demimasque

Running on Fumes

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Bill Rice at Dawn’s Early Light recently considered Sino-Japanese energy geopolitics. While the disputes over the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea are well-known, less well-known but, as Bill points out, equally contentious, are the disputes over gas fields in the East China Sea:

What is at stake is over 200 billion cubic meters of natural gas reserves. China already has developed stations at Chunxiao (Shirakaba), Duanqiao (Kusunoki) and Tianwaitian (Kashi) that are starting this month to produce natural gas. Japan had floated a proposal to jointly develop the sites, but only after China agreeing to stop drilling and submit to Japan its internal surveys of where the natural gas is coming from (See the Asia Times Online file for an in depth analysis).

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Religious Tolerance

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One of the persistent comparisons between the West and the Muslim world has been the place of religious tolerance. We in the West have become so accustomed to religious pluralism that a sizable minority feels safe in denigrating the religious background of the West by taking it out of context, while defending those who hijack yet another religion by insisting that the majority of believers of that other religion don’t share the views of those extremists. Goose and gander deserve different sauces. Yet, we tolerate these, and others less self-contradicted, because we have developed a respect for the freedom of conscience, without which we would still be experiencing the internecine brawls that rocked our ancestral societies in the 16th and 17th Centuries.

Observers of the Islamic world have noted the societal trajectories there. While the outlying societies, such as Indonesia and Malaysia, have been largely able to co-exist with other religions (although these relationships have been strained in the past century), the core of the Muslim world, the Arabian peninsula, has been home to an intolerant fundamentalism which denies the validity not only of other faiths, but also militates against coreligionists who happen to follow a different interpretation. The Sunni-Shia divide, although subtle in practice, has been politically exploited over the centuries.

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Saddam Trial – Jurisdiction

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The friend who asked, rhetorically, if the Saddam Trial was nothing but a dog-and-pony show before a kangaroo court later (but before I responded to him) asked this question:

If the invasion is illegal, the Court has no jurisdiction.

The smart money is that this is what Saddam’s lawyers will try to argue. Professor Willis, my Civil Procedure instructor, concurs, but adds much more nuance. She suggests that Saddam’s lawyers will specifically try to argue that the court has no jurisdiction over him because the Coalition Provisional Authority headed by Paul Bremer, under whose auspices the statute creating the Iraqi Special Tribunal was drafted, had no authority due to the illegality of the war. According to the Human Rights First page, “Iraqi Special Tribunal: Questions & Answers“, the statute was actually enacted by the Iraqi Governing Council, to which the CPA temporarily ceded legislative authority for that purpose. Moreover, arguing the illegality of the war may be futile.

This is how I answered my friend:

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Saddam Trial – Kangaroo Court?

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A friend of mine posted on Wednseday, at a forum we both contribute to, about the opening of the Saddam Trial. He has consistently been one of the members of the forum who have opposed the Iraq War. Over the course of our correspondence I have gotten the impression that his opposition is due more to his partisan opposition to President Bush than to a consistent ideology; and from that impression, I read a question which he posted with some skepticism. Here’s what he wrote:

My question is: What’s the point of even having a trial?

Everyone here knows there is absolutely no chance he will be released alive. His objections to the legitimacy of the trial will be overruled, and he will be found guilty and sentenced to death. There is no other outcome. Moreover, he will use the trial as a stage to embarass the United States.

So what’s the point of even having a trial? Why do we need to perpetuate the illusion of fairness when the conclusion is already predetermined?

We should skip the dog-and-pony trial and go straight to sentencing. Maybe Bush should have Saddam’s head cut off and stick it on the gate around the Whitehouse.

I think it would be fair to say that, as his post went on, his visceral opposition to President Bush took over, and the post assumed a more emotional overtone. Here was my response (which I’ve edited for easier understanding outside of the forum):

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White House Stages Pro-War Propaganda

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Anti-war types are incensed that the Administration would ever try to stage anything that would put a better spin on the war effort than what the anti-war groups perceive:

“It’s important to demonstrate the perfidy and mendacity of this administration now,” said one leading spokesman, “before it becomes fixed in the mind of the public as an American ‘victory,’ or something to be admired and emulated in the future. If we don’t set the record straight now, who knows how history will record it? For all we know, they’ll decide to put up a bronze statue in Arlington to commemorate it, or something.”

Rand Simberg’s “article” comes to us from … 1945. Let’s face it, it is in the nature of all American Administrations, indeed of any regime, to justify its actions. And it is indeed the job of an observant press to question such propaganda. But what happens when some members of the press get their own ideas? Blogress Laura Lee Donoho shares an anecdote from Somalia, from her husband’s experiences there:

My husband had the opportunity to see this odious practice for himself when he was deployed to Somalia in 1992.

One day as my husband and part of his battalion was out in a convoy he saw a CNN newscrew near a group of Somalis. The crew and the Somalis were blocking the road that my husband’s convoy was attempting to go down so my husband checked into what was going on.

What he saw upset him so much that he called me that very day the first chance he got. He was livid.

He told me that blonde haired white people who were obviously working for CNN were making and handing out signs to the poor Somali people and having them pose for the camera with the signs which said stuff like, “Go home U.S. military.”

Manipulation of the “truth” is common, and one doesn’t have to be an establishment type, whether George Bush or Dan Rather, to do so. Recall the last time you decided to tell a white lie, or fudged your retelling of events to suit the point of your story (“I once caught a fish this big!”).

Which is really worse, the President holding a scripted “unscripted” conference with the troops that nevertheless manages to get the President’s message out, or the television producer who fabricates evidence but claims that the point is “fake but accurate”, relying on sentiments that cannot be discovered because the man who supposedly held them 30 years ago is conveniently dead? Then again, it really is a difference between the mentality of teamwork with life-or-death stakes, and the quite different stakes of taking down a political opponent when your own candidate fails to conduct a convincing campaign against a vulnerable incumbent.

But, don’t take my word for it. I have it on good authority that even though all Administrations do this, the Bush flub is particularly execrable and mendacious, and that the media never gets it wrong (or, at least, is never not “accurate”) except when they’re being set up by a right wing conspiracy.

Is it, nonetheless, embarrassing for the Bushies? Absolutely. Will it blow over? Most likely. If people can’t be bothered to tune in to the news of the Iraqi Constitutional Referendum, then people won’t be bothered to follow news of something that we all know people do. In the end, the brouhaha will have less impact than some would desire.

[Cross-posted at Between Worlds]