Using Korean refugees as leverage on China? It’s a thought, anyway

The New Neo Posted on by

The current crisis in North Korea shines a harsh light on all the usual solutions and finds them wanting.

Sanctions? As the world-weary and resigned Allahpundit writes: Symbolic sanctions are a perfect non-solution to an unsolvable problem.

Yes, the UN Security Council acted with surprising alacrity; but no, the sanctions lack the economic pressure that China and South Korea could bring to bear, as well as enforcement measures–for example, it makes searching North Korean ships for banned material discretionary rather than obligatory.

As this editorial in the Australian cogently states: That this pusillanimous policy is seen as a sign that the UN is determined to get tough with North Korea demonstrates how little the world has come to expect from the Security Council.

“The Security Council.” One of those names that has become Orwellian, doing the opposite of what it purports. No real security to be found there-.

So what’s left? With main player China uncooperative in knocking off Kim Jong-il, and no one wanting to anger the North Koreans or to destablize the region through military action, are we back to the Fifties, as Dennis Byrne writes? Is the MADness of Mutually Assured Destruction our only hope?

And would Kim even be amenable to the arguments of MAD, considering that it’s based on leaders having some sort of regard for the continuing existence of the people of their own nations? One wonders just how mad Kim Jong-il is–because, despite its name, MAD is based on the premise that leaders are at least somewhat rational.

John O’Sullivan, writing in the Chicago Sun-Times, has a different idea. He finds all the current “solutions” wanting, but suggests a possible way to force the Chinese to “turn the Chinese key in the lock.”

Take a look. The short version of his premise is that Korean refugees to China are routinely returned to be worked to death in their land of origin, a Chinese policy that constitutes a violation of UN human rights treaties China itself has signed.

So what, you say, and rightly so. What good do those treaties do anyway? O’Sullivan thinks, however, that there’s a chance that something worthwhile can come of them:

There is a large and growing left-right coalition of Korean Americans, traditional human rights groups and evangelical churches. They were the political forces behind the North Korean Human Rights Act passed two years ago by Congress…They will now be raising the issue of North Korean refugees in Washington, on TV, in churches, in rallies and on the Internet.

North Korean refugees will eventually become a bipartisan political issue on the scale of the plight of Soviet Jews in the 1970s. Just as that issue produced the Jackson-Vanik amendment, forcing the Soviets to choose between allowing their emigration or losing access to the U.S. market, so the plight of North Korean refugees will eventually present China with a similar choice. And trade with America is vastly larger and more important to a fast-growing capitalist China than it was to a stagnant and impoverished Soviet Union.

O’Sullivan realizes, of course, that China could retaliate by “selling its U.S. bonds and provoking a fiscal crisis and a trade war simultaneously.” But he concludes that China’s interests lie in installing a regime in North Korea that isn’t so much of a loose cannon as the present one, and this pressure might just help it to realize that. America’s interests, of course, lie in that direction as well. It’s a scenario in which everybody would win except Kim Jong-il.

O’Sullivan concludes:

…if Beijing were to make a few telephone calls to its favorite generals in Pyongyang, suggesting they would benefit from his overthrow and the gradual liberalization of his regime, it could advance its own interests and seek some reward from Washington, Tokyo and the U.N. for being an international good neighbor.

A consummation devoutly to be wished.

So, how realistic is this option? And how dangerous? Not very, and somewhat. But then, consider those alternatives…

Dean calls me out

The New Neo Posted on by

Dean Esmay has publicly called me out. And when Dean calls me out, that means I need to step up to the plate. And take a swing.

And stop making stupid puns, and instead predict who’s going to win the Mets-Cards National League Championship Series, as Dean has requested.

Dean predicts the Mets. And last night they tied up the series, so perhaps he’s right. But I have a confession to make: I haven’t a clue, because I haven’t followed baseball for two years.

How can that be? After all, aren’t I a baseball fan? Yes indeed, I am, as you can see by this post of mine, which Dean may have recalled when he issued his challenge. I learned to love the game when my son insisted on playing it and I was forced to watch it and learn its rules and lore–the beauty of a team sport that highlights individual moments: waiting, tension, drama, and then the sudden explosion of action. The oxymoronic but satisfying fact that baseball is the most quantifiable and statistics-bound of all sports, and yet at the same time the most graceful.

The arc of the home run swing. The satisfying thwack of a wooden bat hitting the ball in just the right spot at just the right time–even though if you or I were standing in the batter’s box we’d hardly even see it, but merely hear it whiz by and then pop! into the catcher’s glove. The slide that kicks up the dust. The swipe of the tag. The astounding, bounding leap to catch the ball that would otherwise go into the stands.

I definitely did my time as a baseball aficionado. From the 70s onward I was that saddest of sacks, the Red Sox fan, spring and summer elation turning to fall dejection with the same regularity as the leaves’ transformation from green to orange to brown to fallen.

How can that be, when I’m a native New Yorker, and the Red Sox’s nemesis was always the Yankees? It’s true that I grew up in New York in the Yankees’ classic heyday, but they held no interest for me. I didn’t like them for precisely the same reason most people rooted for them, which was that they were perennial winners. To me, that was no fun. There was no drama, no pathos.

I wanted a rags-to-riches story, not a riches-to-greater-riches to ever-more-boring-riches one. And I got it in my twenties when I moved to Boston and found the Red Sox.

It was love at first sight, and I kept my vigil till that fabled fall of 2004, when the impossible happened and the Red Sox won the World Series, handily. All of Boston–and most of New England north of that epic Yankees/Sox dividing line of Hartford–breathed a sigh (or shouted a shout) of blessed relief.

Ever since then, I haven’t really followed the game. And I never really followed the National League at all (shh! don’t tell Dean!)

So the Mets and the Cards don’t mean a whole lot to me, I’m afraid. But I know who I’d be rooting for, if I were rooting. It would be the Mets, because they’re the underdogs. And I’m a sucker for underdogs.

Iraq: federalism and/or bust?

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The Iraqi Parliament has passed a law allowing for the establishment of federal regions in Iraq.

This isn’t the sort of thing that makes good sound bites or titillating headlines. Its real effect on the course of history in Iraq remains to be seen, but speculation is rife. Is it good for the US? Or for Iran? Or, for that matter, for the principal country involved, Iraq? Will it lead to fragmentation and Balkanization of the region, with three countries at odds: a Kurdish one, a Sunni one, and a possibly Iran-dominated Shiite one? Or will it lead to a unified country with autonomous but integrated and functioning parts?

After all, the US itself is a republic. Our central government has become so strong that we sometimes forget how relatively weak it was at the beginning, and how powerful the separate state identities. After all, it was only a century and a half ago (and less than a century at the time I was born) that we fought an exceptionally bloody and costly civil war to decide–among other things–just this very question of the autonomy of various regions with opposed points of view.

Wretchard writes:

One ought to distinguish between an Iraq in three warring pieces and an Iraq of three federal pieces. I am by no means persuaded that a federation is dead. And the main reason is oil. The Kurds need to ship their oil to markets and this will be difficult, if not impossible without coming to some sort of arrangement with the Sunnis and Shi’a. The Sunnis for their part need to get a share of revenue from the Shi’a and the Kurds. Without some federal government structure through which they can negotiate their differences, little can be achieved.

Wretchard goes on to state in his own comments section (for some reason I could not make the link work; his is the fourth comment in the thread) that Iraq was always known to be headed for some form of federalism because of the relative balance in the three sections of the country. I recall reading as much, myself, almost from the start: that the natural form the Iraqi state would take would have to be federalist.

This 2004 document, for example, written by Dawn Brancati and appearing in the Spring 2004 issue of the Washington Quarterly, is a lengthy and academic discussion (which I’ve only briefly and partially skimmed) that argues the benefits–and in fact, the necessity–of federalism for Iraq. This is a much shorter version of the same argument: that a too-strongly centralized government in Iraq would be likely to point the way to a new tyranny, and that federalism wouldn’t necessarily fracture the country but could unite in the only viable way: loosely.

Federalism is the way our own country dealt with the knotty problem of unifying disparate and sometimes clashing elements. Of course, Iraq is far from being the US after the American Revolution. For one thing, it has a far bloodier and more traumatic history. For another, it lacks the US’s natural protection from neighboring countries with a huge agenda. For still another, it is divided much more along religious lines.

Under Saddam, Iraq was a country with a Shiite majority ruled by tyrannical members of the Sunni minority. After the fall of Saddam and without federalism, it would likely be run by the majority Shiites if people voted along religious lines, possibly under the strong and tyrannical influence of Iran. With federalism, it may break into three factions, one of them run by the majority Shiites, possibly under the strong and tyrannical influence of Iran, but needing to cooperate with the others to get things done. Which is better, which is worse?

If you bother to read the comments in Wretchard’s thread on the subject, you’ll find arguments on both sides. This could be another disastrous step in the process of bloody civil war. Or it could be part of a long-drawn out journey towards a more stable and functional Iraq. I don’t know; Wretchard says he doesn’t know, and of course no one knows, although someone will be proven right some day with the hindsight of 20/20 vision.

Daniel Pearl’s killer: all the perfumes of Arabia

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Remember Daniel Pearl? His kidnapping and brutal murder in the winter of 2002 sent shock waves throughout this country, back in a time when we were still relatively shockable.

The still shots released of Pearl during his captivity reinforced the idea that somehow we knew him, even though we didn’t. He looked so intensely and immensely likeable–friendly, intelligent, humorous–and the reports of friends, colleagues, and family painted a picture that only accentuated that impression.

Pearl met his death by beheading. The manner of his death seemed especially cruel, medieval, and barbaric–and it was, and it was meant to be. That shocked us further. It meant that even though many of us thought at the time that we knew this enemy, it turned out that we really didn’t know this enemy. Not yet.

Well, we know more now. Beheadings became relatively commonplace, and videos were often part of the brutal PR game, the marriage of ancient bloodthirstiness with modern media savvy. Who would have thought that beheadings would be used as a recruitment tool? But it’s no longer any sort of surprise.

The manner of death matters. Pearl suffered greatly, and it massively increased the suffering of his family to know how he died, and to know that millions around the globe were watching it with glee and rejoicing.

But in another sense it hardly mattered: Pearl would have been just as dead, just as lost to his family, if he’d been given a relatively humane lethal injection.

And now it turns out that there’s another way in which the manner of Pearl’s death may end up mattering: the video made by the killers, in which only the hands of the murderer were seen, appears to have led to the identification of the man who actually wielded the blade.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, captured in Pakistan in March of 2003, was apparently not content to merely mastermind death in this case; it seems he wanted a direct hands-on experience. Here are some of KSM’s exploits. It’s been known for quite a while that KSM was involved in the Pearl kidnapping, but an analysis of his hands while in captivity and a comparison to those in the beheading video has implicated him as the actual murderer.

KSM, who is a Pakistani-Kuwaiti national, was originally held and interrogated in a prison or prisons of unknown and disputed location, with CIA involvement. His interrogation may or may not have involved physically coercive techniques such as waterboarding. But we can be pretty sure it involved some sort of stress, if only psychological. KSM supposedly confessed to Pearl’s murder, “admitting without remorse that he personally severed Pearl’s head and telling interrogators he had to switch knives after the first one ‘got dull.'”

“Without remorse;” no Lady Macbeth, he. Although KSM’s hands are far more blood-stained, he’s not looking for the perfumes of Arabia to sweeten them.

And now he makes his home in Guantanamo. That much is certain. In fact, last night–before I’d read the piece about KSM’s implication in Pearl’s beheading–I heard on the news that the International Red Cross had visited him recently there.

KSM now gets three square meals a day and a chance to communicate with his relatives. And soon, perhaps, he’ll even get a chance to face charges in a military tribunal, now that Congress has allowed such trials to be held.

I’m looking forward to KSM facing justice, and I agree that a military tribunal is the way to go. KSM is not an ordinary criminal, but a war criminal, and must be treated as such. It was true at Nuremberg, and it’s true now.

Such remedies are flawed, but they’re the best we have here on earth. What would real justice for KSM be? We must leave that to the great beyond. KSM, no doubt, believes it will be heaven and the seventy-two virgins. Others believe otherwise. I frankly state I do not know. But earthly justice can’t come soon enough.

[I’ve written before, at length, here , about the complex question of torture–or even milder forms of coercion–for terrorists.]

Clearing out the closets

The New Neo Posted on by

Just now I’ve been trying on clothes in preparation for a very exciting trip I’m planning to take in about nine days (more about that when the time comes; I like to retain my aura as a woman of mystery).

Ever since I’ve been blogging, and probably for a long time before, I’ve yearned to become more organized and streamlined in my life. That means, for example, that those file cabinets brimming with old papers-and the haphazard piles of same that surround them–need to be reduced by a factor of approximately 75% (although, of course, if I did that, I would be sure to keep my old report cards so I could properly illustrate posts such as this).

Likewise the clothes–oh, those clothes! Although I’m not a totally fashion-obsessed woman, I do try to look at least passably au courant (although not while blogging; pajamas would probably be an improvement over what I habitually wear while blogging).

When traveling, I’m always trying to simplify and take as little as possible. Yeah, right, say those who’ve seen my suitcases, stuffed to the gills with things I might need for this or that contingency or the sudden snow squall in July. But I’m trying, I’m trying.

Trying on, that is. And all those clothes that looked so decent last year or the year before (or, in some cases, ten years ago) don’t quite cut it now. And speaking of “cut it,” out went the last remnants of the shoulder-padded linebacker look–what were we thinking of?

Yes indeed, I’m just a brainwashed slave of fashion. Plus, my closet seems to hold clothes in three closely related but differing sizes. It’s the range I’ve covered throughout most of my life, except for those very skinny ballet years. My clothes from last year are all too large–ordinarily not a bad phenomenon–but this poses a dilemma. Should I assume that this relative slenderness is my new and stable state, and have them altered to fit? Or will that sort of hubris cause an immediate weight gain, in much the same way that leaving an umbrella at home invariably precipitates a rainy day?

Clearing out the excess not only frees up space, it frees the spirit as well. And yet it’s so easy to put off the chore of going through it all and reducing the clutter, the piled-up detritus of the years. Instead, other things always seem more pressing. Doing what absolutely needs to be done: work, food, brushing one’s teeth. Reading, reading, reading. Having an actual social life, among real people. Going outside on a beautiful day. Writing today’s post.

Between the Scylla of dictatorship and the Charybdis of anarchy, Part II: North Korea

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North Korea is a country formed by a war that never ended.

Pacifists are fond of saying that war never solves anything. I beg to differ–war, for example, solved the problem of Adolf Hitler and German expansionist aggressiveness, although at great cost.

But that war was fought to the bitter end, unlike many subsequent ones. Revulsion at war–which I share, by the way, although my critics won’t credit that–has led to a series of unfinished, prematurely truncated wars. And like most unfinished business, there’s a tendency for these conflicts to come back to bite us.

The Korean War was the first modern “limited war,” a concept with which we’ve grown familiar. (The division of Korea was a result of the conclusion of World War II, by the way–so you might say that, if that Second World War solved the problem of Hitler, it led indirectly to the creation of the problem of Kim Jong il.)

Why was the Korean War not fought to a conclusion, but rather a stalemate? Each side wanted to unify the peninsula under its leadership, and each side failed. Each side was supported by a much larger power in its endeavors, but the larger powers were both exhausted, partly from fighting the Second World War. The US was reluctant to use the atomic bomb again, which would certainly have broken the stalemate–although MacArthur was purportedly in favor of it.

Little was accomplished by the Korean War in terms of change in the borders between the two countries, unless you consider the killing of hundreds of thousands of people an accomplishment (I don’t). The best you can say is that it kept the South from being swallowed up by the North–which, given what the North has become, is certainly a good thing.

But now the long-postponed conflict is coming to a head once again. And now North Korea is a dictatorship of such tyranny and oppression that it’s hard to find anyone who wouldn’t consider the end of such a regime to be an unequivocally good thing.

But as I wrote in yesterday’s piece, it’s not always so simple. This article by Robert Kaplan, appearing in the Atlantic, poses the question: what will happen when [and if] North Korea fails?

Answer: a potentially chaotic humanitarian and political disaster, as the tyrannical structure that holds together the failed state and its suffering people fails apart:

“It could be the mother of all humanitarian relief operations,” Army Special Forces Colonel David Maxwell told me. On one day, a semi-starving population of 23 million people would be Kim Jong Il’s responsibility; on the next, it would be the U.S. military’s, which would have to work out an arrangement with the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (among others) about how to manage the crisis…

In order to prevent a debacle of the sort that occurred in Iraq””but with potentially deadlier consequences, because of the free-floating WMD””a successful relief operation would require making contacts with KFR generals and various factions of the former North Korean military, who would be vying for control in different regions. If the generals were not absorbed into the operational command structure of the occupying force, Maxwell says, they might form the basis of an insurgency. The Chinese, who have connections inside the North Korean military, would be best positioned to make these contacts””but the role of U.S. Army Special Forces in this effort might be substantial. Green Berets and the CIA would be among the first in, much like in Afghanistan in 2001.

Does this mean it’s best to keep Kim Jong il in power? Of course not. But be careful what you wish for, and be prepared–much better prepared–to deal with the consequences than you were in Iraq.

After the horrors of World War II, we faced the problem of reconstruction in Germany and in Japan, as well as most of Europe, which was in near ruins.

But, just as World War II was a total war, the reconstruction was an all-out effort as well. At the time, the US held no fear of words like “occupation” in Japan. If we were imperialist, so be it; we were out to change the country we had conquered. And change it we did, and most agree it was for the better.

Reconstructing North Korea would probably be a much more daunting task than reconstructing Japan. And all-out war, plus all-out reconstruction, doesn’t seem to be an option. But without the latter, the prospects seem grim.

Scylla and Chraybdis, indeed.

[Part I here.]

Between the Scylla of dictatorship and the Charybdis of anarchy: Russia

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I’m with Winston Churchill when he said that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others. Truly democratic states, with guarantees of human rights and freedom of speech, press, and religion, are precious and yet rare commodities.

Russia is an excellent case in point. When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989-1991, the winds of freedom ushered in–what? A surprisingly chaotic and poverty-striken country, although of course in retrospect it shouldn’t have been such a surprise. However, the sorry state of the Russia that emerged from the collapse of the once-mighty USSR surprised even most experts and analysts in the field, just as the collapse itself surprised most prognosticaters.

So much for predictions. As I’ve written before, the failure of pundits to foresee events that occurred during and after the end of the Soviet Union made me realize that political soothsaying was not much more reliable than ordinary soothsaying. One of the reasons is that there are just too many unknowns that interact in mysterious ways; that’s true in all complex human endeavors. But certain general principles are clear, and one of them is that it’s not an easy task to create a functioning democratic state out of one that’s fallen on hard times and is used to despotism of one type or another.

That’s one of the messages of Dostoevsky’s “Grand Inquisitor,” in which the Inquisitor says:

In the end [the people] will lay their freedom at our feet, and say to us, “Make us your slaves, but feed us.” They will understand themselves, at last, that freedom and bread enough for all are inconceivable together, for never, never will they be able to share between them! They will be convinced, too, that they can never be free, for they are weak, vicious, worthless, and rebellious.

It’s no accident the Dostoevsky was Russian, even though he predated the Communist takeover. The problem is both a long-term Russian one and a near-universal one. It’s the tendency of the majority of states to drift to one form of tyranny or another, in order to counter the forces of civil war, anarchy, and chaos.

What prompted this soliliquy of mine? The murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who was a critic of Putin’s government. It’s not likely that Putin or his henchmen actually killed her, but they didn’t have to:

…even if Vladimir Putin’s associates had nothing to do with Politkovskaya being gunned down in an elevator of her apartment building in the center of Moscow, his contempt for law created the climate in which the murder was carried out. Like the murder of Archbishop Thomas Becket in his Canterbury Cathedral many centuries ago, the crime was committed in the clear belief that it would please the king.

Read the whole Ha’aretz article to get an idea of how Putin’s Russia has become, in the words of the author, a “Potemkin village,” where “the same arbitrary brutes rule” as before.

I think that’s hyperbole; no one’s alleging that the situation has gone back to anywhere near what it was under Stalin, for example. But present-day Russia is a dreadful disappointment to reformers who thought something very different was going to happen back in the heady days of the 90s.

It turns out that the author of the article has a special interest in these things. Her name immediately caught my eye: Nina Khrushcheva.

Nina Khushcheva–could it be? As a reader of countless Russian novels, I recall how those Russian names work–it’s the feminine form of Khrushchev. And of course, as a person of a certain age, I remember that Nina was the name of Khrushchev’s wife:

The present day Nina, who turns out to be their great-granddaughter, teaches at the New School in NY and is a Soviet expert. In this reminiscence, she weaves her memories of her great-grandfather Nikita with her analysis of the ebb and flow of Russian politics.

Khrushchev’s famous 1956 speech denouncing Stalin’s murders was an epochal event in the history of Communism because–as Nina well describes–it let in the first breaths of freedom and reform, even though those breaths were small and self-serving (in an amazing quote, she says that Nikita “confessed he had needed to tell the story in part because his own arms were ‘covered with blood up to the elbows'”).

Khrushchev didn’t want the USSR or Communism to fall, and neither did Gorbachev when he instituted his much broader reforms. But events always have unforeseen consequences, and reform is one of those events–it can end up causing the whole ship to founder. And then, when the dictatorship is overthrown, the country whose economy has been tanking, whose population has lost initiative, whose social ties have been shattered by decades of informing on one another, whose trust in government has devolved to the most abject cynicism possible–how does that country go about rebuilding into a functioning democracy that protects human rights, as well one that boasts a robust economy?

It’s a daunting task, and the Grand Inquisitor’s solution always beckons. Putin definitely hears its siren call. But the alternative–the realpolitik policy of leaving dictators in place–is a lousy one, as well. Therein lies the conundrum.

[Part II here.]

North Korea joins the nuclear club

The New Neo Posted on by

North Korea is somewhat of an informational black hole. But apparently even black holes may give off a few emissions now and then. Yesterday was one of those times for North Korea, which claims to have successfully accomplished an underground test of a nuclear weapon.

The interpretation of the event is a challenge (was it actually nuclear? how large was it?), not to mention the even greater and crucially important question of how to deal with it, and what it signifies for the future.

The UN leaped to the offense in its usual way–although with a rare unanimity of opinion–and voted to condemn the act. President Bush said, in a sentence that seems loaded with irony to me, “Once again, North Korea has defied the will of the international community and the international community will respond.”

If verbal disapproval were enough to affect North Korean policy, we’d be sitting pretty right now, because everyone who matters–including main North Korean ally and supporter China–has issued some sort of reprimand to the rogue state. But even diplomats are not naive enough to think that mere words will accomplish much; the question is what sort of teeth will go along with the tongue-clucking.

Speaking of diplomats–in a strange coincidence, this test occurs just as a South Korean is posed to become (on January first) the new Secretary-General of the UN. And in another coincidence (although a meaningless one) the new Secretary-General’s name is “Ban.” Would that he could. But he can’t; the cat is long out of that particular bag.

No one quite knows what to do to be effective, which is probably one of the reasons North Korea has done what it’s done (there’s a good roundup of a variety of opinions and articles on North Korea and the bomb test here at Pajamas Media).

Economic sanctions are possible, but they impact heavily on an already-suffering population held hostage by dictator Kim Jong-il. The EU has no plans to stop its aid (which only amounts to about twelve million dollars anyway), but South Korea is pondering an end to its engagement policy with the North, according to President Roh. Japan is considering unspecified “harsh measures,” although a statement was issued that the country is not planning to go nuclear. The US is considering some version of a naval blockade, although not to the point that it would constitute an act of war.

And China, key player as the main support of North Korea and vital to its continued existence as a minimally functioning economy, is somewhat of an enigma itself. Here’s an attempt by Joe Katzman at Winds of Change to solve the riddle of the Chinese sphinx. It’s well worth reading, although very sobering. The main thrust is the thought that, even though there are some drawbacks for China to a nuclear North Korea, there are many possible advantages that would lessen China’s motivation to really stop them:

…friction with the USA, paralysis that keeps their North Korean client safe from retaliation, and positioning Korea psychologically to be responsible for the North later (but not, for instance, for starving North Korean refugees now)… all are exactly what China’s doctor ordered from a geo-political perspective.

If Katzman’s analysis is correct (and it seems as good a one as any other I’ve read so far), perhaps the best thing to come out of the North’s nuclear test would be if South Korea drops its seeming naivete regarding its other half.

How did it come to this? Clinton played for time and helped create the monster through his own naive policies; the Bush administration was left holding the bag but never could figure out what to do with it. And the international community’s response to the lack of proof of weapons of mass destruction post-Iraqi war has shifted the burden of proof in a way that’s singularly unhelpful.

Of course, North Korea–unlike Saddam prior to the war (although it may be that his pose was just bravado), or Iran’s behavior now–isn’t trying to hide anything. On the contrary, the North is flaunting its newfound toys. But one thing is certain: the whole world is watching to see what will happen next, because how the world deals with this threat will set a tone for future threats. And future threats are bound to come in the age we appear to have entered now, that of relatively easy nuclear proliferation.

The Sanity Squad goes to Washington

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Another week, another podcast. This time the Sanity Squad takes on Congress, in particular the Foley scandal, and the Squad doth not its punches pull.

(And if I sound a bit disconnected on this podcast, let me just drop the following hint as to what may have happened: Frank, the technical wizard at Pajamas, was far more successful than all the king’s horses and all the king’s men at putting the Skype-betrayed Humpty’s words together again.)

Subways: a token

The New Neo Posted on by

I’m in New York City for the weekend, the town where I was born and raised but don’t visit all that much any more.

It seems to me there are more people here than ever. Whether that’s true or just my perception, they certainly sport more iPods than ever. Subway riders are more subdued than they used to be, dreamily lost in contemplation of their musical selections, bereft of the otherwise ubiquitous cell phones that don’t seem to function deep in the bowels of the stations.

This latter fact poses a dilemma, of course, when one is rushing to a meeting, as I was yesterday. Now, those who know me are aware that I tend at times to run just a tad late, but yesterday my tardiness was enhanced by the fact that I had to buy a subway card (the subway tokens of my youth long gone, along with the fifteen-cent fare).

The man in the booth–and they still do have a man in the booth, and I thought dealing with him would be faster than trying to relearn how to operate the automatic card machines–was relatively laconic about how the whole thing worked, however. Unlike most New Yorkers, he seemed to savor the slowness. By the time I managed to purchase the card (“I’d like one ride;” “I can’t sell you one ride;” “What’s the smallest number of rides I have to buy?” “Two;” “How much will that cost?” “Four dollars”) and put it in the turnstile slot and then step up to the train–my train, serendipitously arrived at the station while he and I were having it out–the subway doors slammed shut.

The wait for the next one was uncharacteristically long. And I was surprised at how antsy the lack of phone coverage made me. Apparently the cell phone has become such a regular part of my life that I take it for granted, although I’m not one of those people who walks around the city streets habitually jabbering on one. But they are incredibly useful items for just this very purpose: to say I’ll be a few minutes late; to say “Where are you?” when I’m meeting people in a public place and can’t find them.

The train did eventually come, as trains eventually do. Despite what I’d imagine would (and should and could) be major advances in technology, the guy who announces each station (at least, that’s what I think he does) is just as unintelligible as he was back in the days when Saturday Night Live made fun of him. The young lovers still smooch. The remnants of my high school Spanish are still such that I can understand all the ads in that language (“Learn English to become more independent”). New York is still the quintessential melting pot. People-watching is still a great sport here.

A few snapshots: an elegant and worried-looking person with profound cheekbones, so tall and thin and hawk-nosed, and with such a severely short haircut that it took me a while to ascertain she was in fact a woman, holds a dog carrier of a size that could only contain something tiny and yippy and frivolous, like a Yorkie. An Afro-American woman looks for all the world like Cleopatra, ancient and mysterious. The young man standing in front of me and holding onto the bar exudes a Brando-esque smolder (the young Brando of “Streetcar,” that is, not his nearly unrecognizable older manifestation).

Emerging at Times Square and walking to my destination–a hotel there, to meet some friends–it strikes me that this is not the Times Square of my youth. And I spent a great deal of that youth in this general area, because that’s where so many ballet studios were clustered, including the one where I spent several formative years, at the old Metropolitan Opera House.

At ten and eleven and twelve and thirteen and fourteen I rode the subway there and walked through a small part of what was then a sleazy and not-all-that-inhabited Times Square, keeping my head down, not wanting to make eye contact with the drunks and the perverts who seemed to be its main inhabitants. But yesterday (and every day these days, or so I hear) it brimmed with vast crowds of the mostly young to middle-aged, mostly upbeat and on the move. The signs are brighter and more numerous (although I miss–oh, how I miss–that old Camel smoking sign). And I, no longer a dancer or even young, moved among them, somewhat of a tourist in the city I once knew so well.

Steve Beren, changer extraordinaire: Part II

The New Neo Posted on by

[Part I of my interview with McDermott challenger Steve Beren can be found here. We take up the second half of the interview shortly after 9/11, when Beren had become convinced that the unity the country faced was temporary and was bound to be disrupted by an antiwar movement.]

[B]: Events early in 2002 justified my thought there would be a large antiwar movement. I’d said it on Oct 31, 2001””and it was brewing on campuses already. Far left groups were already doing their spadework.

[N]: Your background as an activist seems to have given you insight as to how this was going to go down on the left. I was curious–what do you think it was about your experience that gave you this ability?

[B]: I was not only an antiwar activist. I was a trained Socialist in the antiwar movement. We had to study not only Marxist thought, but the tactics and strategies of past antiwar movements. I took that to heart. It had previously not occurred to me that all wars had antiwar movements””there was a small one during World War II but a big one before it actually began, and I took a special interest in those who remained antiwar throughout World War II such as the Nation of Islam, Quakers, etc.

[N]: So you were a historian of antiwar movements–

[B]: And antiwar strategy and tactics. And I was a participant in the Vietnam antiwar movement. I’ve written and spoken about Kerry’s involvement. There’s a plan: always bring religious people in, plus some disgruntled soldiers, and racial minorities saying there is injustice (for instance, the Nation of Islam in World War II didn’t want to fight against what they referred to as another colored race, meaning Japan). That combination appealed to a broad spectrum.

In the beginning of the Afghanistan war, there were rumblings in the media: there were rocky mountains, the British had failed there, the weather would be bad, this could be trouble. And back when John Kennedy had sent troops at the beginning of Vietnam the antiwar movement did it this way (in Vietnam, the Socialists supported the Communist takeover””but you don’t put that on a flyer, do you?) During the Cuban missile crisis what you’d say is that Kennedy is all concerned about Cuba, but he’s ignoring what’s happening in Vietnam. Or in Berlin. Then when he’s in Vietnam, you talk about how he’s ignoring Cuba. Ted Kennedy now talks about North Korea.

[N]: So these are strategies for all situations.

[B]: Yes, it’s a rhetorical device. You go from one thing to another, to add negativity to the media and the academic world. Regular people don’t like war””who does?–we all hope a rumor of war is not true. And if we start hearing things to discourage us it feeds on that: “we can’t win anyway, and we should be doing something else that’s more important.”

[N]: So, what’s your strategy for your Congressional campaign?

[B]: I’m running in a very liberal area in general. There’s an 80% Democratic district, and a 75% Democratic district. McDermott has gotten between 71 and 86 percent of the vote when he’s run [7th District].

But we’re gonna get way more votes than usual. In recent years the Republican party hasn’t even run an active campaign here; we’d announce we’re not contesting it””the last time they did was 1980; we got 40 percent of the votes against McDermott’s predecessor.

We decided to do it differently this time. We met with various Washington Republicans–eastern Washington is Republican, and you need better than usual Republican turnout in Seattle to win the state. I applied the Bush re-election strategy to the local election””which is to increase Republican turnout. I said, “What if we run an aggressive campaign, not a token? Start early and hit McDermott hard, play to win. Probably McDermott won’t lose but–but what if we got 30, 35 percent of the vote? It will help the statewide Republican candidates and generate enthusiasm for the other Republican candidates.”

I’ve appealed to Republican activists and they are very excited about my campaign, the goal of which is to help Republican candidates statewide, and to grow the Republican Party in Seattle of all places. I want to take my expertise on war and foreign politcy, take on McDermott on his territory in Seattle, and have more people here change their minds on the war on terrorism, decrease the number of people in denial in Seattle, and realize it’s not a “so-called” war. I’ve gotten exceptional coverage in the major dailies here.

[N]: You’re bringing a lot of energy, motivation, and optimism to your campaign.

I want to go back to something–in my change process, reading was enormously influential””especially on the internet; reading a variety of sources. One thing I thought interesting in your story was the incredibly important role reading 1984 had when you were young””was reading a part of your later change experience?

[B]: To this day I deliberately look at Democrat and Socialist websites. I find it fascinating to see how people are thinking””you have to know what the other side says if you want to change minds.

I learned to read at age two. My father would deliberately bring me books on subjects I wasn’t interested in. If I was reading all about dinosaurs, he said I should stop reading about dinosaurs and he’d bring me books about airplanes, or baseball, and said, “You must expand your horizons.” He was not an educated man, but at a very young age””I might have been ten””we were talking about Mein Kampf. He thought it was important to read it because you should expose yourself to views you find distasteful and don’t agree with–there’s something important about that.

That was my father’s way–he taught me to read and encouraged me to deliberately look at opposing views.

[N]: An important part of keeping your mind open so change could occur.

[B]: And it was annoying to fellow Socialists. I wasn’t just reading the other side in order to plan strategy but wondering “is that true?” And “what did newspapers say about it at that time?”

[N]: I have an idea that people who are able to change have always been critical thinkers in some way. That’s probably true of you. Even when you were toeing the party line you were more of a critical thinker than many who were in there with you.

[B]: Nevertheless I remained a Socialist for 20 or so years, with a long slow evolution away from it.

That was the conclusion of the Beren interview. I found the last exchange especially telling and even moving–the description of Beren’s father, encouraging (practically ordering) the boy to look at all sides, even those with which he disagreed. It was a foundation that allowed Beren to be a maverick who embraced Socialism and made it his life’s work, but that same attitude kept his questioning mind open to other points of view.

Now Beren is throwing himself into his present campaign with the same vigor that marked his earlier dedication to the cause of Socialism. If the old saying (often attributed–perhaps erroneously–to Churchill) that anyone who’s not a liberal at twenty has no heart and who’s not a conservative at forty has no brain, then we can safely say that Steve Beren is a man with both heart and brain.

Steve Beren, changer extraordinaire: from Socialist to Republican

The New Neo Posted on by

When I read that ultraliberal Jim McDermott‘s eminently safe seat in the mostly-Seattle 7th District of Washington was being challenged by a Republican who was actually attempting to mount some sort of viable campaign, I was intrigued. And I was further intrigued when I learned that the challenger, Steve Beren, is no ordinary Republican.

McDermott, one of the most antiwar and far Left members of Congress, has got himself quite an opponent, one who is aware of the steeply uphill battle he faces and but is nonetheless uniquely equipped to fight it with vigor. And that is because Beren himself is no stranger to the far Left. In fact, he was a card-carrying member of it–and I mean that quite literally.

I wondered how this former Marxist, former atheist, and former antiwar activist ended up a hawkish Republican as well as a self-described patriot and Christian. I decided to interview Mr. Beren, who graciously consented to allow himself to be recorded. Here is an approximate transcript of the first portion of that interview (the second will follow tomorrow).

My emphasis was less on the Congressional campaign itself–although you can (and should! Beren for Congress!!!) follow the Beren link and read all about it–than on Beren’s remarkable process of change, both political and personal.

NEO (N): What influenced the formation of your early political opinions?

BEREN (B): I was a high school junior and senior in 1967-1968, and the Vietnam War was the main political issue of the day, bar none. At that time I was–not unlike most members of my generation–near draft age, and vulnerable to pacifist arguments that war was unjustified. Around that time I also read Orwell’s 1984””which of course is a critique of dictatorships, but also of any government, the false intentions of government, and the misuse of language by government.

Lyndon Johnson’s government was under a barrage of criticism for the war, and that book made me susceptible to arguments that our government had bad intent. I took part in demonstrations in high school, and I witnessed clashes with police. The demonstrators may have purposely clashed with them, but that wasn’t apparent to me as a participant””-and so the accusations that fascism was around us seemed true. Then I got on a lot of committees, including the Peace and Freedom Party, and eventually I joined the Young Socialist Alliance in 1968, my freshman year at City College of New York. I was ready for far Left activity and I stayed committed to that for a goodly amount of time.

[N]: Do you think you were rebelling against your family? Or were you raised in this sort of political atmosphere?

[B]: My own family were Democrats; a little bit antiwar, but not activists of any sort. Initially, at 12 or 14 I’d supported the war, back when Johnson was first sending more troops. I remember having a discussion with my mother in the 1964 campaign–she supported Johnson because she thought Goldwater was going to send troops. But I told her Johnson was likely to do the same thing.

[N}: So it turned out you were a good prognosticator, even at that age. When did your change happen, and why?

[B]: Well, I was a Young Socialist, as I said””-obviously, I didn’t remain a young Socialist””but I joined the Socialist Party in 1970. And I was a supporter till early 1991. In December of 1990 I resigned, stating I hadn’t changed my mind–I was still a committed Socialist, I’ve been doing this 22 years. But now I’ll do it from the sidelines and be an active supporter, but not a member anymore.

[N]: So your fling with Socialism wasn’t just a youthful flirtation–you were in for the long haul.

[B]: You know, when you go to college campuses these days, you’d think the Greens were the future of the electorate. Well, when I joined the Socialists, you’d think the same thing. It was the heyday of Cleaver and the Black Panthers and you’d wonder–is that the future of the country? The answer is yes, unless they change their minds and vote for Reagan twice. Most people change their minds.

A lot of people went from Socialism to left liberalism, and those people went into Hollywood, or teaching, or social work, for example. But some continued their activities. In my case, I had no other career. I didn’t do what normal people do—have a career, a family, establish oneself. Most people may have political views, but they’re a human being first. But I was a Socialist organizer first””

[N]: So you were a true believer–

[B]: Yes, an activist and a believer.

1990 was the year that Socialism was failing all over world. I didn’t think that way, but in retrospect it affected me, as great events do. So I finally did what most people do when they graduate college—got a middle class job, saved money, and I found out I was good at it. I was making the transition most people make after college.

1n 1992 I still thought about voting Socialist””but I voted for Clinton. I became a Democrat almost out of reflex. Around 1993 I did another thing (at 40) that most people do when younger—I examined spirituality, thought about religion, read about religion. 1993-1995 was a very heavy transition period for me, and in 1995 I became evangelical, and I started attending church.

My career advanced and my Christianity advanced. Over the next few years I considered myself no longer a Socialist, I was a patriot, pro-military. I considered this compatible with liberalism, and I described myself as a liberal Democrat. I was also a managerial worker. My ex-Socialist friends broke off relationships with me””-you didn’t get that sort of job unless you were undercover.

[N]: To your friends you’d already gone over to the dark side. But it seems your change process happened fairly slowly.

[B]: Yes. Some say it was like Paul on the road to Damascus, but it took much longer.

[N]: It was a long and winding road to Damascus.

[B]: When I speak from knowledge on my tour, as an insider, people say, “Oh great, 180-degree turn overnight.” But it wasn’t; it was a slow and gradual turn. I didn’t become a Republican till the Bush reelection campaign in ’04.

[N]: That turn—liberal Democrat to Republican Bush-supporter—was almost as big a turn as the other, Socialist to liberal Democrat. How did the recent one come about?

[B]: We all were traumatized by 9/11. I’m a native New Yorker who’s lived in Seattle since 1987. I knew people who died at the WTC. It was impossible to believe, shocking. The difference between 9/11 and 12/7/41 [Pearl Harbor] is that with 9/11 some people went into denial, and therein lies our disunity.

After 9/11, I was thinking “I’m a patriot.” To me it was a December 7th moment. But I knew there was an antiwar movement waiting in the wings, who would seek to disrupt the unity. When I mentioned that fact back then, everyone was shocked. It was thought to be a quirky point of view. I called up Barry Farber, a New York talk show host from the past whose show I’d appeared on before. He’d been the voice of New York talk radio for conservatives in the 60s, 70s, and 80s.

I called him—he was elderly now—and asked, “Do you remember me?” I’d been on his show a lot in the past as a Socialist, a union guy. I said I want to speak as a former antiwar person on why I support this war, and against disunity. That started to lead to my transition. At that time everyone was still agreeing. But soon the antiwar movement grew and disunity began.

I contacted every blogger and talk show I knew of, and Young Democrat and Young Republican chapters, saying, “Here’s my bio, here’s my website, I want to come to your campus and speak.” And already, at that early time, I got lots of hate mail from the Young Democrats: don’t send me that, you’re a traitor.

[In Part II, Beren describes his post-9/11 activities and further change experience, and how his knowledge of thinking and strategies on the Left—gleaned from two decades of his own intense Leftist activism and study—gives him a special knowledge of the tactics, goals, and arguments on the Left.]