Here are some excerpts from a letter to the New York Times from George McGovern:

I am a longtime admirer of Thomas L. Friedman. I disagree, however, with his advice to Senator John Kerry relative to our Army in Iraq, which is summarized in his final line: “We will not run” (column, Feb. 15).

This determination to stand and fight is tempting to political leaders. The trouble with this appeal is that brave young Americans do the bleeding and dying – not the political leaders who committed them to a mistaken war. Terrorists are killing American soldiers in Iraq because our Army is in Iraq. I hope that President Bush, with the help of the United Nations, will find a way to return Iraq to the Iraqis and bring our Army home.
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Replacing Saddam Hussein with Ahmad Chalabi would be comparable to replacing Jack the Ripper with Al Capone. Such a development is not worth risking the death of one additional American.

How is one to take this seriously? Soldiers rather than political leaders do the bleeding and the dying in all wars, not just mistaken ones. If Iraq is returned to the Iraqis, George Bush will have played a key role in getting that process started; and then Iraqis will be able to decide if they want Ahmad Chalabi or not. Finally, whatever one may think of Chalabi, it is a grotesque sort of estimate that sees him as the rough moral equivalent of Saddam Hussein – responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people. (Hat tip: Ted Miller.)

The further details for an upcoming academic conference under this title can be found here. You’ll be able to see at once from these details what my reasons are for publicizing the conference. First: it is organized by the Manchester Centre for Political Thought (MANCEPT) and I am a member of that fine Centre. Second: I like to draw attention to the activities of blogger friends of mine – in this case, Chris Bertram of Crooked Timber, who will be presenting one of the papers.

There’s an interesting piece in The New Republic by Yossi Klein Halevi. It’s on Arab Israelis who fly the Islamic flag and want to remain part of Israel. The article is only available by subscription, so I give a lengthy excerpt here:

Prime Minister Sharon’s announcement of unilateral withdrawal from Gaza has obscured his other, no less stunning plan to cede the Triangle, the overwhelmingly Arab area parallel to Israel’s coastal plain whose largest town is Umm El Fahm. That would mean withdrawing from territory within the pre-1967 borders and stripping some 200,000 Arabs of their Israeli citizenship – problematic under international law and vehemently opposed even by those Arab Israelis… whose loyalty to Israel is questionable.
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For Jews, there is no place within pre-1967 Israel more frightening than Umm El Fahm, a neglected and overcrowded town of almost 40,000, with potholed roads and nonstop traffic jams on its narrow main street. Green Islamic flags hang from balconies and street lights, while banners proclaim we are all the islamic movement – that is, the Islamist party headed by the imprisoned Sheik Salah and cited by the Shin Bet as a threat to the country’s security. Every September, tens of thousands of Islamic Movement supporters gather here for a rally under the title, “Al Aqsa Is in Danger,” spreading the baseless fear of an Israeli government plot to destroy the Temple Mount’s Islamic shrines…

… [W]hat’s most disorienting about Umm El Fahm these days is the widespread affirmation of Israeli identity that one hears in response to Sharon’s proposal. Despite anger at their second-class status, many residents insist they prefer to live in a Jewish state rather than a Palestinian one. Partly, the reason is economic. “You want to take us from one of the most advanced countries and put us in one of the most depressed?” says Walid Mahajni, owner of a pastry shop located on a service road with piles of uncollected garbage. But, he adds, his attachment to his Israeli passport isn’t just financial. “The Israeli mentality has become part of us. When I traveled in Egypt and Jordan, I realized I couldn’t live in an Arab country. We’ve gotten used to speaking our minds.”
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[S]ome insist that support for the Islamic Movement results largely from pragmatic, not ideological, motives: The Islamic Movement provides services that compensate for the government’s discriminatory policy against Arab municipalities. End the discrimination, they add, and the Movement’s appeal will decline. “The government created the Islamic Movement,” says Mahajni, the pastry shop owner. “Give people equality and the Islamic Movement will decline, just like the [ultra-Orthodox party] Shas.”…

The proposed severance of Umm El Fahm from the Jewish state raises basic questions about Israel’s future relationship with its Arab citizens, with the Middle East, and with its own territorial integrity. The very threat of rescinding Israeli citizenship could have a deterrent effect on growing extremism among Arab Israelis by emphasizing that Israeli citizenship requires basic loyalty, especially as a Palestinian state emerges just over the border. Yet ceding the Triangle could deepen the alienation of Arab citizens, one of the few populations left in the Middle East with whom Jews still have a chance for dialogue. Finally, given that the birthrate of Arab Israelis is more than double that of Israeli Jews, will Israel then withdraw from any part of its territory in which Arabs predominate – say the Negev, where Bedouin are already becoming the majority population?

In the village of Mualaka, near Umm El Fahm, hidden in a valley with almond trees in white bloom, two dozen young men sit on folding chairs in the midday sun. Like Umm El Fahm, green Islamic flags fly from balconies. When I ask the men about Sharon’s proposal, the response is uniformly negative. “Give me all of Nablus, even with oil wells, and I won’t give up my Israeli citizenship,” says a bearded young man named Ghanem. The others laugh and nod in agreement. Adds Faris, “I want to live under the democratic law of Israel, not the law of [Yasir] Arafat. If you want to get rid of us, create a separate state of the Arabs who stayed here in 1948. Just don’t send us to Palestine.” Says Adel, “I’ve worked with Jews for twenty years. How can we live without Chaim and Dudu and Shmulik?”

(Hat tip: Matthew Kramer.)

[Reader Tony Hutchison sent me the following thoughts on the presidential race, and I’m posting them with his permission, as a follow-up to this earlier post with the views of The Dude, and a contribution to the current debate.]

There’s been some smug liberal commentary recently, from the likes of Will Hutton, claiming that Blair has alienated himself from the mainstream of the US Democratic Party (though why this should be so given that Kerry himself voted for regime change in the Senate I’m not entirely sure).

For myself, I definitely want Kerry to win as I am now fairly sure that the Bush administration – particularly the Cheney/Rumsfeld axis – is simply not serious enough about ‘nation-building’ and the broad ideological, social and cultural as well as military struggles that long, arduous process entails. George Packer elaborates on this theme here, making what I feel are some very appropriate historical analogies. It’s time for the Democratic Party to rediscover its FDR/Truman tradition of internationalism and support for those who seek to uphold democratic values in the midst of totalitarian barbarism. Only then will we find our Islamic Havels, Solzhenitsyns and Walesas.

To be honest I feel that the pro-intervention left is not being critical enough about Bush at the moment, perhaps out of a misplaced fear of giving ground to their opponents. This is a huge mistake in my opinion and just mimics the churlishness of those on the left who refuse to accept any positive repercussions from the removal of Saddam. At least Christopher Hitchens seems to have backtracked from the type of unequivocal, across the board support for Bush he was offering last year.

Personally, I felt pretty sure that Bush et al would renege on many of their nation-building obligations prior to intervention but also felt, and still feel, that criticism of US policy would only become legitimate after Hussein’s regime had been toppled. My own loathing of Bush and co was simply a luxury the Iraqi people could not then afford. That is not the case now. Bush’s exit would be – given the fact that Kerry is clearly no Howard Dean neo-isolationist type – as beneficial to them as it would be to the rest of us who long for a United States that, once again, listens as well as it leads. (Tony Hutchison)

I’ve expressed my view about Jenny Tonge’s now well-known remarks twice before, but in light of her latest explanations I’m beginnning to think she just may not be too… clear-headed. Following a trip to Israel and the West Bank, Tonge writes:

My remarks last month, expressing empathy with suicide bombers, had been misinterpreted by the tabloids as meaning sympathy and approval.

OK, let’s assume she doesn’t sympathize or approve then; she just expressed herself badly. What else does she have to say? This:

In Israel, the armed forces have F16 fighter planes, helicopter gun-ships, tanks, even nuclear weapons.

The disparity was pointed out to me by a civil society group in Bethlehem, when I asked why Palestinians used suicide bombers.

“Tell the US to give us the arms that Israel has and we will stop such attacks,” was the response.

Someone has reminded me that Samson was the first suicide attacker.

Merely passing on the views of others, perhaps. Or perhaps not:

It is certainly true that suicide bombers are regarded as national heroes here, but what else do they have – born out of despair and the desire to resist occupation, laced with religious belief.

Civilian targets are chosen because there is no way of getting at military targets.

Tonge’s capacity to empathize also seems quite selective:

The next day back in Israel, I couldn’t find anyone who was willing to see why the Palestinians resorted to suicide attacks.

Some of the Israeli arguments had truth in them, but it was all so negative.

And then she’s discomfited by this interpretation of her earlier comments – the interpretation of ‘some al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade terrorists’:

They had heard about my remarks and were pleased that I understood the reasons why they were terrorists, even “proud” of me. This was spine-chilling.

Charles Kennedy may have had more than one good reason for removing Jenny Tonge from his team.

(Via Biased BBC.)

Has dissent been marginalized in the US? From this distance it’s not the impression I’ve formed. But Gary Younge says different:

Dean’s rise showed it was possible to mount a credible electoral challenge from the left even in a country at war, where dissent has been marginalised by both the political and media establishments.

I control my impulse to think that Gary Younge’s saying it suffices to show it isn’t true. I ask instead: is there anything in it? I’d like at least to understand what sort of thing prompts him to say and believe it.

Goofy, Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse according to George Monbiot. And it’s actually sinister and ‘deeply frightening’ (my emphasis) that he finds them.

What could be his reason? It’s this: ‘hegemony represented by an infantilised mouse and an infantilised duck’ – ‘the hegemony of the corporations’. In which case, the Hollywood movie presumably is also going down the tubes. Yup – ‘the little state department’, America’s ‘advance legions’.

On this basis, we’ll also have to give up on a lot of top-level sport, soft drinks, breakfast cereals, computers… you name it. Or, alternatively, George Monbiot could read a bit of Marx.

It looks like it’s good to live in an Australian city. That’s according to a survey by the Economist Intelligence Unit:

Melbourne, Australia’s commercial capital, has retained its position as the best city in the world to live in, with Mumbai and Delhi close to the bottom of the scale in a survey of 130 countries.

The recent survey, conducted by the London-based The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), assessed the level of hardship for expatriates in the 130 cities, using 12 factors including housing, education, recreational activities, health, climate and terrorism.

Cities were ranked one to five in the 12 categories, with one meaning there was no hardship and five meaning extreme hardship. Melbourne finished on top, along with Vancouver (Canada) and Vienna (Austria). Mumbai ranked seventh from the bottom in the “Hardship Survey”, in dubious company with Delhi, Dhaka (Bangladesh) and Karachi (Pakistan).
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Perth (Australia) was ranked fourth, Geneva (Switzerland) fifth and Australian cities Adelaide, Brisbane and Sydney joint sixth.

There seems to be some intra-Aus pride at stake in this. According to the Melbourne Herald Sun:

Often derided as Bleak City by Sydneysiders, Melbourne topped a survey of 130 cities, narrowly beating out the other four Australian capitals surveyed – because its weather rated the best.

Sydney lost ground because its crime rate was rated on a par with New York and London.

Also reflected in this survey is Zimbabwe‘s downward spiral:

HARARE has been branded among the worst cities for expatriates to reside in the world, authenticating Zimbabwe’s accelerated slide into disaster…

The hardship survey… states that Harare suffered the greatest actual drop in living standards because of “ongoing unrest”.

Out of the 130 ranked cities, Harare is at number 113 which is a plunge down eight places from its 106 position recorded during the last survey carried out in December 2002.
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In Africa, only South Africa’s capital city Pretoria scored well. It was ranked at number 80…

Here’s a piece from the Washington Post (hat tip: Matthew Kramer – registration required) reviewing the issue raised by the Dave Brown cartoon which shows Ariel Sharon devouring a baby. What it reports is that the cartoonist is unmoved and unrepentant:

Brown and the Independent have stood their ground, insisting that the drawing represented fair criticism of a head of government. They claimed vindication after the state-run Press Complaints Commission dismissed a formal complaint from Sharon and the embassy, and again, more recently, when the illustration won the annual award for best drawing from the Political Cartoon Society.
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British editorial cartoons can be savage and graphic: They often depict political leaders such as Blair and Bush committing lewd acts or roaming the world stage with blood dripping from their hands. In that context, Brown said he believes that his Sharon cartoon, which appeared the day before Israel’s elections last year, fell well within acceptable bounds.
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“I was very careful,” he said. “I was very aware not to use the Israeli flag because of the Star of David, or other Jewish symbols. I made it specifically Sharon and Likud.”

It’s always a sign that someone’s on weak ground when they steer entirely clear of the one thing they need to address. As Roger Simon has written lately in a different connection, ‘not to acknowledge a serious argument is… frankly, stupid’. The one thing that Brown and his supporters need to address is passed over here in silence: and this is that, because Sharon is a Jewish leader and the leader of the Jewish state, and because there is an old anti-Semitic theme of Jews devouring the blood of non-Jewish children, what might have been otherwise acceptable as a cartoon wasn’t in the given case. (See my post, A new anti-Semitism?, on the old normblog site, November 27.) For similar reasons, while it is acceptable to draw George Bush as a monkey, it would not be to draw Robert Mugabe so, dreadful though the latter has become. Can anyone doubt that a monkey-cartoon of Mugabe by a white cartoonist would be condemned as racist? So what’s the difference?

Heh. And heh. (Via, in turn, Tim Newman and Dot Comrade.)

With respect (none intended, fun intended, pun unintended) to the latter of these two hehs, or rather to what you find when you get through the link under it, I invite readers to reflect on the phrase ‘whose figurehead is’ and what immediately follows it. And I invite you further to think about a situation in which you were setting up a coalition and this was to be your coalition’s figurehead. Wouldn’t you just sob uncontrollably? And yet the comrades… etc.