I was gliding along the Massachusetts Turnpike, enjoying a summer Sunday in the Berkshires, thinking I was on vacation, when I got an urgent cell phone call from a news anchor at one of the nation's most progressive radio stations. "Will you comment on today's news from Israel?" he asked.
"What news?" I was on vacation from the world and its problems.
A politician who has been described as "the bravest woman in Afghanistan" says that military intervention is not the way to find democracy in the war-torn county.
Malalai Joya gained international attention for standing before Afghanistan's constitutional grand assembly and accusing her country's leaders of war crimes, human rights violations and supporting the Taliban.
She spent most of her childhood in refugee camps and as a young woman she worked as a women's rights activist under the Taliban.
Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu threw a rhetorical bone to President Obama in his much anticipated
speech on June 14, when he used the term "Palestinian state."
But he conceded nothing of substance, reiterating Israel's continuing
rejection of real Palestinian statehood, independence, sovereignty,
and self-determination.
President Barack Obama's speech
in Cairo to the Muslim world marked a welcome departure from the Bush
administration's confrontational approach. Yet many Arabs and Muslims
have expressed frustration that he failed to use this opportunity to
call on the autocratic Saudi and Egyptian leaders with whom he had
visited on his Middle Eastern trip to end their repression and open up
their corrupt and tightly controlled political systems.
The
Obama-Netanyahu-Abbas meetings in May, followed by Obama's speech in
Cairo, have been widely interpreted as a turning point in US Middle
East policy, leading to consternation in some quarters, exuberance in
others. Fairly typical is Middle East analyst Dan Fromkin of the Washington Post,
who sees "signs Obama will promote a new regional peace initiative for
the Middle East, much like the one championed by Jordan's King
Abdullah... [and also] the first distinct signs that Obama is willing
to play hardball with Israel." (WP, May 29).
President Barack Obama's much-anticipated Cairo speech
reflected a significant shift away from the ideological framework of
militarism and unilateralism that shaped the Bush administration's
war-based policy toward the Arab and Muslim worlds.
Did they play Barack Obama's speech
to the Muslim world in the prison corridors of Abu Ghraib, Bagram air
base, Guantanamo or the dozens of secret sites where we hold thousands
of Muslims around the world? Did it echo off the walls of the crowded
morgues filled with the mutilated bodies of the Muslim dead in Baghdad
or Kabul? Was it broadcast from the tops of minarets in the villages
and towns decimated by U.S. iron fragmentation bombs?
This is hard. It's hard because we
so need to believe that Obama is about change, that he's wise, that
he's good, that he has the interests of the world – rather than just
the interests of the United States – at heart.
Once you strip away the mujamalat - the courtesies exchanged between guest and host - the substance of President Obama's speech
in Cairo indicates there is likely to be little real change in US
policy. It is not necessary to divine Obama's intentions - he may be
utterly sincere and I believe he is. It is his analysis and
prescriptions that in most regards maintain flawed American policies
intact.
More and more, it looks like the same old melody that Bush's lads
used to sing. We're not against the Muslim world. In fact, we are
positively for it. We want you to have democracy, up to a point. We
love Arab "moderates" and we want to reach out to you and be your
friends. Sorry about Iraq. And sorry - again, up to a point - about
Afghanistan and we do hope that you understand why we've got to have a
little "surge" in Helmand among all those Muslim villages with their
paper-thin walls. And yes, we've made mistakes.
