to me that Israel has little hope of winning over the hearts and minds of the kind of people who enlist in Hizbollah. Therefore, the best it can do is destroy the ability of Hizbollah and other groups like it to attack and kill Israeli citizens.

-posted by Adam