# Posted 10:24 PM by Patrick Belton  

ANYBODY RECEIVING the LRB in their mailboxes today can look for my (and Rachel's) personal. No, no, not that kind of personal, we were looking for a bike.... Lookie, mommy, I've made it onto the LRB's personals page! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:36 PM by Patrick Belton  

CENTRAL ASIA is too often a neglected front both in counterterrorism and in democracy promotion, but my two favorite print magazines (and not just 'cause they employ Josh) are giving attention this week to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. Ami Horowitz, however, treats Kazakhstan's choice between orienting itself with the democracies or with Iran as though it were a foreign policy matter that could be accomplished without actually making Kazakhstan a democracy - which seems to me fairly short-sighted. Looking across the region, it's precisely the Central Asian countries where autocratic capitals have oppressed all dissent - think Uzbekistan and its portion of the Ferghana Valley - where Islam has become most radicalized. In countries like Tajikistan (though it unfortunately, at the moment, lacks an economy - a real bummer), Islamist parties have been drawn into a comparatively more democratic government, with the result that they're now among the most moderate Muslim religious parties in the world. And this in a country that weathered a civil war through most of the last decade in which the Islamist party was one of the principal combatants, and which drew roving Islamist operatives from Iran, Chechnya, and Afghanistan. Not a bad record - and not a bad lesson to learn from Central Asia. One only hopes the administration is listening.

UPDATE: Matthew Yglesias has a thoughtful post up on the topic as well. While I'm not sure I'd want to agree that Karimov makes radical Islamists look good comparison, I strongly agree that Karimov's religious policy has driven a naturally moderate Central Asian religiosity into a radical path. More importantly, I fully subscribe to his point that neo-cons should take equal interest in the promotion of democratic freedoms and forms of governance in Central Asia as well as the Middle East. Along the other path lies short-sighted policy conduicing to worldwide cynicism about U.S. motives, and spawning radical religious oppositions which are much more of a security threat to U.S. interests than the temporary security alliances of despots could ever make up for. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:27 PM by Patrick Belton  

ON THE OTHER HAND, "Liebererman" (thus spake TNR's Jason Zengerle) is leading the TNR primary, racking up A grades in intellectual honesty (which seems more of a courage metric to me), foreign policy (though for resisting protectionism, not for a strong national security posture), and domestic policy (though for grilling - or promising to grill - Bush's EPA appointee, not for the proposals on the economy or measures to expand opportunity). Not sure I agree with the TNR staff's bases for arriving at these grades, but I do think he's the best of the lot. Call it a concurring opinion (even though that's admittedly mixing metaphors....). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:24 AM by Patrick Belton  

BLOGGING FROM THE SANDBOX: Lt. Smash provides a compelling round-up of U.S. military bloggers posting from Iraq (via InstaPundit). I've really enjoyed reading through their posts, particularly those of the ChromeDomeZone and Will. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:55 PM by Patrick Belton  

ABDOMINAL SNOWMEN (HAVE HAIRY ABS): A team of Japanese explorers are heading out to scour the Himalayas for Yeti, the abominable snowman of some fame. People have tried this before.

But why wait? You can have a conversation with him now here. Heck, I did:

Patrick: Yeti, how's it going, man?
The Abominable Snowman: Are you really interested? Why?
Patrick: Errr, because you're the abominable snowman.....
The Abominable Snowman: Is that the real reason?
Patrick: umm, yes....
The Abominable Snomwan: Why do you think so?
Patrick: Why does that interest you?
The Abominable Snowman: Why do you ask?
Patrick: Why do you think?
The Abominable Snowman: Does that question interest you?
Patrick: Yeti, you are a bad, bad snowman.
The Abominable Snowman: What makes you think I am a bad, bad snowman?
Patrick: What is your sex life like, Yeti?
The Abominable Snowman: What is the best thing about your love life?
Patrick: Umm, sleeping with people who aren't snowpersons. Also, just having other members of my species to be romantically involved with is nice too.
The Abominable Snowman: (stumped)

Maybe you'll hit it off better than me. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:33 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE THIRD ID CAME HOME today! We're glad you're back - welcome home. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:55 PM by Patrick Belton  

BYE, BYE, PRESIDENT TAYLOR: So the world is finally free of Charles Taylor, at least in his pitiful and bloody-handed incarnation as a head of state. After formally handing over power this afternoon to vice president Moses Blah, the Liberian ex-president arrived in Nigeria where he will live in exile, albeit palatial exile. Critics continue to call for his prosecution for war crimes by an international tribunal. Three Navy ships - the amphibious assault vessel Iwo Jima, the dock landing ship Carter Hall, and the amphibious transport dock Nashville - with 3,000 Marines on board have moved within sight of the Liberian coast; this showing-the-flag action is intended to send a signal to the warring factions to adhere to the cease-fire as efforts continue to open the port of Monrovia to relief shipments. MGEN Thomas Turner came ashore to coordinate actions necessary to open Monrovia's port to permit aid shipments to enter. Liberia's largest rebel group, Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy, has declared their war to be over. LURD and other rebel groups have said, however, that they would not permit Blah to remain in office for longer than seven weeks. Several names for a longer-lasting interim head of government are floating at the peace talks in Accra.

The people of Liberia, though, and not Taylor, remain the principal losers of their nation's conflict. Water supplies are nonexistent, and aid workers fear a cholera epidemic. One million Liberians are internally displaced, and malnutrition is widespread.

Reuters, characteristically, writes an oddly poignant piece about Taylor's last moments in office:

On his last day in office, Liberian President Charles Taylor prayed, sang hymns, joked, defended his record and boarded a Nigerian plane to exile under a grey sky.

A besuited man wept openly, scrubbing his eyes with crumpled tissue. "I don't want you to go. I don't want you to go," he cried, stumbling to keep up with Taylor's muscled entourage as they swept down the red carpet.

"I don't know about politics but I just know he was very nice to me," she [i.e., Liberia's other Taylor supporter] sobbed.

Compared to them, Guardian comes off disconcertingly sensibly in printing the AP's review of Charles Taylor's regrettable public life and bio of his hand-picked successor-for-now, and its history of Liberia. MSNBC also has a chronology of events in Liberia since Taylor's accession to power. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:32 PM by Patrick Belton  

ON CONSERVING FREEDOMS: Peter Berkowitz gives a good rendition in Policy Review of the arguments that liberalism contains in itself the seeds of its destruction, by abolishing the preconditions which permit and constitute it. In his summative paragraph:

Our freedom encourages us to cast aside arbitrary authority and topple unjust hierarchy, but it also undermines the just claims of political order and moral excellence. It severs onerous bonds of association, but it also separates and isolates. It is the touchstone of our equality, yet it permits and indeed encourages competition, which results in vast disparities in wealth, power, and glory. It makes us responsible for ourselves and infuses us with a sense of the humanity and rights that we share with all people on the planet while loosening the claims of duty. It is bound up with the realization of our most cherished hopes while putting awkward pressure on and destabilizing them. It eloquently exalts choice and then falls crushingly silent concerning what actions and ends are choiceworthy, leaving it perilously close to teaching that the choice is all.

The promise and the dangers of our era are indissolubly connected. The more freedom we have, the more we want. And the more we get, the more we weaken freedom’s foundations in moral and political life.

His arguments are even on his own admission half of a larger dichotomy - but Peter is always readable, and a beautiful stylist. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:51 PM by Patrick Belton  

HIZBULLAH WATCH: As the situation tenses up across Israel's northern border, Haaretz presents a good analysis of the elements of brinksmanship involved on all sides. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:37 PM by Patrick Belton  

HEAR YE, HEAR YE: For you law buffs in the audience (and there may be one or two of you out there), the OYEZ project has just gotten a website running with the recordings and transcripts of oral arguments for important Supreme Court decisions (with unimportant Supreme Court decisions coming shortly too). (Some particular favorites: U.S. v. Nixon, Roe, Miranda, Bakke, and, for you readers surfing in from foreignaffairs.com, Hustler v. Falwell and US v. Playboy).

And Josh, you'll be happy that they've also included Oyez Baseball, which combines your two (non-blogging) hobbies so that you can "build Supreme Court knowledge through America's favorite pastime." Fun. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 1:19 PM by Patrick Belton  

JOIN US FOR PIZZA AND ANTI-MULLAH PLOTTING: Our little Nathan Hale foreign policy society's D.C. chapter will be meeting up tomorrow, to discuss U.S. policies toward democracy promotion in Iran. Please feel free to come out and join us!

We're meeting at the Bertucci's restaurant by the Clarendon metro stop at 8:00 pm, and we've assembled some readings on the subject (together with a few current foreign policy openings in Washington and abroad) here. (Also, we've got chapters opening up soon in New York, New Haven, Boston, Chicago, and Oxford, so please let me know if you'd like to join up or start up a chapter near you.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:27 AM by Patrick Belton  

HEIL FASHION: OxBlog's "too stupid to remain in the market economy" award goes to Izzue's Deborah Cheng, of Hong Kong. Ms. Cheng's company has drawn the strong complaints of Israeli and German diplomats recently for the minor bad taste of featuring in her store a line of Nazi-themed decorations and clothes.

In her defense, Cheng said the designer "wanted the clothes to have a military theme and did not realize that the Nazi symbols would be considered offensive."

Fortunately, though, where the company had lacked acumen about the quaint delicacies of public taste, it is making up for it with firm and decisive action now. Sort of. Ms. Cheng said the Nazi-themed line of decorations and clothes "may" be withdrawn. "We're seriously considering removing the displays. But before we take them off, we have to find a replacement," she said.

Good for her. Someone should give her an award. That is, like this one. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:14 PM by David Adesnik  

MY DOG ATE THE WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION: Who says liberal bumper stickers aren't funny? Ah, San Francisco... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:47 PM by Patrick Belton  

HAPPY BLOGIVERSARY, GLENN! We're all in your debt - thank you. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:34 PM by Patrick Belton  

ARE YOU ADDICTED TO YOUR OXBLOG? Do you experience excessive anxiety or depression when you're away from our site? Well, that's okay, because CNN is all over internet addiction (with cute acronyms to boot....). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:33 PM by Patrick Belton  

HEADLINE OF THE DAY: The Three Tenors take Bath (CNN) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:19 AM by Patrick Belton  

CALPUNDIT FOR GOVERNOR: "So one of my friends said to me, 'Are you a convicted felon?' " punk rocker Jack Grisham recounts. "I said, 'No, not convicted,' and he said, 'Well, then you can run for governor.'" So he is, along with apparently most of the other Californians who have 65 friends.

These include at the moment the Terminator, the Porno King, a fellow accidentally (his parents may differ on the point) named Michael Jackson, and Georgy - who, barring CalPundit's entry, we along with the WaPo are rooting for.

Somewhere, Tocqueville's loving this. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:45 AM by Patrick Belton  

IN NEW YORK THIS MONTH? Well, lucky you. Because one of my favorite quirky little cultural traditions, the New York Fringe Festival, is starting up again. (I have multiple fond personal connections to the annual LES festival; my bro-in-law, playwright and director Daniel Kleinfeld, sported one of the best-received plays on the Fringe stage two years ago, and the OxWife was present at a party in the Village a few years ago when a young excited guy burst in talking in quick staccato sentences about this idea he'd just had for Urinetown.)

The NYT focuses on the Festival's supposed fall from fringe-theater innocence: "The festival's opening party...was held in Plaid, on East 13th Street, a swanky new club whose ideal clientele is probably more likely to be Britney Spears than the experimental director Richard Foreman." The Daily News beats on the same drum.

But hey, this is still some of the quirkiest, most creative theater to be seen anywhere, and good, clean fun (if at times also saran-wrapped and naked). (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:53 AM by Patrick Belton  

FRIENDS IN UNUSUAL PLACES, I: The editor-in-chief of the Syrian Ba'ath party newspaper is now calling for political reform in Syria. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 12:52 AM by Patrick Belton  

FRIENDS IN UNUSUAL PLACES, II: The Ayatollah Khomeni's grandson is in Najaf, calling for democracy and the separation of religion and state in Iran. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:39 PM by Daniel  

ANOTHER ARNOLD IS RUNNING. Well, Gary Coleman played one on TV. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:33 PM by Daniel  

ARNOLD IS RUNNING. Details on Leno tonight. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:20 PM by Patrick Belton  

NOTE TO SELF: Whenever I happen to win the Powerball, remind me not to leave a half million dollars in my car outside a strip club to get stolen....

UPDATE - which occasioned the following riposte from one of our friends,

Dear Patrick:

       Now that you have pledged NOT to leave half-a-million dollars of your Powerball winnings in a parked car in front of strip in order to be stolen, for what purpose WILL you leave half-a-million dollars in your Powerball winnings in a parked car in front of a strip club?

       All the best,

       Lester Czukor

       P.S.  My favorite example of the above question is (supposedly) due to Abraham Lincoln.  During the Civil War military officers from a variety of European countries came to America to observe the carnage.  Most were deeply impressed and frightened as to what would happen if the United States were to use such power against others than their fellow citizens.  A group of British officers had done the tour and were invitied to have lunch with the President at the White House (no record of whether they had to contribute to Lincoln's re-election campaign).  Lincoln asked them whether they had any observations they wished to report to him.  One of the British officers said:  "In the British Army generals do not polish their own boots."  To which the 16th President reponded:  "Really? Whose boots DO British generals polish?  In a similar vein there is the line attributed to, among others, Milton Friedman who once asked:  "If the ends don't justify the means, what does justify the means."

Lester then poses the question about whether there is a technical name for the rhetorical devise there applied. Readers?

UPDATE 2: Answering my plea, Tom Comerford suggests "squelch," "similitude," or the plain-vanilla "retort" - but also suggests a contest for the best rhetorical coinage. What's more, he offers up another one:

A, who never went to Oxford on finding out that B is an Oxford grad, says to B: "You don't look like an Oxford man."
 
B replies: "Funny, neither do you." (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:02 PM by Patrick Belton  

LETTER FROM SAO PAULO: A friend of OxBlog's, UPI Latin American correspondent Carmen Gentile, sent us a letter recently from Sao Paulo in which she writes about the human cost of Ivory Coast's civil war, as viewed through one refugee journalist now in Brazil. It's movingly written, so I'll post it in its entirety.

Talk of his capture and torture sets Bob Deenee's fingers into jagged arcs that clutch the edge of the table. He looks away, silent for a moment, then recounts the weeks of darkness and pain administered by hard-nosed soldiers.
"They took me from my home and imprisoned me in one detention center after another, constantly moving me around," said the 38-year-old former journalist for an opposition newspaper in the Ivory Coast, who now trolls the streets of Brazil's economic capital searching for work and purpose.
Deenee never learned exactly why he was picked up and detained, but he suspects it had something to do with his ongoing investigation into the government's use of South African mercenaries during its more than 10-month battle with rebel forces that aimed to topple the government of President Laurent Gbagbo.
"We were all 'captured' by what was going on," he exclaimed metaphorically, referring to his fellow reporters' examination of the killings and abductions by both sides of the civil war.
To Ivorians and resident journalists, the Sept. 19, 2002, coup attempt and subsequent outbreak of violence seemed a most unlikely scenario for a nation that was a relative model of civility in the region since its independence from France in 1960.
For the next 40 years, there was almost no political bloodshed in the West African nation, which is slightly larger than New Mexico. But the elections in 2000 that excluded an opposition leader from the majority-Muslim north sparked outrage and a subsequent backlash from Gbagbo's mainly southern Christian supporters.
And with that, the Ivory Coast had joined the world ranks of nations spilling blood along religious lines.
Resentment for the president simmered among the opposition until it exploded last September with the coup attempt, ratcheting up the danger factor for journalists such as Deenee who write for publications suspected of aiding rebels with information.
"I was asked what I had told the rebels, but when I said I hadn't said anything, they tortured me anyway," said Deenee, recalling how his captors administered electric shocks through his fingers, followed by long bouts of isolation in total darkness.
"Of course we (journalists) communicated with the rebels," he acknowledged, "we were trying to the whole story."
Government officials, however, suspected that Deenee was more than just field reporting, as he hails from the north, though denies ever aiding the rebels in their cause.
During his detainment, Deenee never knew what became of his home and family, a wife and their three children. Only later did he learn his house had been looted and his family had fled the country with the help of some friends.
His own fate was decidedly uncertain. Reporters are routinely taken into federal custody and beaten, their offices raided for signs of collusion with the rebels, according to international media watchdogs such as the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Deenee's newspaper Le Patriot was apparently on the government's list of suspected subversives bent on undermining its effort against the rebels. As a veteran reporter who'd covered conflicts in Angola, Congo and Rwanda, his profile loomed large in their sights.
Just when it seemed there was no end in sight, Deenee received a reprieve. The only catch: he was leaving the country, no questions asked. A military escort placed him on a ship that he was told would take him to Canada, where he had studied years before and had met his wife. There he hoped we would be reunited with his family and perhaps start anew.
But after three weeks afloat, Deenee landed on Brazilian shores in mid-February, a stranger in a strange land plunked down in the port city of Santos. It seemed the trip ended here, his family nowhere in sight.
Later he would learn they had fled with the help of some friends to Haiti where they stayed for a few weeks before heading to the Dominican Republic. Deenee's own saviors -- those that had arranged his passage -- remained a mystery until recently. While he wouldn't divulge their identities, he did acknowledge it was an opposition group that managed to win his freedom on the condition he leave the country.
That's about all the wiry Ivorian with no place to call home knows these days. His thin, sinewy frame is a testimony to his inability to earn a decent wage. He makes ends barely meet by teaching English to a handful of students and received the occasional donation for a local media union and foreign correspondents.
He's searching for a way to bring his family here, but with his bank accounts frozen at home and incoming barely enough to feed and shelter himself, Deenee fears it may be years before he can realize his goal.
"Now I'm 38 and in the middle of nowhere -- what am I going to do now?" he asks.
Back at home, the decision earlier this month by both sides to bring an end to hostilities provides Deenee with a glimmer of hope for his return, though he isn't certain he can. The government that detained and tortured him is still in control and the threat of renewed violence continues to loom.
And still there is the matter of earning enough to pay for passage home, send for his family, and in the meantime, ensure their well being.
"My dream is to go back ... but not until it is safe," he says. Until then, Deenee will remain stranded in Sao Paulo.

(0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:50 PM by Patrick Belton  

GET LEGAL: Hey, I'm only in Washington for a few more weeks, so I'm not exactly going to burn myself out if I do a goings-on about town column for the remainder of my time here in the federal city. So today's going-on: William Taft, the Department of State's Legal Advisor (and Yale '66, incidentally), will be speaking on Thursday from 6:30 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. at the American Society of International Law's Tillar House, located at 2223 Massachusetts Avenue in Washington D.C. (I have the dubious honor of having woken up his predecessor at 4:00 am one morning.) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:58 PM by Patrick Belton  

READERS IN HIGH PLACES: Did you miss OxBlog's coverage of the BBC's distortion of Tony Blair's comment last week about his "undiminished appetite" for serving in office? Well, lucky for you - now you can read about it in Andrew Sullivan's weekly WashTimes op-ed here. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 4:13 PM by Patrick Belton  

WANT TO DRAFT WESLEY CLARK? (Question: He wouldn't have to go to boot camp, right?) The good folks in the Draft Wesley Clark movement have just let us know that they will be having a meet-up in Washington tonight at 7 pm at Stetson's Bar and Restaurant at 1610 U. Street. I won't be able to make it, but would be interested in hearing from anyone who goes. (Not to be outdone in the hierarchy of Democratic hawk cred, Rachel and I will be having dinner then with a Reagan DOD appointee.....)

UPDATE: The WashPost went. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 11:22 AM by Patrick Belton  

NAME THAT NGO: So, being back in Washington (and more on this later – I flew back to the sunny Potomac last week and will be on stateside leave a month; after that, look for Rachel and me to be hanging our laptops in Oxford….), over the weekend I settled myself back into the federal city by strolling around Eastern Market and DuPont Circle with Rachel on Sunday. As pleasant and relaxing as our sunny strollings were, I couldn’t help noticing that for a city with very large white and black communities, how rare it was to see groups of whites and blacks walking down the street together or sharing meals as friends.

So I started wondering – what if you had an organization, springboarding perhaps off of churches, community organizations, and youth and professional groups - in which participating whites and blacks of roughly the same age would agree to spend time with each other socially and one-on-one, at least once every month? We already have Big Brothers/Big Sisters to pair up older and younger people , and help foster friendships between adolescents and adults - why not have an organization devoted to fostering friendships between race and ethnic communities? There are many ways a group like this could be structured - one might be to begin with mixing people who’d have more to talk about – i.e., evangelicals with evangelicals, dentists with dentists, plumbers with plumbers, English majors with other English majors. And a group like this wouldn't have to limit itself to forming friendships between white and blacks, either – though that might be a more common framework for the northeast and southeast, in the southwest, it might involve more of pairing Latinos and native Americans with members of other races; in metropolitan Detroit, Arab Americans; and so forth.

I would be very interested in moving forward with this, and would very much like to invite your comments, to hear from you if you might be interested, and your ideas – among other things, about what to call it. Any suggestions? Let me know! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:47 AM by Patrick Belton  

SECRETARY WOLFOWITZ?: Sergeant Chafetz has recalled me to post (quite literally) after a lovely weekend leave of being reunited with my wife. Expect OxBlog restaurant reviews for the D.C. area to follow, but first off, keeping with the martial motif, let's look at personnel switch-ups contemplated for the administration’s national security team….

The New York Times speculates this morning about the positions of Secretary of State, Deputy Secretary, and DCI coming vacant in a second Bush term. Powell attributes this to a promise to his wife, and Armitage to his desire only to serve under his close friend the current secretary. The current horse race? It's Condi vs. Wolfowitz for Secretary, with Wolfowitz having short odds on National Security Advisor if Condi moves out of the Old Executive Office Building and into Foggy Bottom. Lugar and Gingrich round out the long list to be signing SecState on the cable traffic. For DCI, Rep. Porter Goss, a former case officer, is being batted around, along with DOD intelligence officials Stephen Cambone and Richard Haver, and the omnipresent Wolfowitz. Also being mentioned for Langley are current NSA director LTG Michael Hayden (USAF), former NSA director and Agency deputy director Adm. William Studeman, along with retired senators Warren Rudman and Fred Thompson - Thompson, incidentally, played DCI in a 1987 film, No Way Out. (I'm not a DCI, but I do play one on tv…) While the prospects of a Condian elevation to the seventh floor do make one’s pulse race, her writings do display a bent slightly more Kissingerian than idealistic; for my part, I'll be cheering in the peanut gallery for Wolfowitz, Lugar, and Goss.

UPDATE: Greg casts his ballot over at Belgravia Dispatch. (And whoever said you couldn't vote for appointed officials?) (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:31 PM by Patrick Belton  

HOPE STREET GROUP: The web page is up and running for The Hope Street Group, an exciting new non-partisan think tank that's dedicated to coming up with policy recommendations that further the ideal of equality of opportunity. The organization was begun by a group of my friends, mostly Yalies and McKinseyites, all of them idealistic, centrist, and pragmatic. Look for good things to come out of them. They've already come up with publications on the idea of opportunity, on reducing both corporate welfare and corporate tax rates, on repairing capital markets, increasing homeownership, and on improving education and retirement security. And much more to come.

UPDATE: Our friend Armed Liberal at Winds of Change comes up with some useful responses to Hope Street's first batch of white papers. The folks at Hope are serious, dedicated, good folks, and I'm sure they'll appreciate and take constructively all the thoughts and suggestions our readers want to lob their way. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:06 PM by Patrick Belton  

MOROCCO THE BRAVE: (OR, HAVA-NARGILA….) On a personal note, courtesy of a fellow OxBlogger I seem to be the proud if temporary new owner of a hubbly bubbly (a.k.a. nargila - I would say hookah as well, except my wife and in-laws read this and I wouldn't want them to get any of the wrong ideas....). I'm not quite sure how it works, but after looking at the parts, I strongly suspect that once assembled I should be able to play bagpipes on it (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 2:05 PM by Patrick Belton  

THE BBC - NICE TO TYRANTS, NASTY TO DEMOCRATS: So, here's what Tony Blair said (as he responded to a question asking whether he would continue to serve as prime minister in a third Labour term in government): "There is a big job of work to do - my appetite for doing it is undiminished."

And here's what the BBC reported in its lede: "Mr Blair, who said his appetite for power remained 'undiminished'...."

And not to let a good distortion go, the website then links to the story thusly: "Tony Blair sidesteps questions on the David Kelly affair - but says his appetite for power is "undiminished"."

The Beeb: the (kind of) grown-up version of telephone. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:14 PM by Patrick Belton  

BUT THEN AGAIN, the OED did take five years just to get to "ant"..... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:13 AM by David Adesnik  

OFFICIALLY ON VACATION: I ship out tonight for the West Coast, San Francisco to be exact. I've actually never been there before. While I may check in on OxBlog once in a while, my only substantive posts will address the subject of "medical" marijuana. Or if I happen to run into Mr. Schwarzenegger on the campaign trail, steroid abuse.

Hail and farewell! I'll be back on August 12th.
-David (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:52 PM by David Adesnik  

CAMELS THREATEN ISRAELIS: Hamas and Jihad may be biding their time, but camels are now taking Israeli lives as a result of their invisibility in nighttime traffic. While I do recognize the suffering inflicted on camels by such collisions, I nonetheless condemn the equation of dromedary with Israeli lives as a form of anti-Semitic moral relativism. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:40 PM by David Adesnik  

SAO TOME UPDATE: The coup is over and the government has been restored. Yet as Adam Sullivan points out, we don't know what sort of deal the government cut with the mercenaries who temporarily seized power.

JAT adds that

You might want to notice that US mediators were apparently involved in the signing of an accord allowing the president of Sao Tome and Principe to be reinstated. So too were the UN and the African Union -- everyone appears to be trying to take some credit.

Finally, EC notes that the New Yorker published an in-depth look at Sao Tome last October. An in-depth look at Principle is expected to follow... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 5:15 PM by David Adesnik  

ROCK THE CASBAH: I thought my brother was joking when he said that punk anthem "Rock the Casbah" was a protest against repression in the Muslim world. Turns out he's right. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 9:04 AM by Patrick Belton  

TAILOR-MADE SPAM: My Nigerian spammer has taken to writing me with the subject line "SHALOM."

And they say you don't learn anything at conferences... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:47 AM by Patrick Belton  

BOY DOES IT NOT SOUND LIKE FUN to be in a House minority. If this piece from the WaPo is accurate (and anyone from either side care to come up and testify?), then the House Republican leadership is as a matter of practice denying their chamber's Democrats the ability to offer motions or amendments on the chamber floor or in committee.

Granted, the House Democrats treated the GOP largely the same way before 1994 - but that doesn't make it right. And while you can't deny a majority party the ability within reason to use parliamentary tactics and rules to increase its power, to completely lock out the minority party - irrespective of which party that is - distorts the constitutional purpose of having an elected assembly in which all of the people's chosen representatives may sit, and, with comity and in an orderly fashion, debate. Mr. Hastert, the American political tradition expects much better of you than this. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:53 PM by David Adesnik  

RELAXING NYC-STYLE: When I sat down at my desk last night, I intended to put up a light-hearted post about the simple pleasures of being back in NYC. Somehow, that post transformed itself in an autobiographical discussion of national identity. But this time, I mean business. No substance. Just fun.

So, the first thing I do when I come back to New York City is head straight for the legendary 2nd Ave. Deli. Within an hour of dropping off my luggage at home, I was out the door and on my way to enjoying the best chopped liver in town along with a mountainous center-cut tongue sandwich.

After dinner, I set about enjoying the finest entertainment that UPN has to offer: WWF Smackdown. Now, it actually isn't hard to find pro wrestling on television in the UK. But since it's on on Friday and Saturday nights, you have to give up either going out or getting adrenalized. But that's a little much, even for a Hulkamaniac like myself.

Often, those who know me can't figure out how a New York intellectual like myself can get so excited about watching muscle-bound, Speedo-clad warriors beat the living s*** out of each other. My answer: What's not to like?

If that's not a good enough answer for you, than you might find some consolation in the fact that once Smackdown ended I started going through back issues of the New Yorker so that I have a look at all the cartoons I missed. My favorite of the week has one sheep telling another that

"Sure, I follow the herd -- not out of brainless obedience, mind you, but out of a deep and abiding respect for the concept of community.

Heh. Like pro-wrestling, the New Yorker is also available in England. Once in a while, I would go to the college library to look at the cartoons. But how can you sit in a stiff wooden chair and read the New Yorker? What it's really all about is lying down on the couch after dinner and forgetting that there's any other way to spend your time.

Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home.

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# Posted 1:39 AM by David Adesnik  

GOING DOWN: No, this isn't another post about erotica. It is a post about leaving Oxford, an act known in Oxonian parlance as "going down".

First and foremost, let me say this: Thank God I am home. It feels really damn good. Because it isn't just a visit. I am now back in the United States for good (unless Paul Bremer decides that OxDem ought to establish a chapter in Iraq ASAP).

For the first time in three years, I truly feel that I am where I belong. I am not a guest. I am not an observer. Three years ago, I did not fully understand what it meant to belong. Nor did I understand what it meant to be out of place.

Before coming to Oxford, I had visited foreign countries ranging from Canada to Germany to Hong Kong to Argentina. Perhaps because I never intended to live in any of those places for more than a matter of months, I never felt that I had overstayed my welcome. I never felt that I had to fit in.

But fitting in is the challenge laid before us at Oxford. We are warned that Britain has a very different culture from the United States in spite of having striking similarities. We are told that our response to this difference should not be to retreat into the protection of the American community, but to reach out and truly learn what it means to live in Britain.

Instead, I learned what it meant to live in America. The longer I spent in the UK, the more out of place I felt. This is not to say that all the differences are negative. Much of Britain is incomparably charming and civilized in a way that America simply cannot be. But I never felt that I was a part of that Britian either.

It was not a lack of British friends that made me feel separated. In fact, I had more British friends than many of the other American Scholars. But in the presence of every bus driver, every homeless man and countless other strangers, I preferred to put on my Australian accent.

Because every encoutner is an international relation. Because the curiosity, awe and resentment that American provokes transforms every encounter into a social experiment. Like it or not, every American has to stand in for America.

Not every. But enough that it begins to feel like every. It reminds me of the paranoia that our teachers so conscientiously instilled in us in our Jewish elementary school. Every time we stepped out of that building, we became representatives of the Jewish people. Our teachers told us that if we were loud or obnoxious that those around us would decide that the Jewish people are loud and obnoxious.

Interestingly, I don't remember ever being told that if we behaved as model citizens that those around us would come to see the Jewish people as model citizens. We had nothing to gain and everything to lose.

Looking back, it is painfully evident that we were being taught to systematically underestimate the intelligence and open-mindedness of our fellow Americans. In fact, it made it hard to even think of them as our fellow Americans. While no one questioned that 20th century America had been better to the Jews than any other time and place on earth, it was never thought of as a final destination.

Nor was Israel. It was uncivilized. It was dangerous. A nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there. The Israelis were far tougher than their American cousins and they wouldn't let you forget it. They had survived five wars and countless terrorists attacks but didn't have cable television. (That was in the 1980s.)

So perhaps I was being disingenuous when I wrote above that until now I did not understand what it meant to be out of place. Because I was never in it. Then in college, America became my unequivocal home. When making friends, it didn't matter what state we were from, how much our parents income was, or whether we were black, white, Hispanic or Asian. Of course those things mattered. But if you found out that you both liked skiing or history or Led Zeppelin, then those things started to matter a helluva lot less. It was precisely because Yale was so diverse that I was able to see how little one's identity mattered.

I felt in place because I no longer had to decide between being Jewish and being American. Yet at the same time, it was no longer apparent that I had to decide between being American and being anything else. In college, I spent two summers in Germany and never felt that being American was a bad thing at all.

After graduating from Yale, I spent a year working in Washington at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. In the fall of 1999 and spring of 2000, globalization was everything. Hundreds of thousands of protesters were against it, even though most of us at Carnegie were for it.

But so what? On both sides, we were American. The question at hand was to what degree we should also be international or global. In that sense, being American was a good thing, since it meant being national.

As a pundit-in-training, I decided to write an op-ed about the protest movement. According to conventional wisdom, globalization bore more than a passing resemblance to Americanization. Therefore, protests against one were tantamount to protests against the other.

I disagreed. If the protesters were against American power, why were they more concerned with transparency at the IMF than with the fact that the United States had just bombed Milosevic into submission? Since the protesters were explicitly for human rights, they silently decided to recognize that the United States was fighting their battles for them.

Before sending my column off to the editors, I decided to run it by my supervisor, who happened to be Robert Kagan. While generally supportive of my writing projects, Bob thought that this one should go in the garbage. It was pretty clear that Bob was asking himself how someone relatively smart could have written something that was much more than relatively stupid.

The answer was naivete. I just didn't understand that the anti-globalization movement had within it the potential to become an anti-American movement just a few years later. Not that protesting against the war in Iraq was, in and of itself, anti-American. But the simplistic and cynical arguments made by so many of those protesters demonstrated that their opposition to the war was an extension of their anti-American worldview (and not vice versa).

While I had the good sense to throw my op-ed in the garbage after getting Bob's comments on it, I was still a long way from recognizing how wrong I was. Even September 11th was not enough to change that. After all, Le Monde's headline the next day was "Nous Sommes Tous Americaines". Who says one has to decide between being American and being anything else?

The attacks on New York and Washington coincided with the beginning of my thesis research. Thus, the growth of my own knowledge of American politics paralleled the growth of the anti-American hostility around me.

The political differences that divided Britian and America after September 11th helped me to place all sorts of other Anglo-American differences in context. For example, my occasional Australian accent was a product of my first, pre-Sept. 11 year at Oxford. But the anonymity it provided became something entirely different after the Towers fell.

The more I read about America, the more I identified with its historical sense of mission. I began to recognize that I had always had that sense of mission, but did not understand the degree to which it was part of my American heritage. Over the past two years, that degree became apparent precisely because there was no comparable sense of mission on the far side of the Atlantic.

Again, one cannot reduce the question of invading Iraq to cultural differences. But that was a part of it. Even before Sept. 11, I had begun to sense Britain's nation discomfort with the concept of a mission.

At Yale, the President and the Dean could not give a speech to any number of assembled undergraduates without waxing eloquent about their role as the leaders of the next generation and about their obligation to give back to the society that gave them so much. While the rhetoric was sometimes excessive or hollow, the students seemed to take for granted that it was the expression of a shared ideal.

In contrast, Oxford seemed to have no message for its undergraduates. When I told my British friends about Yale, they said that no one at Oxford would take that sort of rhetoric seriously. Oxford encouraged intellectual excellence. But the purpose of such excellence was not apparent. Personal fulfillment? Social sophistication? A job at an investment bank? I don't know. My friends didn't either.

I have come to believe that Americans' frenetic obsession with taking action is inextricably tied up with our sense of mission. We have to always be making everything better. It goes without saying that we often fail and that our obsessive activism is the cause of our failure. That might even turn out to be the case in Iraq. But without that activism and that sense of mission, we just wouldn't know what to do with ourselves.

God, I'm glad to be home.

[NB: This post could really use some editing, but I'm jet-lagged and losing it, so sleep is going to have to come first.] (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 10:38 PM by David Adesnik  

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS! In the aftermath of the Queen of Hearts' capture, Dr. Weevil tackles the deck from different perspectives. Highlight:

"Whoever decided to make serial rapist Uday Hussein the Ace of Hearts was either careless of secondary implications or had a sick sense of humor."

Rumor has it Gary Condit designed the deck... (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 8:49 PM by Patrick Belton  

WOOLSEY ON DEMOCRACY PROMOTION: Hey, it ain't erotica, but after all, I am a married man. This article by Jim Woolsey in Sunday's Observer (London) is a nice rendition of a speech he's been giving for some time. The final section is particularly worthy of applause, and even citing:

My most controversial point may be about what needs to be done to fight this war in the Middle East. We will have great difficulty bringing peace to the region without changing the nature of governments there - without bringing democracy.

If one starts out from the proposition that this is a task for America, Britain or others to accomplish principally with military forces, we will fail. We have to take a much longer view, and, for example, pay attention to the brave newspaper editors - such as one in Saudi Arabia who recently took on the religious police and got himself fired by the Interior Minister Prince Naif bin Abdul Aziz. There are similar brave reformers in Egypt and other countries who are effectively the green shoots springing up through the pavement, indicative of a growing approach, a growing openness in much of the Muslim world to democracy and liberty.

Some people seem to think that this is a hopeless task. Two points: first, the substantial majority of the world's Muslims live in democracies - Indonesia, Bangladesh, India, Turkey, Mali, the Balkans. They may not be perfect democracies but they are democracies nonetheless. I am the Chairman of Freedom House, the oldest human rights organisation in America. Freedom House says that there are a hundred and twenty one democracies, eighty nine of them free - that is, they have parliamentary elections plus the rule of law. Another thirty two are partly free, like Russia or Indonesia, say, with substantial difficulties with respect to the rule of law, but nonetheless regular elections.

In the eighty-nine years since the guns of August 1914, the world has gone from ten or twelve democracies to over a hundred and twenty, and those ten or twelve in 1914 were democracies only for the male portion of the populations. Nothing like that has happened within a single lifetime in world history before. Anyone eighty nine years old has seen democracies multiply tenfold.

Most of those came about not through military force, but in all sorts of ways. During and after the Cold War, for example, in Iberia, the role of the German Social Democrats was important in working with their socialist colleagues to steer Spain and Portugal away from communism and totalitarianism and towards democracy. In the Philippines, it was people power. In Mongolia, Mali and countries all over the world, democracy has become a way of life.

These are places where, year after year, the smart, self-appointed experts have said, 'X will never be a democracy'. They said that the Germans would never be able to run a democracy, the Japanese would not, Catholic countries would not - because in the 1970s, Iberia and Latin America were non-democratic. They said it about people from a Chinese cultural background, yet the Taiwanese seem to have figured it out; maybe China will too. They said it about the Russians; after all, they missed the Renaissance, the Reformation and the Enlightenment - how could they run a democracy? But they seem to be getting started.

All along, the smart money has been wrong on this subject. It is not that there are no retrograde steps. There are in Venezuela and elsewhere, and in the Arab world, a portion of the Muslim world, there are some two hundred-plus million Arabs who live without democracy. This is an area where the transition will be difficult for a series of historical, cultural and religious reasons, many to do with the influence of the Wahhabis.

Nonetheless, it is not hopeless. It is the best path to peace, since democracies do not fight one another. They fight dictatorships and dictatorships fight each other, and democracies sometimes preempt against dictatorships, but they do not fight one another.

If we want to be successful in this long war, we will have to take on this issue of democracy in the Arab world. We will have to take on the - and I would use the word 'racist' - view that Arabs cannot operate democracies. We will need to make some people uncomfortable.

As we undertake these efforts in the Middle East and elsewhere, occasionally by force of arms but generally not, generally by influence, by standing up for brave students in the streets of Tehran, we will hear people say, from President Hosni Mubarak's regime in Egypt or from the Saudi royal family, that we are making them very nervous. And our response should be, 'Good. We want you nervous. We want you to change, but realise that now, for the fourth time in a hundred years, the democracies are on the march. And we are on the side of those whom you most fear: your own people.'

Hear, hear!
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# Posted 7:14 PM by Patrick Belton  

A SAD DAY FOR NEW YORK: Councilman James E. Davis, a 41-year old non-profit founder and cop who joined the NYPD after being assaulted by two white police officers, was mowed down in the city council chamber this afternoon by one of his primary opponents. Ironically, Councilman Davis's murderer bypassed City Hall's metal detectors by entering the building as the guest of the man he would murder - like the U.S. Congress, City Hall had extended that privilege to legislators and their personal guests, as subjecting them to a metal detector was seen to be inimical to their dignity.

Councilman Davis sounds to have been an idealistic, energetic young politician, the likes of which his city could be proud. All New Yorkers everywhere will mourn the senseless cutting short of a promising career which would have done much good for the fellow residents of his district and his city. May he rest in peace. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 7:09 PM by Patrick Belton  

SAFE TRAVELS, DAVID!!!! Oxford won't be the same without you. (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:32 PM by David Adesnik  

LEAVING, ON A JET PLANE: As Patrick has already mentioned in passing, I will be spending the next academic year in Cambridge, MA. And, yes, I will still be posting on OxBlog just as regularly as before.

There are two reasons I'm going to Harvard: library resources and stipend funding. In the UK, even at Oxford, it is extremely hard to write a document-based dissertation on modern American foreign policy. At Harvard, I will either find what I need in Widener Library or be close enough to travel to other archives.

Also, given that I am about to finish my third year as a Rhodes Scholar, I thought it best to turn elsewhere for funding. There is limited fourth-year funding available, but for various and sundry reasons, I decided not to apply for it.

Instead, I owe my thanks to Harvard's Olin Institute of Strategic Studies, where I will be in residence as a pre-doctoral fellow. Alongside the much more common "post-doc" fellowships, there are a number set aside at various institutes for advanced graduate students who would benefit from being in residence at a university other than their own.

While I recognize that Harvard is an utterly inferior university when compared to first-rate institutions such as Yale, I am still extremely excited about heading to Olin and believe that both the city of Cambridge and the university itself will be wonderful places to work. However, since the academic year doesn't begin until September, I will be spending most of August on vacation, some of it in New York and some of it in San Francisco. I actually depart Oxford for New York tomorrow morning. And, so, until I log on from the other side of the Atlantic, au revoir! (0) opinions -- Add your opinion

# Posted 6:10 PM by David Adesnik  

TONGUE-IN-CHEEK VS. FOOT-IN-MOUTH: I had hoped for the former but wound up with the latter. Yesterday's post on the death of Saddam's sons was meant as a sarcastic swipe at the media's obsession with portraying the situation in Iraq as a Vietnam-era quagmire.

Notice that there is no explicit opinion given in yesterday's post. Each sentence consists of either a simple fact, or a vague statement which has critical connotations, but no explicit meaning with which one can disagree. For example,

Four American soldiers were injured in the battle, raising the already steep cost of the occupation in human terms.

The four injured soldiers are a matter of fact. But what counts as a "steep cost...in human terms"? Anything and everything. Still, the phrase suggests that too many soldiers have died, and for no good reason.

By relying on facts and cliches, the media can embed its prejudices in its published work while hiding behind a facade of objectivity. Sometimes this process is sub-conscious one. By imitating this practice in yesterday's post, I had hoped to suggest how even the post possible news can be presented as a failure.

FYI, in the first version of Josh's response to Matt Yglesias' post on the death of the Hussein brothers, Josh noted that I was "obviously joking". But then I asked Josh to phrase his comments in a way that wouldn't let the cat out of the bag. Hence:

Heaven knows I don't like to criticize the opinions of my co-bloggers, so, seeing as how Matt Yglesias seems to agree with David on the implications of Uday and Qusay Hussein's untimely demise, I'll criticize Matt instead....

That, too, was meant to be sarc