Psst, Obama: your party won the election!

The Republicans lost, but it's as if nobody told Obama.

Republicans lost for a clear and simple reason: their ideology of deregulation and lack of oversight over critical financial institutions spoiled the US and global economy. The Republican Party is as bankrupt as Lehman Bros, Bear Sterns, or GM -- in spirit if not in name.

Therefore, I am perplexed by Obama's behavior. Having won an overwhelming victory in November against bankrupt opponents, Obama has been busy expending his political capital placating Republicans. He has put together a so-called stimulus package that is loaded with tax cuts favored by Republicans, but that seems unlikely to give much of a jolt to the failing economy. And what did the Republicans do today?

They voted against Obama's $900 billion stimulus package -- a bill constructed with a view to placating the demands of the Republicans! The bill passed today with not a single Republican vote.

Someone ought to remind Obama that -- since he launched his American unity-themed campaign -- the times have changed. There is no opposition party in Washington D.C. that any well-informed person would bother listening to. Do you care what Republican politicians are saying? I doubt you do.  In the laboratory of real life, the Republican party's ideology has been tested and found wanting.  Economic reality has consigned the greater part of the Republican legacy to the trash-heap of history.  

Yet, Obama talks as if he is afraid of doing anything without GOP approval. He fears being too "divisive."

We know that Obama wants to be a unifier. But there are two ways to unify. You can go this way, and that way, listen to everyone, finally enticing people to join you in your big tent. Call this strategy "expanding your tent." Or, in the second instance, you can be a magnet. You can stand firm for what you think is most likely to work, and by the power of your convictions, the gravity of your ideas, attract people to your own position. Bring others to where you now stand. You can be a weighty object in the universe of scattered minds.

I get the sense Obama is far more comfortable with the first approach. The first way is not altogether loopy. Clinton used it effectively to govern in the relatively stable 90s. But it is unlikely to produce results today. A strategy of "expansive inclusiveness" and "accommodation" is not likely to prove an effective strategy for governing during this time of nation crisis.

So what should Obama do?

Obama would be well advised to declare what we all know to be the case: that today's Republican Party is bankrupt. He should make it clear that will guide the economic recovery on the basis of the recommendations of those wise economists and financial planners who had themselves foreseen the impending financial crisis. Obama should put all the effort he has expended placating insatiable Republican demands into selling his own plan. The last thing we need is for Obama to consult with Republicans about what to do next.

The new president should declare that members of the Republican Party who hope to get re-elected have a clear choice: get with us or get out of the way. Republicans (who want to survive) should be reaching out to Obama, not the other way around.

Finally, it needs to be said that the stimulus package debacle attests to a deeper problem concerning the young Obama Administration: the president and his men are thinking too small. Probably, Obama's approach to date was to be expected. From what I understand of Obama's political career, the president is a world-class tweaker; he favors improvement by increment. It is not a coincidence that one of Obama's philosophical mentors, Cass Sunstein, recently co-authored a book called Nudge. There is a lot of wisdom in this approach, and Obama rightly considers this quality -- his passion for consensus politics -- to be one of his strengths.

However, so long as banks are not loaning money, and massive layoffs continue, tweaks and nudges won't be sufficient. These times call for nothing short of a revolutionary agenda.

First Fox News Award of 2009 goes to AP

Jotman has awarded his first Fox News Award* of 2009 to Associated Press for a headline relating to Obama's plan to close Guantanamo Bay that misleadingly refers to "terrorists' rights."**

___
*The Fox News Award is a feature at Jotman.com that began early 2008. It goes to a media organization that has gone the extra mile during the course of the week to make the public more stupid. (Otherwise corrupting the ethic of creativity and global citizenship.)

**Hat-tip Greenwald.

A 20th anniversary and a warning to Obama

Russian reader Sanjuro writes:

. . . it is now exactly 20 years since Soviet troops started withdrawing from Afhganistan (shortly after operation Typhoon). Sort of symbolic that this year the US will start pumping up its presence to "put an end" to fighting there. And it's kinda symbolic that essentially the US will have to "put an end" to something they largely created through proxies.

I was never comfortable with the instance made by Obama during the campaign that what the situation in Afghanistan calls for is more US troops.

Western leaders arguing for an increased Western military presence in Afghanistan owe it to their own people and the Afghans to clearly state their objectives. Any and all Western goals for Afghanistan should be reasonably attainable.

Photo: Shows the Soviet army withdrawing from Afghanistan in 1989. By contrast, in 2009 the West know exactly what its doing over there. . . .

Evidence of Thai Navy human rights abuses against refugees

Urban Svensson, a Swedish witness to what appears to have been a pattern of savage human rights against abuses perpetrated by the Thai Navy against refugees from Burma writes in an email:

... we where also at Similand Island 23 dec 2008 when Thai navy force these refugees into the beach. It was horrible to see the treatment disparity between tourists and these Burma men. We think it was the last time we visit Thailand, if the human rights in lovely Thailand not gonna change. It has been one full page in a newspaper(Aftonbladet) here in Sweden about this. . .

Urban has passed along to Jotman some of the photos he took. They show officers of the Thai Navy rounding up the refugees while tourists frolic on the beach.

Meanwhile, CNN correspondent Dan Rivers traveled to the remote Thai island where the refugees had been detained (story). He also obtained photos from the Thai Navy showing the refugees being set adrift in the high seas (h/tBangkok Pundit).

New Mandala blog notes that acording to a human rights group report, one of the military officers involved in the the abuse and deaths of numerous Rohingya refugees was implicated in a previous atrocity.

Check out the the attached CNN video, it includes some extaordinary new evidence.



This is my third post this month about the plight of the Rohingyans.

More photos of the inauguration

No Way Out

Some three million people had crowded the Washington Mall. Advisories flashed on the Jumbotron screens urging people to exit by way of 7th and 14th Streets. 

Tens of thousands of people began moving in the direction of 14th Street.
And how did the army, police, and secret service respond?   They closed 14th Street. Completely. They gated it up. 

In effect, after the ceremony was over, security forces prevented half a million shivering, hungry, tired people from leaving the Washington Mall. 

Nevertheless the crowd continued moving towards 14th Street.

I think it was only good luck nobody was crushed to death.  This video  shows what it was like trying to find out where to go -- how to get off the Mall.



As it happened, Journalist James Fallows was also caught up in the crowd of spectators-- in the same area of the Mall at about the same time -- and has blogged about his own (similar) experience.

How people on the mall responded to the Obama Inauguration speech

I watched the Obama inauguration from the middle of the Washington Mall, amidst some two million Americans who had risen at the crack of dawn -- many having traveled for hours by car or bus. By the time Obama finally spoke, all had been standing in the freezing, gusty morning air for hours.

The focus of these videos is not Obama, but the way the audience reacted to the speech. I wanted to capture which parts of the speech most moved the people in the audience.

It was an 18 minute speech, and I thought the last 10 minutes were the best. That was when Obama talked about global issues and America's place in the world.

Part I



Part II

The moment Obama took the Oath of Office

The following photos capture the expressions on the faces of some Americans standing near me as the Oath of Office was recited by the President-Elect.

Between the monument and the capital

One newspaper described it as "a crowd of Biblical proportions." Some three million Americans braved freezing temperatures to witness the swearing-in of President-Elect Obama.

Your blogger was in the thick of it.

Jots about the inauguration

Civility.

People in DC have become surprisingly courteous toward one another. I wonder if this is the influx of visitors from the South. Long-term, I suspect one likely outcome of an Obama presidency will be seeing Americans behave with with greater civility towards one another.

The Mix.

Americans of every social strata mingling on the streets. The lack of automobile access is healthy, forcing everyone to walk, bringing people together into shared public spaces. This does not happen often in this country.

Enthusiasm.

I thought my election evening videos had probably captured the height of Obama exuberance, but scenes tomorrow well may match anything I witnessed on Pennsylvania Avenue on the evening of November 4.

Security.

DC is coming to resemble descriptions of the Green Zone. Troops fresh from Iraq, attired in desert fatigues stand at checkpoints nearby armored beige Humvees.

Rohingya genocide

Refugees towed out to the high seas in their little boats and left to die?

According to the BBC, there are corroborating estimates from Indian and Hong Kong sources that hundreds of Rohingyans -- a stateless Muslim people who live on the border of Burma and Bangladesh and face persecution from Burma's military regime -- have died this way. BBC reports:

Reports of more than 500 deaths have poured in over the weekend, from Indian officials and regional newspapers.

These suggest that more than 1,000 Rohingyas were put to sea in December. . . .

Indian officials have told reporters that they have rescued hundreds of Rohingya refugees, who are mostly Muslim and live along the border of Burma and Bangladesh.

"They said they were taken to an island off the Thai coast and beaten up before being forced into boats and pushed into the high seas," said Ranjit Narayan, a police official on India's remote Andaman and Nicobar islands.

Coast guard commander SP Sharma told AFP news agency that India had rescued 446 refugees from four boats since the end of December. Those figures are in line with those of the Sunday Morning Post, a Hong Kong newspaper, which said it had compiled a toll of 538 missing or dead.

The article goes on to note that Thai officials have admitted privately to knowing that this was happening. Predictably, perhaps, the Thai military has seized upon "national security" and "concerns about Muslim terrorists" as a convenient excuse for these atrocities. Sound familiar?

The BBC also reports that Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva will meet with human rights groups to discuss the matter.

Abhisit had better do more than that.

Obama inauguration concert on the mall

Washington DC today reminded me of the streets of Bangkok during the first days of the coup in 2006. The streets were closed to traffic. Humvees had been parked at every intersection manned by GIs.

The first two photos capture the US military presence in the capital.

1. Soldiers gather in near the World War II memorial (completed in 2006). The camouflage made them very hard to see.

2. One of the highest points in DC is the Washington Monument. Soldiers seated on top of trucks scanned the horizon (for what I'm not sure).

3. A large crowd had gathered to watch performers in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

4. People in front of the Washington monument.

Accused of lese majeste in Thailand

Prof. Giles Ji Ungpakorn is circulating an open letter calling upon Thailand to cease persecuting people under the country's draconian lese magjeste law.

Because Giles' letter gives us a good picture of the scope of the outrage, from the text of the petition, I extracted these points:

• Thai Justice Ministry refusing to publish figures of lese majeste cases. . .
• The Thai Minister of Justice has called for a blanket ban on reporting these cases in the Thai media. The main stream Thai media are obliging. Thus we are seeing a medieval style witch hunt taking place in Thailand with "secret" trials in the courts.

Persons now charged under the law, which carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison:

• Giles Ji Ungpakorn - Associate Professor, from the Faculty of Political Science, Chulalongkorn University. He is facing Lese Majeste charges for writing a book "A Coup for the Rich", which criticised the 2006 military coup.
  
• Jakrapop Penkae - former government minister, who asked a question at the Foreign Correspondent's Club in Bangkok about what kind of Monarchy we have in Thailand.
• Chotisak Oonsung - a young student who failed to stand for the King's anthem in the cinema.
• Da Topedo
• Boonyeun Prasertying
• Jonathan Head - BBC correspondent
• Harry Nicolaides - an Australia writer
• Sulak Sivaraksa - social critic
• Suwicha Takor - The latest person to be thrown into jail and refused bail. Charged with Lese Majeste for surfing the internet.

You can read the whole letter and sign it here.

Foreign news organizations struck twice in Gaza

The Committee to Protect Journalists reports:

The Israel Defense Forces have hit a second media building in Gaza. A missile hit Al-Shuruq Tower, which houses Reuters, Fox News, Al-Arabiya, and more than a dozen other news outlets. At least two journalists were injured. The airstrike comes just days after the Al-Johara Tower, a base for a number of news outlets, was hit.

This statement clarifies my earlier uncertainty over whether two buildings had actually been hit. Hard to believe twice could be an accident. Also, as I reported earlier, a number of journalists have been killed and injured in Gaza.

Demonstrations turn to riots across the Baltic States

The unrest we saw in Greece was just the beginning. Leaders across Europe must be watching these most recent developments with trepidation.

Protests in Eastern Europe have quickly grown, spread, and become violent. Here is a brief timeline based on a NY Times report:

• On Tuesday Jan. 13 a peaceful protest in Riga, Latvia erupted into violence. Latvia apparently has the highest unemployment rate in the EU.
• On Wednesday, 2,000 people threw snowballs at the parliament in Sofia, Bulgaria.
• By Friday, unrest had spread to Lithuania. The riots in the capital of Vilnius were nearly the same as those in Riga.

A Russian blog has done an incredible job of documenting the violent protests in Latvia (photo). Links to it and other reports from Latvia, Lithuania, and Bulgaria at ThereLive.

BBC corroborates Thai human rights abuse allegation

I see that the BBC now collaborates the most fearful of some disturbing allegations which I blogged about yesterday:

"Thai soldiers tied up our hands and then put us in boats without engines. These were towed into the high sea by motorised boats and left to drift," said Zaw Win, a survivor rescued by Indian coast guards off the coast of Little Andamans after drifting for 12 days.

"We were without food and water. The Thai soldiers clearly wanted us to die on the boats," Win told the BBC by telephone from a camp where survivors are being cared for.

Hat tip to Fonzi at Thailand Jumped the Shark. Fonzi notes that the local Thai media still has not covered this story.

Why quoting Norwegians is risky for American journalists

Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League recently wrote a nasty letter to Bill Moyers -- one of the most competent journalists in the United States -- accusing Moyers of antisemitism and racism.

What was Moyer's crime? For one thing, Moyer's had the audacity to quote a Norwegian doctor! Foxman accused Moyers of

. . . promotion of an individual, the Norwegian doctor in Gaza, who has publicly expressed support for the September 11 attacks.

Moyers responded to Foxman's complaints, writing:

. . . lamentable is your description of my “promotion” of the Norwegian doctor in Gaza when in fact I was simply quoting what he told CBS News: “It’s like Dante’s Inferno. They are bombing one and a half million people in a cage.” The whole world has been able to see for itself what he was talking about, and as one major news organization after another has been reporting, is reeling from the sight.

I can sympathize with Moyers.

Because not only did I refer to the very same Norwegian doctor in Gaza on this blog, I dared to post the entire CBS News video of him (See: Norwegian doctor in Gaza interviewed). Like Moyers, I also neglected to research the Norwegian doctor's views about the 9/11 attacks before posting the CBS News clip. (Nor did I make the effort to determine the Norwegian doctor's position on the Thai monarchy, Burma, Iranian nukes, or whether he prefers tuna salad or lentil soup at lunchtime.)

Rather, I was drawn to what the Norwegian doctor had told CBS News.

Because -- as Moyers noted -- Dr. Mads Gilbert had so eloquently summed up what is completely obvious to anyone following the Gaza war! For example, Gilbert's words had been amply collaborated by the reports I had personally compiled from various bloggers there live in Gaza.

Nevertheless, this incident demonstrates why the vast majority of American journalists report the way they do. Who wants to be smeared? No matter how many Palestinians get slaughtered, no matter the price of American complacency (in terms of US national security and the reputation of the United States -- indeed, the security of Israel itself over the long-haul), it's far better for your journalism career if you just accept the proposition that -- repeat after me -- everything Israel's leaders do is always for the best.

By the way, this is not the first time I have made exactly the same point on this blog for which a renowned American journalist was later subjected to a vicious smear attack.

Hat-tip Greenwald.

Queen Noor: Why Palestinian moderates lost ground

Speaking on MSNBC Jordan's Queen Noor made a compelling point about why moderates in Palestine have seen their position undermined by Hamas in recent years. Queen Noor said:

You cannot go back to the status quo. We need an immediate cessation of violence on both sides. The crossings have to be opened. Humanitarian aid has to be let in.

The reason the Palestinian Authority lost ground -- in fact lost elections to Hamas in the Gaza strip -- and is weak now, is that it has no political accomplishments to show for its engagement with Israel and the United States. And the settlement building has increased -- has continued to increase -- the blockages on the West Bank -- as well into Gaza -- have increased, making economic life in all the Palestinian Territories absolutely impossible.

Wherever moderates have nothing to show for their moderation, people inevitably turn to more extremist leaders. How this dynamic -- which seems to explain what is happening with regards to the Palestinians -- serves Israel's own long-term strategic interests is a mystery. At least to me!

You can watch the two part video of the discussion which included Queen Noor here.

Thai shift on Burma human rights?

Irrawaddy reports that Thailand's new PM Abhisit said it is time for "change" in regards to Thailand's policy with regards to Burma. Abhisit elaborated:

The Thai government will use a “flexible engagement” policy in relation to Burma under the Democrat administration, he said. The “flexible engagement” policy was outlined by Surin Pitsuwan, the former Thai foreign minister and current secretary-general of Asean in 1999. He said Asean should move from a “constructive engagement” approach to the "flexible engagement" policy.

“Flexible engagement” was about open and frank discussion on issues such as human rights, leading to cooperative solutions — a pooling of sovereignty rather than its dilution, so as to make Southeast Asia a secure and prosperous region, according to analysts.

What this could mean in practice remains unclear, but considering that Thailand has been one of the junta's staunchest defenders, it is a hopeful sign that a Thai PM would acknowledge this much.

In November Myanmar's junta sentenced numerous critics, including a poet and blogger, to long prison terms. See here for background on Burma.

Thai Navy tortures Rohingya refugees in view of tourists

A shocking incident happened recently on Thailand's world famous Similan Islands. And the event -- witnessed by foreign tourists -- was probably not the worst of it.

Phuket Wan reports:

Dozens of Rohingya refugees were beaten and detained for hours by the Thai Navy on an Andaman Sea tourist island, in scenes that unfolded in full view of foreign holidaymakers.

Photographs of the December 23 incident in the Similan Islands were captured by Hong Kong-based tourist Andrew Jones.

. . . . guards armed with M-16 rifles forced the refugees to lie face down in the sand for at least two hours, then ''whipped'' them about the head with a strap if they tried to sit up or move. The refugees were naked to the waist and bound at their wrists.

Some tourists appeared oblivious to the scenes just metres away, continuing to snorkel and sunbathe. Others who were shocked by the treatment of the men and tried to photograph the incident had their cameras snatched away by angry guards, who deleted the images.

Read the whole story and view the extraordinary photos.

Yet, this alarming report may not even reflect the worst that Thailand is doing to the Rohingyans, according to a report by SCMP that comes to us via Bangkok Pundit:

Thailand’s army is secretly detaining boatpeople on an island in the Andaman Sea, before towing them into international waters and abandoning them with only paddles, sources involved in the process said. [BP: Sounds similiar to something that happened under a certain PM in the 80s]

The army officially denies holding any Rohingya – Muslims who come from the border areas of Myanmar and Bangladesh – who sail for Southeast Asia at this time of year by the hundreds.

Although such reports are a matter of the utmost urgency, the mainstream Thai media has not even bothered to report these allegations!

How many killed and injured in the Gaza war?

Casualties so far in the Gaza conflict (source: Israeli human rights groups):

Update for 15 January '09, morning (GMT+2)

Gaza: at least 1,033 killed, of them at least 335 children and 98 women. More than half those killed since the ground incursion began (580) are women and children. Over 4,850 injured, of them over 250 severely so.

Israel: 13 killed, of them 1 woman and 10 soldiers. Over 82 civilians injured, of them 4 severely injured, not including those treated for shock , and 77 soldiers injured, of them one in critical condition and 6 suffer moderate or severe injuries.

The medical emergency in Gaza

So far in the conflict, WHO reports that 13 medical personnel have been killed and 21 injured in the Gaza war.

A sniper fired at an ambulance that a blogger was traveling in, injuring one of the medics accompanying her. This incident was not unique, documents an Israeli physicians' group.

More at ThereLive.

Israel targeted buildings housing foreign journalists

The CPJ reported 14 Jan:

The Committee to Protect Journalists mourns the death of four Palestinian journalists who have been killed since Israeli military operations began in Gaza on December 27. One journalist was fatally injured while working; three others were killed under unconfirmed circumstances.

IFEX reported on 15 Jan:

Israeli aircraft also bombed Al-Johara Tower in Gaza City, on 9 January, even though the building was clearly marked as housing media staff, report IFEX members. More than 20 news organisations work in Al-Johara, including Iran's English-language Press TV and the Arabic language network Al-Alam. Satellite transmission equipment on the roof of the building was destroyed and at least one journalist was reported injured.

"The Israeli military knows the location of TV facilities, houses and news bureaus in Gaza. It is simply unacceptable that working journalists and their offices should come under fire in this way," said CPJ. "Journalists enjoy protections under international law in military campaigns such as the one in Gaza. Israel must cease its attacks on the media immediately."

Media facilities have come under Israeli fire in two other instances since the military campaign started. The IDF shelled the offices of the Hamas-affiliated "Al-Risala" newsweekly on 5 January and the headquarters of Al-Aqsa TV on 29 December. Al-Aqsa continues to broadcast from a remote location.

The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (Mada) and IFJ also report that two of Al-Alam's journalists, Khadir Shahin and his producer, have been unlawfully detained by the IDF since 5 January. "Israel has no legitimate reason to detain journalists who are neither on its soil nor involved in fighting in Gaza," said IFJ.

Meanwhile, IFEX members welcomed the UN Human Rights Council resolution of 12 January which calls for "free access of media to areas of conflict through media corridors." IFJ is urging the UN to investigate the targeting of media by Israeli forces and to take action against Israel where it has violated international law and the resolution.

Despite an Israeli Supreme Court ruling ordering the government to allow a limited pool of journalists to enter Gaza, the army continues to block entry of foreign reporters.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) points out that under international law, journalists must be accorded the same protection as civilians. In addition, RSF notes that Reuters -- which had an office in a facility targeted -- had told the Israeli military the location of its office.

IFEX says that Al-Johara Tower was bombed; RSF mentions the bombing of Shurouq Tower. Both buildings are reported to have housed a number of news organizations. I wonder if they referring to the same building, or two facilities?

From the Frontline blogged about the attacks on Al-Johara Tower. RSF gathers its Gaza war press releases here. RSF also invites its readers to look at an Israeli Gaza human rights groups' blog. It is informative. With the restrictions on journalists still in effect, bloggers' "there live" reports -- which I have gathered here -- provide critical insight into the conflict.

What's new from Jotman?

In 2009 JOTMAN.COM will continue to be the place where I post original commentary on various issues, reviews -- and from time to time -- live reports. But there are some other sites I want you to know about.

THERELIVE.COM
Jotman's newest development is a website called THERELIVE.COM. We launched THERELIVE in January 2009 as a way to provide encouragement and support to bloggers who find themselves -- as I have from time to time -- on the scene when something interesting happens. The purpose of THERELIVE is to track live-bloggers worldwide. The website explains the concept further. So if you were "there live" at a major event -- or know of someone who was -- let me know!

JOTMAN.COM
In 2009, I intend to bring you more live firsthand reports, reviews of good books, and street-level perspectives on developments. When big stories break I will strive to bring you highlights from the alternative viewpoints of "there live" bloggers. JOTMAN.COM will be more of a reporter's blog, and more of a conduit to the best of other bloggers' "there live" reporting.

World of Jots
What is the World of Jots, and how does it relate to Jotman?

World of Jots is simply an umbrella phrase that refers some other blogs Jotman keeps -- in addition to JOTMAN.COM. Most of these blogs are repositories for additional ideas, things that catch my eye but which I may not feel like saying much about at the time. Or specific thoughts that are on specialized topics or localized -- things that may not interest a wider group of readers.

Some of these blogs are "regional," others are "thematic" (See the blog lists at right).

World of Jots - Regions
When I find interesting ideas or perspectives in the press, I may choose to post a link to the story at a regional blog: Jot USA, Jot Mid East, Jot East Asia, etc (See list at right). I urge readers who have a strong interest in one particular region to subscribe to Jotman through one of these sites. This way, you receive Jotman.com posts plus any alerts specific to that region.

World of Jots - Themes
In a similar fashion, I update two other blogs, Jot the planet green and Jot your life. At the first blog, I link to articles about environmental issues. At the latter, I refer readers to news about health and wellness discoveries.

My third thematic blog, Jot around the world, used to be called Jotazine. The new name highlights the fact that Jot around the world is about travel. It is similar to Jotman in so far as it is a repository for original material, firsthand reports, and analysis. Of course, it's also where I share travel tips. I have written quite a bit about travel health.

A note about subscriptions

If you don't want to subscribe to any of my other blogs, yet don't want to miss anything either, just visit this website and check out the -- now expanded -- sidebars for updates on anything I have posted elsewhere.

But you can also tailor your Jotman subscription to your personal preferences:

• If you have a strong interest in a specific region, you might want to subscribe to Jotman through a regional blog (see list at right). This way you will get JOTMAN.COM content plus extra content related to that region.
  
• If you want mainly original reports from Jotman, subscribe to either JOTMAN.COM or Jot around the world.
• If you want health and wellness updates you can subscribe to Jot your life beautiful.
• If you want to know who is live-blogging breaking events around the world, I urge you to subscribe to THERELIVE.COM -- whether by feed, email, or Twitter.
• If you want it all. . . . By subscribing to "World of Jots" email or blog feed, you get everything!

In so far as blogging goes, my top priorities are maintaining JOTMAN.COM and developing THERELIVE.COM.

Is there something you would like to see (or not) from Jotman? I invite your comments or emails!

Quote of the day

It really ought to be too obvious to require pointing out: to oppose the Israeli war in Gaza and to be horrified by what they are doing to Palestinian civilians no more makes someone "anti-Israel" or "pro-Hamas" than opposing and condemning the Iraq War and being horrified by what we did to that country makes someone "anti-American" or "pro-Saddam."

- Glenn Greenwald

Return of the flying monks

This is my fourth most-viewed video at YouTube. It's been seen over six thousand times since I put it up ten months ago.

Is Israel shelling Gaza with white phosphorus?

Commenter 1a drew my attention to this statement (Yahoo):

Human Rights Watch said Sunday that Israel's military has fired artillery shells with the incendiary agent white phosphorus into Gaza and a doctor there said the chemical was suspected in the case of 10 burn victims who had skin peeling off their faces and bodies.

On 11 Jan, Sharon at Tales to Tell blogged from Gaza:

I am again at Ramattan watching these weird phosphorous bombs falling on the city.

Sharon notes that the Geneva Treaty of 1980 explicitly prohibits the use of white phosphorous -- which burns the skin -- in civilian areas.

ThereLive.com continues to track the latest posting by Sharon and others live-blogging the situation from Gaza.

Prof. Giles Ji Ungpakorn charged with lese majeste

Thai university professor Giles Ji Ungpakorn has been charged with "lese majeste," the crime of insulting the Thai monarchy. The offense carries a 15 year prison sentence under Thai law.

Giles' website is Wdpress. In the aftermath of the 2006 coup, he released a book entitled, A coup for the rich.

Giles has been outspoken in his opposition to the PAD protest group that shut down the airports in November. The political party that backed the protests was brought to power in December 2008 by a court ruling against the leadership of the then governing party.

Bangkok Pundit (BP) has more on the charges against Giles. Also charged with insulting the monarchy are BBC reporter Jonathan Head who was charged twice -- see here, and, on the more recent charge, here. Also charged with lese majeste is the Australian author Harry Nicolaides who was denied bail once again in December.

Thai citizen Ms. Boonyuen Prasertying was just sentenced to 6 years for lese majeste. Also, Boonyuen was sentenced for "leading a siege," , as BP notes, yet none of those who laid siege to Government House or Bangkok's two airports have been so charged!

Bloggers in Gaza

I have been tracking live-bloggers inside Gaza. Their posts make for remarkable reading.

Saturday Rafah Kid posted a video of Gaza residents working to restore their bombed-out neighborhood. There's something Zen about the clip. Watching it I feel as if I was standing there on Abu Jamil Street in the early hours of the morning, contemplating the devastation with my own eyes:




Another live-blogger based in Gaza is Eva Bartlett, a medic who is part of the International Solidarity Movement. The photo (right) shows Bartlett arriving in Gaza. On her blog In Gaza Bartlett described a recent discussion she had with a young man near the site of the bombed Fakoura UN school:

Nidal, a PRCS medic, told how he was at the Fakoura school when it was shelled. His aunt and uncle living nearby, he’d been visiting friends at the school. “I was there, talking with friends, only a little away from where 2 of the missiles hit. The people standing between me and the missiles were like a shield. They were shredded. About twenty of them,” he said.

Bartlett explains that Nidal had not only lost family members to the ongoing conflict, but the fingers of one hand. When a child he had picked up an Israeli "sound bomb" and it had gone off while he was holding it.

Osama, a fellow medic known to Bartlett, was eyewitness to the aftermath of the destruction of the UN school. Bartlett blogs:

Osama gave his testimony as a medic at the scene after the multiple missile shelling. “When we arrived, I saw dead bodies everywhere. More than 30. Dead children, grandparents…Pieces of flesh all over. And blood. It was very crowded, and difficult to carry out the injured and martyred. There were also animals dead among the humans. I helped carry 15 dead. I had to change my clothes 3 times. These people thought they were safe in the UN school, but the Israeli army killed them, in cold blood,” he said.

At ThereLive.com I have compiled links to all the best eyewitness bloggers' reports.

Large anti-war protests in London and Paris

If the war in Gaza were to lead to the downfall of a friendly Arab regime, such as Egypt, the outcome of the invasion -- whatever setback Hamas might experience -- would surely count as an unmitigated disaster for Israel. At best, the Gaza war has made it much harder and riskier for friendly Arab countries to be seen to cooperate with Israel.

Blogger Lenin live-blogged a massive Gaza war protest in London Saturday. Lenin described the protest as "the largest ever pro-Palestinian demonstration in the United Kingdom." He blogged:

. . . there was much more visible condemnation of the Arab regimes that are complicit in this attack. When speakers called for the Egyptian regime to be overthrown, the cheers were among the loudest of the day. For another, there is a great desire that this historic demonstration become the basis for a campaign.

I have surveyed various firsthand accounts of various Gaza protests (here), and Lenin's account stands out for the quality of the observations he makes. It is good to look at photographs of events, but there is only so much that a collection of photos -- or video clips -- can tell us. In today's camera culture, I think we need "firsthand observations put to words" more than ever.

At ThereLive.com I have compiled links to first-hand reports of Gaza war demonstrations around the world, and eyewitness bloggers' reports direct from Gaza.

William J. Lynn to serve Raytheon as Deputy Secretary of Defense

Congratulations are in order to defense contractor Raytheon. The company's former Sr VP, Govt Ops & Strategy, will be brought on to help the defense industry run the Pentagon for the next four years.

It was not altogether clear to some naive observers that this day would come.

After all, as ABC News reports:

President-elect Barack Obama's pick to be deputy secretary of defense, William Lynn, violates his campaign pledge that no lobbyists will be allowed on his team working on subjects they've recently lobbied on, Transition officials acknowledged Friday.

Officials say they were aware that Lynn had lobbied for defense giant Raytheon as recently as last summer, but they defended their pick.

[Obama spokesman's justification for the hire printed here. Rest assured is the most qualified person available to serve the defense industry.]

Lynn, a former undersecretary of defense in the Clinton administration, currently serves as senior vice president of government operations and strategy at Raytheon, a military contractor. The deputy defense secretary traditionally supervises hiring such contractors.

It's lucky for Raytheon that Obama did not allow prior promises to voters to muddle the priorities of the defense industry. After all, not only the next big defense procurement, but the whole trajectory of US defense policy might have been been put in unfamiliar hands.

Charts: Open Secrets

China braces for a tumultuous year

China will celebrate the Year of the Water Buffalo on 26 January 2009.

Judging by press reports so far, the leaders are bracing themselves. They know there will be some heavy hauling to do to if they are to keep their jobs.

The dirty work began early. On 2 January, FT reported that the "Chinese government is moving to crush a group of prominent dissidents and intellectuals that has released a rallying call for democracy, human rights and rule of law." The article continues:

Since then, nearly 7,000 Chinese and foreign intellectuals inside and outside the country have signed Charter 08, which warns of “the possibility of a violent conflict of disastrous proportions” if Beijing does not quickly move to reform the one-party authoritarian state.

Chinese intellectuals and dissidents are calling the document the most significant of its kind for at least a decade and possibly since the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests. Its name is a reference to Charter 77, the 1977 call for human rights issued by dissidents in former Czechoslovakia.

On 9 January, FT reported that China had moved to crackdown on the Internet. The crackdown is said to be against "vulgar" content. Some "19 sites including search engines Baidu and Google" have been accused of "undermining public morality." The article notes that

The campaign coincides with efforts to stifle dissent and protest as the economy slows and China enters a year of sensitive anniversaries, especially the twentieth year since the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy protests in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

An FT report of 8 January exposed what is probably the Chinese leadership's biggest concern:

The rapid deceleration of economic growth in China as a result of the global recession will severely test Beijing’s ability to maintain social stability at a time when the unemployment rate, especially among university graduates and migrant labourers, is soaring. . .

Based on surveys by Chinese sociologists, only about half of the jobless migrant labourers have returned to their native villages, leaving roughly 5m unemployed, mainly young, migrants in urban areas (the number is expected to rise significantly this year). Chinese graduates, most of them the only child of their family, are among relatively privileged members of Chinese society. Unlike the proletariat in moribund SOEs, Chinese graduates harbour powerful individual ambitions, possess strong organisational skills and have a tradition of challenging government authorities.

Worse still, both unemployed migrant labourers and graduates will be concentrated in urban areas throughout China. Although the countryside has traditionally been more volatile and less governable, Beijing is far more concerned with stability in the cities, where the economic and political centres of gravity are located. So the combination of millions of low-status jobless migrant labourers and unemployed graduates could form a highly combustible mix.

Unfortunately, Beijing’s Rmb4,000bn (€430bn) stimulus package is excessively focused on investment in infrastructure. Roughly three-quarters of the spending is slated to go into railways, roads and other capital-intensive projects. While infrastructure spending can help absorb some of China’s overcapacity in heavy industries (especially steel), it will have a negligible impact on generating employment for jobless migrant labourers and graduates.

It looks as if Chinese leaders are going to need to be sturdy as water buffalo just to keep themselves at the helm. This year promises to be an eventful one in China.
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Photo of Laotian water buffalo by Jotman.

Worse than empty rhetoric?

Krugman warns that 40% of Obama's $775 billion rescue plan is just tax cuts, and this package is not likely going to be sufficient to avert a prolonged recession. Krugman alluded to ". . . the gap between Mr. Obama’s stern economic rhetoric and his somewhat disappointing economic plan":

“I don’t believe it’s too late to change course, but it will be if we don’t take dramatic action as soon as possible. If nothing is done, this recession could linger for years.”

So declared President-elect Barack Obama on Thursday, explaining why the nation needs an extremely aggressive government response to the economic downturn. He’s right. This is the most dangerous economic crisis since the Great Depression, and it could all too easily turn into a prolonged slump.

The one thing that put me off about Obama the primary candidate -- think back to the spring of 2008 -- was Obama's use of rousing rhetoric for the mere sake rousing supporters. It was soaring rhetoric indeed, but rhetoric that appeared not to carry any real substance with it.

But I thought that as the election campaign geared up, Obama became far more concrete and substantive -- especially in contrast to his Republican opponents.

Although I remain guardedly optimistic about the Obama presidency, Krugman's observation seems cause for some concern. That which wears thin in a primary candidate, could prove to be intolerable in a president.

Mainly, however, I'm discouraged. It occurs to me that Obama might not have the guts to do what this economic crisis calls for. He might not be a real leader at all. If Obama is not willing to do the right thing -- but elects to pursue only the politically easy option at a time like this -- despite having a resounding mandate for change during this hour of financial crisis, the Obama presidency is likely to disappoint almost everyone.

Why doesn't Israel just shoot down the Hamas missiles?

Instead of invading Gaza, why doesn't Israel simply decide to shoot the Hamas missles out of the air?

Perhaps Israel could fire US made Raytheon Patriot missiles at the Hamas rockets.

It occurs to me that the answer probably comes down to a simple cost-benefit ratio. Patriot missiles are expensive (one estimate is $2 million per missile). Most Hamas missiles are not accurate and seldom hit targets of value. Moreover, the Hamas rockets that have been fired at Israel number in the thousands (see this chart).

I saw that contributors at RedIt -- a tech-savvy group -- have also attempted to answer this question. I have grouped their thoughts by topic:

A new anti-missile system is in the works

• I agree that they attacked Gaza because they do not yet have this capability. But I am looking into the future where they will not need to do so.
• Iron Dome (a new anti-missile system) is nearing completion. In fact, I expect a test in the next couple of months.
• Israel has had the system in development for a long time (research US-Israel missile joint development programs and you will find it) however it will not be ready for another 12 - 18 months.
• Iron Dome is ineffective against the rockets. This was well known by the developers and the Defense Ministry before development even began. It is a relatively worthless system and a major scam.

It's not worth it to Israel

• If Israel intercepted them, they wouldn't have an excuse to blow hundreds of Palestinians to bits.
• Hamas hardly ever manages to kill anyone with their rockets (NOT MISSILES)

It's impossible

• You can't shoot down the small, lo-tech missles that Hamas fires.
• There's no such thing as a "missile shield."
• Patriot missiles have a 100% failure rate.
• Hamas' homemade rockets are not sophisticated enough to be shot down by Israel's fancy US equipment.
• Those Hamas missiles were usually made with thin galvanized pipes and the whole contraptions is mobile & costing less than a hundred bucks.... then Israelis were going to use missiles costing at least USD50,000 a pop to shoot those toothpicks down?

• Q: Are you saying Israel is shredding people because someone flicked toothpicks at them?
  
• A: Yes that's exactly what is happening.
• Q: What's the cost of a bomb that can reduce an apartment building to rubble?
  
• A: to Israel? Zero dollars. Uncle sam pays for it.
  
• Q: How much does it cost to send a jet on a sortie?
  
• A: Same as above.

The question posed by this post touches on a deeper defense issue facing Israel. Highly destructive but relatively low-tech devices are becoming less expensive to install - whether it's roadside bombs in Iraq or rockets in Gaza. Hamas is using very low tech weapons, yet Israel is forced either to employee high-tech weapons to counter the threat, or launch full-scale military operations. It is expensive for Israel to destroy installations of cheap offensive weapons. Meanwhile, the global defense industry continues to convince the leaders of rich countries that they can invent or spend their way out of this conundrum. And Israel might win this battle, and maybe the next, but the one after that? For how long will Israel's advantage last -- and at what cost?

From the perspective of Israel, peacemaking should look like a bargain.

Chart: Israeli injuries (grey) and deaths (red) caused by Hamas-fired missiles. (via Muqata)

Norwegian doctor in Gaza interviewed

Mads Gilbert, a Norwegian doctor, tells Sky News that "fifty percent" of the casualties in Gaza are "women and children," noting that the average age of Gaza residents is 17 years. "A poor and very young people" have nowhere to escape, according to the doctor. He adds: "they are bombing 1.5 million people in a cage. And you cannot separate militants from civilians in such a situation." The short interview is informative:




Prof. Said Abdelwahed, a father with children blogging from Gaza, writes today that "So far 10 paramedics lost their lives while working to save lives of others! Death tool jumps up to 800 and the injured to more than 3100. Gaza's poorly equipped hospitals are unable to manage those casualties." Find links to blogged eyewitness accounts of the war as told by Gaza residents -- including Abdelwahed -- at ThereLive.

Where life imitates art

The scenario seemed disturbingly familiar to me. Bellow I have paraphrased a descriptive summary of a video posted by blogger Sabbah in early December 2008.

Footage filmed by Jamal Abu-Sa'ifan, a Palestinian resident of Hebron, documented a terrorist Israeli settler shooting two members of his family.

The shootings followed the eviction of Israeli settlers from a Palestinian house they had occupied in Hebron. Settlers attacked the nearby house of the Abu-Se'ifan family. During ensuing clashes, a settler fired his handgun at Hosni and his father 'Abd al-Hai. The son was hit the chest and the father was wounded in the arm. Other members of the family managed to overcome the shooter and the two injured men were taken to a Hebron hospital. But a short while later more terrorist-settlers from the nearby settlement of Kiryat Arba arrive at the scene and fire their guns at the Palestinian family.

Here is the video:



I mentioned that the video was disturbingly familiar to me. I had seen it all before in a movie that had terrified me as a young child.

What happened outside Hebron -- to my mind at least -- resembled a scene right out of the Planet of the Apes. In the post-apocalyptic 1968 movie, a master race of apes leave their protected compounds from time to time to go on hunting expeditions. The privileged apes shoot at communities of humans reduced to a primitive existance. They burn the humans' simple houses to the ground.



The Israeli newspaper Haaretz described the settler violence near Hebron as "A pogrom. This isn't a play on words or a double meaning. It is a pogrom in the worst sense of the word. First the masked men set fire to their laundry in the front yard and then they tried to set fire to one of the rooms in the house...."

Daniel Levy at TPM Cafe describes how the Bush Administration has refused to hold Israel to account for expansion of settlements on the West Bank. He blogs:

The U.S. is on paper opposed to settlement expansion. The U.S. narrative, though, has shifted. Initially settlements were characterized by the U.S. as "illegal"--that description was dropped by the Reagan Administration and never returned to. Settlements became no more than "unhelpful" and later on an "obstacle to peace"--a language which the Bush Administration has occasionally used. What the U.S. has not done is to take a firm, consistent, and unrelenting position that Israel uphold its commitment to a settlement freeze--and without such U.S. action, the Israeli cost-benefit calculation on settlement expansion vs. freeze is always skewed in favor of the former.

Levy notes that settler violence and lawlessness is highly organized. He makes the case that violence-prone Jewish settler groups should be categorized as "terrorist organizations" by the US State Department. Levy also points to a recent Council on Foreign Relations and Brookings Institute report which advises that US aid to Israel be conditional pending a freeze on all new settlements.

So what if Israeli democracy is to some extent held hostage by extremists in the settler movement? Why does it matter what role America and the world chooses to play?

It matters precisely because -- as the final scene of the movie reminds us -- we had a choice.

Live-blogging the Gaza war protest of Jan 4 in Washington DC

Sunday's anti-war protest in DC followed the land invasion of Gaza by Israeli forces.

It is important to examine the political context in the United States in which this march took place.

The Israeli military response has been vastly disproportionate to the provocation -- on December 22, after a six-month pause, Hamas' home-made rocket attacks against Israel resumed. When Israel struck back, American political leaders of both parties widely condoned Israel's attack on Hamas as an appropriate self-defense measure.

The consensus among American opinion makers strikes me as reminiscent of two recent military fiascoes: First was the Iraq war -- a time when US opinion leaders of both parties blindly followed Bush into a costly war of choice. Second, US leaders adopted a similar consensus view prior to the Israel's 2006 invasion of Lebanon -- a war which has had the effect of making the extremist group Hezbollah stronger.

Israeli attacks on Gaza have claimed 500 Gazan lives and left some 2,000 people injured. One NGO estimates at least one quarter of the casualties have been civilians. For days now, some 1.5 million people have passed sleepless nights in terror -- according to "there live" reports from Gaza residents (see here). Meanwhile, five Israelis have been killed in the conflict to date, including two soldiers.

The Gaza war may embolden extremists and make it harder for moderates in the region to attract support. FT observes that "Israel has significantly expanded its occupation of the West Bank and Arab east Jerusalem" since it pulled out of Gaza in 2005. Israeli politicians have long a track-record of making potentially destabilizing decisions mainly to appease religious zealots within their own constituencies. Namely, people who believe that God intends for them to live in the Occupied Territories.

On the Mall I spoke with a Palestinian American woman carrying a sign. She said she had been part of a demonstration consisting of about two thousand people who had gathered at the capital around noon. She told me the protesters had moved to Constitution Avenue. Before heading off in that direction to check it out, I asked the lady if I could take her picture.

"OK but I just don't want want my face in the photo."

She held up her sign so I could get the Congress in the background of the shot. I asked her how she felt about the situation.

"It's my tax dollars that are buying Israel the weapons," she said. "Here we are in D.C. -- the capital of the world -- and so many people around us in this city are homeless. Why aren't we spending the money here in America on education, health care, for our own people?"

I asked her what the future might hold.

"Little by little we will make things better." She indicated that her hopes for progress under the Obama Administration were modest.

By the time I located the band of protesters their number had -- apparently -- diminished to a few hundred.

Taking pictures of the protesters, most interesting to me was the reactions of various bystanders -- American tourists on their way to visit nearby museums. Among these spectators, there were a lot of confused looks and comments. Many had no clue as to what the protest march was about. When they learned more about it, the typical reaction was neither one of hostility nor support but bemused indifference. Their tax dollars may be paying for the Gaza war, but the issue did not seem to concern these people much one way or another.

Women appeared to outnumber men. And when one lovely protester smiled at me, I smiled back. Big mistake.

If you listen to the video carefully you can hear where Jotman got reprimanded by one of the women in the march (about a quarter of the way through the video). An older woman wearing in a green head scarf points at me, and admonishes me for smiling. The funny thing is that many of the marchers -- check out the video for yourself -- are also smiling.

Overall, the experience of viewing a Gaza war protest convinced me that the Palestinian cause is in real need of a public education campaign in the United States. That could come about in several ways. In the meantime, protests such as the one I witnessed on Sunday will likely continue to be greeted by confused looks.