The Absurdity Of The Immigration Debate

Posted on April 29, 2006 by Mash

Star Spangled BannerNow the "Star Spangled Banner" has been translated into Spanish. The producer of the translation, Adam Kidron, argues that now the anthem appeals to a larger immigrant audience:

“The intention of recording ’Nuestro Himno’ (’Our Anthem’ ) has never been to discourage immigrants from learning English and embracing American culture,” Kidron said. “We instead view ’Nuestro Himno’ as a song that affords those immigrants that have not yet learned the English language, the opportunity to fully understand the character of ’The Star Spangled Banner,’ the American flag and the ideals of freedom that they represent.”

I say it’s great that he wants everyone to learn about the ideals of America. However, there are plenty of other ways of achieving that goal. Creating an alternative national anthem seems misguided at best and subversive at worst. I do not see how this misguided translation advances the cause of immigrants or serves their interests. Instead it creates further division in our society.

Of course all this is a prelude to Monday’s looming work boycott by some immigration groups. There are many ironies and absurdities surrounding this event, not the least of which is that these immigrants are fighting for their right to work in this country by boycotting work. Of course the anti-immigration forces are up in arms that these undocumented aliens (who according to them should not be allowed to work and be sent back home) are daring to stop work. Even President Bush got in on the act this morning:

He called on immigrants and activist groups to rethink plans to walk out of work on Monday in protest of congressional efforts to crack down on illegal immigration. "You know, I think it’s very important for people, when they do express themselves, they continue to do so in a peaceful way, in a respectful way — respectful of . . . how highly charged this debate can become," he said, in a Rose Garden news conference he called to tout new figures showing robust economic growth in the first quarter of this year.

God forbid the slave laborers walk out of their work and cause hardship for the slave driving businesses.

All of these goings on makes me wonder if it is time to ratchet down the rhetoric and the divisive behavior. The immigrant groups need to take a deep breath and realize that they are advocating that undocumented aliens who are in this country illegally be given legal status. That status is a privilege that this or any other country grants foreigners within its borders. As such, I would suggest that perhaps confrontation is not the best way to gain that privelege.

The anti-immigration forces on the right also need to step back from their saber rattling and wall building. It is probably time to realize that there is a neighbor called Mexico to the south that the United States must live with. Short of going to war with Mexico (dare I even mention it), a comprehensive solution needs to be found that can address this unchecked flow of immigrants. The solution to the immigration problem does not lie in building a wall but in removing the economic incentive that underlies this migration. That means investment in Latin American economies that make it a reasonable choice for the poor in those countries to stay in those countries.

Of course I suspect, as Polimom suspects, the situation may already be completely out of control. In that case, the only thing left to do is to let the lunatics run the asylum.

Posted in Constitution, Immigration, Politics, Society | 22 Comments

The Thuggery Of Pervez Musharraf

Posted on April 28, 2006 by Mash

General Pervez MusharrafGeneral Pervez Musharraf, the dictator of Pakistan, sat down recently with The Guardian of Britain for an interview to proclaim that he is not a dictator. Musharraf insisted that he is a believer in democracy and his mission is to bring democracy to Pakistan:

Gen Musharraf said his mission was to democratise Pakistan. "My popularity has gone down … but at this moment my country needs me. I’ve put a strong constitutional democratic system in place. That will throw up a successor. I’m a strong believer in democracy."

Like President Bush, General Musharraf believes that democracy can be achieved with the power of the gun. While Mr. Bush is experimenting with gunboat democracy on an international level, General Musharraf is implementing this theory at the domestic level:

"It is ironic that I’m sitting in uniform talking of democracy … but to bring democracy into Pakistan I thought I needed it," he said.

Democracy, according to Musharraf, must be properly nurtured and trained. One key element in Musharraf’s theory of democracy is to ensure that there is no viable opposition.  What better way to encourage democracy than to send your opposition leaders packing to a democratic country to learn about democracy:

The leaders of the two main opposition parties, Benazir Bhutto of the Pakistan Peoples party and Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League, are in exile and face arrest if they return home. Meeting in London this week they launched a fresh political alliance and called for western support.

In spite of General Musharraf’s good intentions there are still those that criticize his stewardship of Pakistani democracy. To these unbelievers, he has this to say:

Criticism of his military-driven strategy came from "people who sit in drawing rooms and talk", he said, but added that a political solution was also being sought.

Clearly too much talk is not good for a healthy democratic society. General Musharraf also is nurturing freedom of the press. However, there are times when a General has to take matters into his own hands in dealing with the press. Sacrifices must be made for the sake of democracy:

An American Predator drone fired Hellfire missiles at a house in Bajaur tribal agency in January, killing 18 people but missing their target, al-Qaida’s second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri. The attack near the Afghan border caused public uproar and brought renewed accusations that Gen Musharraf was a US puppet.

Local journalist Hayatullah Khan, who photographed missile fragments linking the strikes to the US, disappeared four days later and is still missing. A western diplomat said he was probably being held by Pakistani intelligence and may have been mistreated. [Emphasis added by me]

Democracy in Pakistan is a high ideal. To achieve it, General Musharraf understands that he must get tough on some elements in his country. There are terrorists in Pakistan and they must be crushed if democracy is to take hold:

Gen Musharraf defended his tactic of using military force instead of negotiation to quell the violence and said some collateral damage was inevitable when militants’ hideouts were attacked.

"We take extreme care to be 100% sure of the target from all sources of intelligence … There is minimum collateral damage. If someone happens to be very close to [the target], that somebody is an abetter and they suffer the loss. Sometimes, indeed, women and children have been killed but they have been right next to the place. It’s not that the strike was inaccurate but they happen to be there, so therefore they are all supporters and abetters of terrorism – and therefore they have to suffer. It’s bad luck," he said. [Emphasis added by me.]

There is no doubt that supporters and abetters of terrorism must be snuffed out. You certainly do not want to take any chances that a 2 year old (who is clearly already supporting terrorists) might one day grow up and become really dangerous. General Musharraf is, if nothing else, thorough. He will not only kill you, but he will kill your entire family, to ensure that freedom remains on the march.

General Musharraf also has a good handle on unrest in Pakistan. He has assessed the situation and decided that it is well in hand. He has also determined that his enemies are pygmies:

Gen Musharraf also played down unrest in the resource-rich province of Baluchistan, where nationalist militants are blowing up gas pipelines and trains and attacking army positions. He described the rebels as "mercenaries" and their attacks as "pin pricks", and said the disturbances were confined to one-twentieth of the province’s area.

"So what revolt are you talking about? People talk about an East Pakistan situation," he said, referring to the secession of Bangladesh in 1971. "I understand strategy. These people are pygmies."

With General Musharraf in charge of the effort to bring democracy to Pakistan, I feel that Mr. Bush’s vision of bringing democracy to the Muslim world is well on its way to fruition. It is reassuring to know that we have allied ourselves with such a courageous patriot and a lover of freedom and the rights of man. My hat is off to this thug named Musharraf.

Posted in Foreign Policy, Human Rights, International | 31 Comments

Kirkuk, Oil And The Dance Of Death

Posted on April 27, 2006 by Mash

Iraq's Kurdish Regrion [Click to Enlarge]The center of gravity in the civil war in Iraq is not Baghdad – it is Kirkuk. Kirkuk is the prize that the Sunnis lost, the Kurds want, and the Shia will not give. The Kirkuk oil field has about 10 billion barrels of oil reserves and produces almost half of Iraq’s oil exports. He who controls Kirkuk controls Iraq’s oil and Iraq’s wealth.

Over the last year Kirkuk has become the central front in the struggle for control of Iraq’s wealth. Kurdish peshmerga militias, Shia militias as well as Sunni insurgents have been slowly but surely taking up positions in and around Kirkuk in preparation for the bloodbath to come. The various militias in Kirkuk have been carefully maneuvering around each other under the watchful eyes of the American military. The battle for Kirkuk will likely begin when the American military begins its inevitable withdrawal from Iraq.

After the fall of Saddam the peshmerga quickly took control over Kirkuk. After Turkey expressed alarm at the possibility of Kurdish control of the Kirkuk oil fields (and the resulting wealth) the Kurdish militia withdrew to barracks outside the city. However, they have remained a presence in and around the city since that time. The Kurdish militias have also systematically infiltrated the Iraqi Army units in the north of Iraq:

Kurdish leaders have inserted more than 10,000 of their militia members into Iraqi army divisions in northern Iraq to lay the groundwork to swarm south, seize the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and possibly half of Mosul, Iraq’s third-largest city, and secure the borders of an independent Kurdistan.

While the Kurds reinforce their control of the Iraqi Army, the Shia militias have begun to pour into Kirkuk in recent weeks and months:

Hundreds of Shiite Muslim militiamen have deployed in recent weeks to this restive city — widely considered the most likely flash point for an Iraqi civil war — vowing to fight any attempt to shift control over Kirkuk to the Kurdish-governed north, according to U.S. commanders and diplomats, local police and politicians.

The Shia militias in Kirkuk along with the Sunni insurgents in and around Kirkuk are bound together in this struggle as Arabs versus the Kurdish militias. The maelstrom in Kirkuk is a peculiar confluence of oil, wealth, Arab and Kurdish nationalism. Ever since oil was first discovered in Kirkuk in the 1920s, Arabs, Kurds and Turkmen have been vying for control of this city’s riches. Starting in the 1960s the ruling Baath Party began a process of ethnic cleansing in Kirkuk. This ethnic cleansing, called "Arabization", forced Kurds, Turkmen and other ethnic groups from their homes and replaced them with ethnic Arabs from the south of Iraq:

Turkmens and Kurds alike were suppressed by the aggressive Arabism of Saddam Hussein’s Baath Party. Official ”Arabization” began in the 1960’s and accelerated significantly in 1975, when the Iraqi regime began forcibly removing tens of thousands of Kurds, Turkmens and Assyrian Christians from Kirkuk and bringing in Arabs to take their place. This Arabization was chiefly motivated by the government’s wish to consolidate its grip on the oil-rich and fertile region — and to pre-empt a gradual demographic takeover of the city by the Kurds. Under Arabization, as many as 250,000 non-Arabs, mostly Kurds, were expelled north into Iraqi Kurdistan. Their former land titles were declared invalid, and ownership was assumed by the government, which rented the land to Arabs.

Kurdistan [Click to Enlarge]After the fall of Saddam the Kurds have reasserted control over Kirkuk. The Kurds consider Kirkuk to be the capital of a greater Kurdistan spanning from Turkey to Iran. The Kurds are prepared to fight in order to gain control of the city:

"Kirkuk is Kurdistan; it does not belong to the Arabs," Hamid Afandi, the minister of Peshmerga for the Kurdistan Democratic Party, one of the two major Kurdish groups, said. "If we can resolve this by talking, fine, but if not, then we will resolve it by fighting."

The Arabs, Shia and Sunni, are not prepared to hand over Kirkuk to the Kurds without a fight:

In a meeting here last week, Sadr’s representative in the city, Abdul Karim Khalifa, told U.S. officials that more armed loyalists were on the way and that as many as 7,000 to 10,000 Shiite residents were prepared to fight alongside the Mahdi Army if called upon. Legions more Shiite militiamen would push north from Baghdad’s Sadr City slum, he said, according to Wise.

"His message was essentially that any idea of Kirkuk going to the Kurds will mean a fight," Wise said. "He said that their policy here was different from in other places, that they are not going to attack coalition forces because their only enemy here is the Kurds."

The Shia militias in Kirkuk are currently outnumbered significantly by the peshmerga. However, any battle for Kirkuk is sure to draw in forces from Turkey and Iran. Both of these countries have Kurdish minorities that aspire for a greater Kurdistan. Turkey and Iran will both be concerned that a Kurdish controlled Kirkuk will give the Kurds the wealth needed to wage a war for a greater Kurdistan. 

However, under years of American and British protection, and the resulting autonomy, the Kurds of northern Iraq have worked steadily toward a Kurdish homeland. They are determined to make the dream of a greater Kurdistan a reality and any such state must include Kirkuk and its oil fields. The stage is thus set for a major confrontation in Kirkuk over the wealth of Iraq. Shia, Sunni, Kurd and Turkmen of Iraq are about to rendezvous with destiny in Kirkuk.

Posted in Foreign Policy, Iraq | 7 Comments

Iraq’s WMD Mystery Solved!

Posted on April 26, 2006 by Mash

Colin Powell at the United NationsThe tireless Daniel Pipes has solved the mystery of Saddam Hussein’s Weapons of Mass Destruction. Mr. Pipes argues that the reason we failed to find Iraq’s WMD is that they were moved just before the war. The answer was so simple – it was right there in front of us. Thank heaven that Daniel Pipes was on the case even when the last man from the Iraq Survey Group had packed his bags.

Daniel Pipes writes in his latest column:

The great mystery of the 2003 war in Iraq – "What about the WMD?" has finally been resolved. The short answer is: Saddam Hussein’s persistent record of lying meant no one believed him when he at the last moment actually removed the weapons of mass destruction.

Mr. Pipes does not tell us where the WMD were removed to – he leaves that as an exercise for his cerebral readers. He offers this explanation as an update to his column:

I have received many questions about the disposal of the WMD – Syria? Belarus? – and wish to clarify that I purposefully did not deal with this question in the above article (just as the Iraqi Perspectives Project did not). The topic here is exclusively the functioning of the Saddam Hussein regime in relation to the WMD mystery. Any thesis of what was done with the WMD is compatible with the above background explanation.

Mr. Pipes has "solved" the mystery of the WMD by stating that since they were not found they must have been removed. The more obvious explanation that perhaps Iraq possessed no WMD does not seem to resonate with Mr. Pipes. Mr. Pipes is a glass-is-half-full kind of thinker. He posits that if the bottom half of a glass contains no water that must mean that the top half of the glass contains water that is suspended in mid air. Who am I to argue with logic as powerful as that.

Daniel Pipes cites (without any hint of irony) the Iraqi Perspectives Project report to show how Saddam Hussein’s Government was disconnected from reality. Saddam Hussein demanded only good news and this led to a lot of misinformation being propagated throughout the Iraqi regime. Pipes claims that the confusion extended to WMD as well. Perhaps even Saddam was not sure if WMD existed or not. This is Mr. Pipes’ fallback argument. If the WMD were there they were moved. However, if they were not there then even Saddam thought they were there and therefore it was tantamount to Saddam actually having WMD. Either way the WMD, fictional or not, were removed by Saddam Hussein. Daniel Pipes thus ties his circular argument with a nice tidy bow:

The same situation extended to the military-industrial infrastructure. First, the report states, for Saddam, "the mere issuing of a decree was sufficient to make the plan work." Second, fearful for their lives, everyone involved provided glowing progress bulletins. In particular, "scientists always reported the next wonder weapon was right around the corner." In such an environment, who knew the actual state of the WMD? Even for Saddam, "when it came to WMD there was always some element of doubt about the truth."

So, it appears that Mr. Pipes has embarked on a two-pronged defense of this Administration – one prong using the fantasy argument, the other prong using the delusion argument. Using equal doses of fantasy and delusion Mr. Pipes has "solved" the WMD mystery. I am sure his followers will now tout this as "evidence" that Saddam had (real or imagined) WMD and the (real or imagined) WMD was removed prior to the war. Now all Mr. Pipes has to do to complete the circle is "find" the WMD. I will wait anxiously for the day when Daniel Pipes "finds" Saddam’s lost Weapons of Mass Destruction.

Posted in Foreign Policy, Iraq, Politics | 13 Comments

Welcome To The Machine

Posted on April 25, 2006 by Mash

Tony SnowFox News has been often accused of being a mouthpiece for the Bush Administration. They have always denied the charge and asserted that they are "fair and balanced". Tonight Fox News decided not to fight the truth anymore and has wholeheartedly embraced the moniker. Tony Snow of Fox News is now the official mouthpiece of the Bush Administration.

I finally understand the tag line of The Tony Snow Show on Fox News: "The Power of FOX. The Connections of Snow."

 

 

Posted in Media, Politics | 2 Comments