| 20 October 2004 | Wednesday | 05 Ramazan 1425 |
Spurning norms of diplomacy
The way ahead
Americans should boot him out
While the final results of the recent Afghan polls will take time in coming, and will probably not be officially certified until the end of October or later, it appears that Hamid Karzai will emerge as the clear winner with at least 60, perhaps even 70, per cent of the vote.
The latest figures suggest that more than 75 per cent of registered voters cast their vote. With some one million votes (13 per cent of the total number) having been counted by October 17, Karzai was leading with 62.6 per cent, while his closest rival Yunus Qanooni had mustered only 17.7 per cent of the votes.
An interesting statistic showed that Qanooni had secured 96 per cent of the votes counted in the Panjshir Valley (only a quarter of the votes cast), while Karzai, despite having Ahmad Shah Masood's brother on his ticket, had secured only 0.5 per cent. Panjshir, of course, is the constituency in which the total number of voters registered exceeded the UN estimate of the population by 150 per cent.
The overwhelming support for Qanooni may be the result of some ballot stuffing, intimidation and other irregularities, and in the Panjshir Valley this would be comparatively easy for Marshal Fahim to arrange. However, for the most part, it is indicative of the ethnic divisions that exist in Afghanistan.
The Panjshiri Tajiks see the elections as marking the end of their current dominance of the government structure in Kabul. By the same token, the Pushtuns, constituting the majority of the Afghan population, will have voted overwhelmingly for Karzai since in their view this is the only way to break the Panjshiri stranglehold on the levers of power in Kabul.
It is also probable that the Uzbeks voted entirely for Dostum - he is currently in third place with a little over nine per cent of the counted vote - while the Hazaras divided their vote between Karzai, whose running mate Khalili is a popular Hazara leader, and Mohaqiq. The Badakshan Tajiks owe their loyalty to former president Burhanuddin Rabbani. His son-in-law is Karzai's running mate, and he made it clear early on in the election after reconciliation efforts failed that he would support Karzai.
It was, therefore, easy to predict even before elections were held that Karzai would be the clear winner and no runoff election would be needed. Complaints of poll irregularities created a minor glitch but some American pressure and the enormous voter turnout persuaded Qanooni and other candidates not to make the "irregularities" a make or break issue and to accept, subject to the Independent Commission's inquiry into alleged irregularities, the results of the elections. Already Qanooni is making noises about helping his former friend Karzai to "reconstruct Afghanistan and to forge national unity".
Karzai's election would be major triumph for the Afghan people. It would give him the legitimacy he has so far lacked, and hopefully the clout he needs to persuade the Americans and Isaf to offer greater cooperation in curbing the warlords and hastening the reconstruction process. It will also enable him to appeal with greater force for the moderate Taliban to avail themselves of an amnesty offer and return to mainstream Afghan life.
It is not a panacea for Afghanistan's myriad problems, but it is a start towards reconciliation and reconstruction. It is also clear, as the commander of the US forces in Afghanistan has said, that a foreign military presence in Afghanistan would be needed for the foreseeable future to support the government's stabilization efforts.
For Bush, however, this is an enormous success. Secretary of State Powell, Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld and other spokesmen for the Bush administration have trumpeted the peaceful elections and the enormous turnout not only as a vindication of the administration's Afghan policy but, equally importantly, as a precedent for the elections scheduled for January in Iraq.
While recognizing that a foreign military presence would be required in Afghanistan, they have also started work on reducing the American role by calling upon the Nato countries to agree to a merger of Isaf forces, currently under Nato command, with the American forces there. So far, this has not worked. At the last Nato meeting, both France and Germany rejected the American suggestion, but the Americans can be expected to persevere.
The Nato countries and Isaf spokesmen have made it clear that they do not want to be drawn into the forcible disarming of warlords or into the battle against the narcotics mafia. The problem, however, is that with Afghanistan's opium production (possibly exceeding 4,000 tons) being destined largely for Europe after saturating markets in Iran and Pakistan, the Europeans, more than the Americans, have an interest in curbing this in Afghanistan. For that they need to break the warlords' hold on regional power.
The question of an exit strategy, or at least a burden-sharing strategy, is extremely important for Bush in these last three weeks before the American elections. One of the charges that Kerry has made - and it is a charge that arouses great concern - is the fact that the United States cannot continue to meet its force requirements in Afghanistan and Iraq without reintroducing the draft.
Bush has denied the charge but reservists have been asked to extend their service repeatedly, and it is therefore clear that there is a manpower shortage in the American armed forces, which, if demand remains at the current level, cannot be made up by the accelerated recruitment of volunteers.
Furthermore, if Nato countries can be persuaded to accept the merger of forces in Afghanistan it would reduce at least in some measure the validity of the allegation that the Bush administration was isolated and was having "to go it alone" in Afghanistan and Iraq. Even if they do not succeed, they would have made the point that they had tried and that a "unilateralist" policy was being forced upon the Bush administration rather than being preferred by it.
As regards the search for Osama bin Laden, Secretary Powell is insistent that there has been no let up in efforts to find him. He claimed that perhaps three-quarters of the top leadership had been captured or killed He admitted that he is probably still alive and "operating in those western reaches of Pakistan or perhaps going back and forth across the border". He and other administration officials, even the normally choleric Khalilzad, have been lyrical in their praise for the effort Pakistan has mounted in the tribal areas.
Faced with the charge that last year Bush had said he was not concerned about Bin Laden, Powell maintained that Bush had "never taken his eye off the Bin Laden ball". It is clear, however, that after the failure of the "hammer and anvil" operation earlier this year on the Pakistan-Afghan border, the Americans have started giving lower priority to military operations for capturing or killing Bin Laden. There may then be greater American focus on using US forces in Afghanistan to do what Karzai wants - disarm the warlords, extend the writ of the central government and provide reconstruction assistance.
In Iraq, the situation is more mixed. Even while touting the example of peaceful elections in Afghanistan as a possible model of what could be done in Iraq, Powell conceded that the insurgency was a serious problem to which, implicitly, he saw no early solution. There are, however, some bright spots. The disarming of the Mahdi militia is proceeding, albeit at a snail's pace.
The ferocious bombing of Fallujah, identified by the Americans as the headquarters of the Zarqawi-led foreign insurgents, has continued apace and has apparently, according to some reports, heightened the cleavage between the insurgents and the local residents. But other reports suggest that indiscriminate bombing and the number of civilian casualties have given local residents fresh ground for supporting the insurgency.
The Americans are apparently preparing for a full-scale assault on Fallujah but since they need the Iraqis to be in the vanguard this will have to wait upon the completion of the training of the Iraqis. In the meanwhile, the British have been asked to send some 600 troops to Baghdad and its vicinity so that American troops can be freed up, probably for the assault on Fallujah.
The debate in the UK parliament on this request has been instructive. Many Labour MPs, normally supportive of Tony Blair, called for a rejection of the US request, calling it a ploy to demonstrate to the American electorate that America's Iraq policy had international support.
They also maintained that America's heavy-handed tactics were responsible for the rising tempo of the insurgency. If British troops were placed under American command in the insurgency-hit vicinity of Baghdad they may be asked to take actions that could make them subject to trial in the International Criminal Court for war crimes - something that could not happen to the Americans since they have rejected the ICC.
Some of this may reflect the rising anti-American sentiment in the UK, but much of it is based on having perhaps a more accurate picture of American actions in Iraq than are available to us here or indeed to the Americans. How far this will influence US elections is not clear but it will certainly bear out the charge that even the most steadfast of American allies are having problems with US policies.
It is also to be noted in this context that while Bush, in his campaign speeches, highlighted the support received from countries like Poland, the Polish president has announced that his country's troops will start withdrawing from Iraq early next year.
The fact, however, is that the American electorate has largely made up its mind. Whatever changes there were to be in favour of Kerry occurred during the debates. Developments in Afghanistan may tilt the balance marginally in favour of Bush. But then, the continuing bad news from Iraq and from America's allies in Iraq, may marginally tilt the balance in favour of Kerry.
Some voters may be influenced by the endorsements offered by influential newspapers. The New York Times has come out in favour of Kerry, and the normally Republican-leaning influential newspaper in the key state of Florida, The Tampa Herald has refused to endorse Bush.
Kerry's campaign managers are frantically trying to prevent the airing of a viciously biased documentary on Kerry's Vietnam record on a chain of television stations owned by the Sinclair group. It will probably air it since the Federal Communications Commission, headed by Secretary Powell's son, is not likely to find legal grounds for prohibiting it. But all this will be marginal.
The really decisive factor will be voter registration and voter turnout. It appears that where there are Republican officials in charge, minority voters, traditionally Democratic supporters, are having difficulty getting registered and the Democrats are filing lawsuits in this connection.
The general conjecture is that this will be not only one of the most closely fought elections in American history but also among the most litigious. If the registration drive succeeds and Kerry's supporters can turn out the vote Kerry has a chance. Otherwise, it seems that Bush will prevail.
The writer is a former foreign secretary.
Spurning norms of diplomacy
Forty-five per cent of the American electorate love George Bush; 45 per cent loathe him. Their minds are made up, pro and con, and there is little chance of changing them. Ten per cent, more or less, remain undecided. The undecided will determine the outcome, at least of the popular vote. There may be again, as in 2000, an electoral-college misfire by which the popular-vote winner loses the White House.
War haunts America. Iraq and terrorism forced their way last week into the third presidential debate, ostensibly dedicated to domestic issues. There is no immunity for wartime presidents. In 1952, the unpopularity of the Korean war led President Truman to withdraw from the contest. In 1968, the Vietnam war drove President Johnson from office. The swift victory of President Bush the Elder in the first Iraq war was of small benefit when he was defeated for re-election in 1992. On the other hand, President Nixon running against George McGovern - like Senator Kerry, a decorated war hero turned into a war critic - scored a smashing triumph in 1972.
President Bush the Younger categorically defends his launching of the second Iraq war. He has no doubt about the rightness of his course or the brilliance of his team. President Kennedy dismissed the CIA advisers who led him into the Bay of Pigs. Despite the Pentagon's build-up of Ahmad Chalabi, despite torture and Abu Ghraib, despite the incompetence of postwar planning, despite the collapse of his reasons for looking on Iraq as a clear and present danger to the US, President Bush has dismissed few senior officials.
The recent report by Charles Duelfer, the top American arms inspector for Iraq, effectively destroyed what remains of the contention that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction. The second reason Mr Bush gave was the alleged partnership between the secular Muslim Saddam Hussein and the Muslim fundamentalist Osama bin Laden.
The Bush administration put over this allegation so successfully that 42 per cent of the American people, according to an October poll, still believe that Saddam was personally involved in 9/11. But the secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, and President Bush himself admitted that they had no hard evidence of the existence of the evil partnership.
The third reason was the liberation of the people of Iraq from a monstrous tyrant. But Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defence and long-time advocate of the war on Iraq, said that liberation by itself was "not a reason to put American kids' lives at risk". Two reasons having been shot down from under him, the American president is left with a reason once deemed an inadequate justification for American kids to kill or be killed.
George Bush, and Tony Blair too, are unquestionably right when they say that the world is a happier place now that Saddam Hussein is behind bars. But was it worth the price of more than 1,000 American lives and heaven knows how many Iraqis?
The second Iraq war fits into George W. Bush's strategy of "pre-emption". There is deliberate confusion here. Preventive war has a bad reputation in Washington. It is not only due to imperial Japan's preventive strike at the American fleet in Pearl Harbor, but Presidents Truman and Eisenhower explicitly rejected preventive war, and those recommending preventive war against the Soviet Union were generally derided as loonies.
So the Bush administration replaced "preventive" by "pre-emptive". The distinction between "pre-emptive" and "preventive" is worth preserving - it is the distinction between legality and illegality. "Pre-emptive" war refers to a direct, immediate, specific threat that must be met at once. In the words of a department of defence manual, "an attack initiated on the basis of incontrovertible evidence that an enemy attack is imminent". "Preventive" war refers to potential, future and, therefore, speculative attacks.
"Daniel Webster wrote a very famous defence of anticipatory self-defence," Condoleezza Rice, President Bush's national security adviser, informed the press. Dr Rice, the former provost of Stanford, does not know her American history. According to Secretary of State Webster's "famous" 1841 statement, a pre-emptive reaction could be justified only on very narrow grounds - if the prospective attack showed "a necessity of self-defence, instant, overwhelming, leaving no choice of means, and no moment for deliberation". This was manifestly not the case with Iraq. It was not a pre-emptive war. It was a preventive war.
Preventive war rests on the premise that the preventer has accurate and reliable knowledge about the evil enemy's capabilities and intentions. It rests on the assumption of the perfectibility of the intelligence process. It rests therefore not on fact, but on prophecy. Yet history outwits all our certitudes.
This aphorism does not commend itself to the younger Bush. He is an unrepentant preventive warrior. His re-election is far from certain; but he would take re-election as an endorsement of his first term and would probably see it as a national mandate to pursue his methods and goals during a second term. Already, premonitory warnings against Iran are eerily reminiscent of those that preceded the preventive war against Iraq.
He might take it as a national mandate to pursue the policy of truculent unilateralism. Already the Bush administration's contempt for "old Europe", the UN and international institutions is hardly concealed. Never in American history has the republic been so unpopular abroad, so mistrusted, feared, even hated.
President Bush is a militant idealist. He proposes to use America's military, economic and cultural power to spread "liberty". However, there are a lot of bad guys on the planet. Is the US obliged to eliminate them all? Does the US serve as the world's judge, jury and executioner?
As John Quincy Adams, perhaps American's greatest secretary of state, said, America, while sympathizing with struggling peoples, "goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy". Should America seek out monsters, Adams continued, "the fundamental maxims of her policy would insensibly change from liberty to force ... She might become the dictatress of the world: she would no longer be the ruler of her own spirit."
That is the significance, for America and the world, of the American presidential election. -Dawn/The Guardian News Service
The writer was an adviser to President Kennedy.
The way ahead
This is how Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has captioned his article published a few days ago: The Way Forward. I can't decide what to call it - his manifesto or his declaration of faith, or simply an act of putting his dreams into words. But one thing is there; you can read in it whatever Shaukat Aziz has always thought about Pakistan, what he believes at the moment, and what he is determined to do about it in the future.
Heads of state and prime ministers are not supposed to write their speeches themselves, or sit down to compose lengthy article about their aims and objectives. This is not done by even the most cerebral leader of government anywhere in the world. He just tells the staff writers what he particularly wishes to say, what he wants highlighted and stressed, and these aides who have the advantage of already knowing the mind of the boss and on what lines it operates in various matters, submit the draft to him for approval. He may or may not make any changes.
But I have a hunch that this article was drafted by the prime minister himself. It is too personal where it comes to outlining his thinking and in expressing his innermost dreams and desires about Pakistan, the problems of day-to-day administration and the perceptions of the people, to have emanated from an aide's pen. Another thing that makes me believe this is its excessive length. Any good PR adviser (and one presumes that he has the best) would have suitably pruned it with his approval before releasing it to the press. In any case, the man has put his heart into it.
The critics of Shaukat Aziz, in the political opposition and even in the media, may not agree with all that he has said in the article, although there is hardly anything in it to cavil about. It is just a realistic account of the problems and issues that confront the country, the economic crises it has passed through in the last few years and the turnabout achieved both in the public and the private sector. Most of all, it is a narration of his ambitions about where he wants to take the country in economic terms and that is what has made me comment on it.
I have often referred in this column to my long association with the official information set-up of Punjab and casually with successive federal regimes in Pakistan before I retired and started writing for the newspapers. For this writing, I rely more on the idiosyncrasies of government leaders than on their imaginary intellectual qualities and their non-existent love for serving the people, so ably inflated by their PROs. That is why I never comment on their addresses to the nation and their harangues on national issues. But I must tell you why I have chosen to write about this article and what was in it that appealed to me.
Shaukat Aziz describes in detail how, during his stints abroad, he saw economic miracles unfold before his eyes as "country after country transformed itself from relative backwardness to a position of great affluence and development, literally in a single life span" and his plaintive question, "why can't we develop like that too? I often asked myself. Why can't we with our far greater human and natural resources become a force to be reckoned with economically and not just geo-strategically?"
What touched me most was the almost boyish longing in the words "As I looked out of the window of my office and saw the purposeful stride of ordinary citizens as they went about their lives, this thought would torture me in my pensive moments, for if one knows that something cannot be done one comes to a sad acceptance. But when one knows that it can be done it makes one restless and discontented. But somehow I always knew that it could be done if we had the opportunity that comes from unity of purpose and clarity of vision and a galvanized people marching towards prosperity and greatness."
I am not aware at all of how Shaukat Aziz fares as an extempore speaker because I never watch TV or listen to the radio or go to any functions open to the public here in Islamabad, but he seems to have a way with words when writing English. For instance, I liked the determination of his words in this small extract from the speech, "People ask me, can we really pull it off? My answer is, Yes, we can pull it off, provided we all pull in the same direction."
The article contains the usual recital of the country's economic woes in the recent past which always forms a major portion of any assessment made by government leaders, and the facts and figures that are meant to exhibit the reversal of a sad situation from near bankruptcy to the affluence of the government's treasury (the people's affluence is yet to come). There is talk of successful finance management, the budgetary position and the GDP.
However, I am not concerned so much with these (because frankly such facts and figures leave me cold) as I am with the prime minister's plans for the future, and that too because of the words used by him.
For example, I was struck by phrases like, "A healthy nation is a productive nation. This has become a truism precisely because it is true;" and "To improve the quality of life of the people I am determined to improve the quality of public service delivery to the people;" and "The competitive advantage (in agriculture) of each district will be explored and exploited. The idea is that every village can excel in at least one value-added product;" and "All countries that have developed had sound and stable political processes;" et al.
Every new prime minister makes promises in his or her initial political and administrative utterances, soon forgotten by the incumbent as well as by the dazed public. But never has one of them placed his cards on the table in this manner and committed himself to his plans and ambitions by writing an article about them. It is as if Shaukat Aziz is saying, "Here is what I think and what I want to do. You can catch me in the future on any of these commitments and promises. I shall then have no excuses to make."
Let me conclude by saying just one thing on the basis of past experience and keeping in mind the process through which we have received our supply of successive (if not successful) prime ministers. It is not so much a question of whether Shaukat Aziz is able to do all that he dreams of doing for Pakistan as it is of whether he will be allowed to have his way and carry the nation with him in his endeavours.
Americans should boot him out
A few weeks ago, Jonathan Freedland, writing in The Guardian, suggested that the time had perhaps come to extend the franchise for the US presidential election. Given the White House's inclination to determine the course of events and the fate of peoples in lands far from American shores, a case could certainly be made for giving voters across the globe a say in who ends up at the top of the heap.
Freedland is by no means alone in thinking this way. The idea has lately been cropping up frequently, not least in letters to the editor published in various parts of the world. And guess how many of these letter-writers are keen to be enfranchised because they desperately want to vote for George W. Bush? I imagine the figure would be pretty close to zilch.
If I can't describe myself as a convert to the concept, that's because I've held this view for more than two decades, first airing it in print when Ronald Reagan challenged Jimmy Carter - successfully, as it turned out - for the post. At the time it was common for the US president to be described as "the leader of the free world", which begged the question why most of the denizens of the "free world" should be excluded from the process of choosing their chief.
Much has changed in the intervening quarter of a century, but there is little evidence to support the view that the present Bush presidency represents a radical break with American tradition. On the contrary, there's plenty of continuity. Yes, the US has become markedly more brazen about pursuing its agenda, but heightened arrogance and audacity hardly qualifies as a groundbreaking departure from past practice.
Although for much of the post-World War II period the preferred methods for regime change or preservation - be it in Italy or Iran, Chile or Pakistan - were somewhat more subtle than direct military invasion, Washington was willing to make exceptions. Grenada and Panama stand out as obvious examples.
It could be argued, of course, that both of these relatively small nations are located in an area the US has for more than a century regarded as its backyard. In geopolitical terms, the events of recent years are symptomatic of a considerably more virulent strain of imperialism. Ergo, the world did change after September 11, 2001 - not as an automatic consequence of Al Qaeda's vile attacks but because Uncle Sam decided to make it so.
There is a certain logical validity in that line of thought, but it could be many years before the contours of any new order are clearly delineated. After all, instead of the stepping stone to a new imperium, Iraq may well turn out to be the graveyard of the Project for a New American Century.
Should that turn out to be the case, it will be the result of resistance not only within Iraq, but also in other parts of the world. The results of a survey conducted by leading newspapers in 10 countries, including some of the United States' closest allies, suggest that in most of these nations the people overwhelmingly desire regime change in Washington. If voters in Britain, Canada, Australia, France, Spain, Japan and South Korea had any say in the matter, John Kerry would be sworn in as the 44th president of the US next January.
It would be unwise, of course, to expect too much from Kerry, but it's difficult not to sympathize with the view that at this juncture in history, almost anyone would be preferable to Bush. Were such polls to be conducted throughout the developing world as well, accompanied by adequate information about what each of the candidates stands for, it's conceivable that Ralph Nader would emerge with a considerably higher total than the one to three per cent support he attracts in his homeland.
The aforementioned survey shows, none too surprisingly, that Israelis favour Bush over Kerry by a two-to-one margin. Somewhat less predictably, the other exception to the anti-Bush trend is provided by Russia, where the concept of the "war on terror" presumably has a new resonance in the aftermath of the Beslan atrocity.
At the other extreme, meanwhile, a different poll, conducted by the Pew Research Centre, reportedly shows that Bush enjoys an approval rating of only seven per cent in Pakistan, whereas 65 per cent of us have a favourable opinion of Osama bin Laden. That's an appalling statistic by any measure, not because we ought to be kinder to Bush but because the other merchant of death and destruction is at least equally worthy of contempt.
Such exercises in eliciting public opinion can, of course, be notoriously unreliable, but in this case even an extraordinarily generous margin of error would yield a highly unpalatable figure on one side of the ledger. Where does it spring from? I suspect the source is a combination of arrogance, ignorance, fear and blind faith - which isn't all that far removed from the emotional/ideological mix that characterizes pockets of the US where support for Bush is strongest.
It could be said that some of these ingredients - arrogance, and perhaps fear - also go into any attempt, no matter how well-intentioned, to tell Americans how to vote. Such efforts can also backfire: Americans suspicious of the world outside may easily be persuaded that foreign advice deserves to be heeded only by acting against it.
But that may be an unavoidable risk. Although substantial numbers of Americans are thoroughly ashamed of their government's actions - and a growing proportion are aware that the Bush clique is not so much an aberration as a heightened manifestation of unconscionable policies that have been in place at least since the days of Harry Truman - even supposedly enlightened sections of society continue to be dismayed by the astronomical levels of international distrust and distaste.
A case in point is London-based playwright and journalist Carol Gould, whose sob story appeared in The Guardian recently. An American accent, she suggests, is sufficient to invite verbal assaults from ordinary Britons, citing the example of "a well-dressed woman" on a bus who didn't require much provocation to burst out with: "I rejoice every time I hear of another American soldier dying! You people are destroying the world."
It's hard to imagine such occurrences being common, but Gould claims they are not a rarity, feels that they have little to do with Bush or Dick Cheney, and is alarmed that such expressions of rage "(emanate) not from the great unwashed but from the educated and intellectual classes".
The use of terminology such as "the great unwashed" in what purports to be a serious article offers an indication of the mentality behind it. And another dimension is added when the writer blames what she perceives as hostility towards Americans on the opinion that "Europe has always been a seething hotbed of anti-Semitism"!
It is common for critics of Israeli fascism to be labelled anti-Semites, but this is the first time I have come across anyone flinging that epithet as a riposte to foes of American imperialism. Gould says she is fearful for her safety because of the hostility engendered by "relentless America-bashing in the European media, combined with the abundance of criticism of Israel". Aha! "I know many expat Americans - including non-Jews - who have received dressing-downs at social and professional gatherings," she moans.
The "including non-Jews" bit struck me as almost an afterthought. If the US of A has lately become a predominantly Jewish nation, that would come as a surprise to many of Bush's ardent followers in the Bible belt, who may not be all that far removed from the American tradition of anti-Semitism that Gould conveniently ignores.
The moral of the story? One, that fundamentalism in all its forms - Islamic, Jewish, Christian, neoconservative - is reprehensible in the extreme. Could there be such a thing as fundamentalist anti-Americanism? Possibly, and if so it must be added to the list of bugbears. But just as a powerful aversion to Bin Laden and his ilk or even to broader Wahabism need not translate into anti-Muslim bias, there is a world of difference between antagonism towards Washington's policies and a distaste for all things American.
Regular readers of this column will be familiar with my thoughts on the Bush administration. My feelings about its recent predecessors differ only in degrees of intensity.
Yet I couldn't possibly describe myself as anti-American - not when so many of my favourite 20th-century literary, cultural and even political figures are so indelibly American: from Langston Hughes, Paul Robeson, Billie Holiday, Woody Guthrie and Martin Luther King Jr to Malcolm X, Muhammad Ali, Marlon Brando, Pete Seeger, Gore Vidal, Noam Chomsky, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan.
Most of them, I'd like to think, understand - or would have understood - what eludes poor Carol Gould. "Otherwise enlightened colleagues tell me," she says in her favoured shock-horror mode, "that the US 'threatens the world far more than bin Laden'." Well, it obviously does. Because not even in his wildest dreams could bin Laden have wreaked so much destruction, or engendered so much repulsion towards the US, as George W has done.
The world will be a wee bit better and marginally safer place if Bush is booted out of the White House. And on any cosmic level, what's good for the world can't be bad for the US of A. American voters have it within their power, barring large-scale electoral fraud (which isn't, unfortunately, out of the question), to take a small but necessary step in the right direction. May their self-respect and innate sense of self-preservation grant them the wisdom to do so.
Email: mahirali2@netscape.net