WhirledView

Our Friend Azerbaijan

by CKR

Jackson Diehl today writes of "Retreat from the Freedom Agenda."

Given my conversation yesterday with Neila Charchour Hachicha and my post on freedom in Tunisia, reading Diehl's piece just made me feel very, very tired.

Realpolitik sometimes requires working with unpleasant people and countries. That I understand, and I can live with it, uneasily. What gets me down is the evangelistic front of "spreading freedom" as "our friends" blatantly put down dissidents and rig elections.

I think I'd rather hear "He's our son of a bitch." That has some honesty.

Another downer is Azerbaijan's location. Yes, that small country sits on some immense oil resources, but that's not the whole story.

Five countries ring the Caspian Sea: Azerbaijan, Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Iran. Much of the news from that area of interest to American consumers has had to do with the breakdown of the caviar fisheries. There's been a cultural festival, too, in Iran to emphasize similarities among the littoral countries.

The part that gets me down is the mention in some of the articles on US war planning against Iran of the Caspian Sea as an invasion route. I think they must be talking about air strikes, but I guess it would be possible to transport small naval craft by air. Azerbaijan also shares a border with Iran.

So you're wrong, Jackson Diehl! For those who want a war with Iran, Ilham Aliyev is promoting freedom and democracy!

Nothing like believing your own propaganda.

Democracy in Tunisia?

by CKR

A year or so ago, I participated in an internet discussion board where three or four of us, all from different countries, discussed democracy, the nature of societies, and how to deal with some of the difficult aspects of our own societies. Pretty normal politics, in other words.

I was impressed by Neila Charchour Hachicha’s contributions, sensible and principled. I knew then that she had some difficulties with her government. I didn’t know that was her name then, but I’ve been told her identity by another of our group, who is concerned for her safety.

During our discussions, she mentioned that WhirledView was blocked in Tunisia. Seems to me that we’re pretty normal politics, too.

Neila has been able to publish an article in National Review Online explaining her current situation. That article brings up a number of questions.

Where is the Bush administration’s democracy promotion? Where is Karen Hughes?

Why do we not hear more about Tunisia’s repressions in American media? Tunisia is a neighbor to Libya, which we seem to hear much more about.

Please read Neila's article. It seems, more and more, that “democracy promotion” by the Bush administration is a flag they wave to divert attention from the disasters they are producing. It seems that, unless they have an interest in regime change, “democracy promotion” is no part of their foreign policy.

Update: Neila tells me that the US State Department has issued a statement on her situation. She also asks: Don't they realize it takes more than that to change a dictator's mind?

I Guess It's Too Late

Sniff...

Iran Is Still In the Crosshairs

Or at least we haven't heard that it isn't.

We urge the Americans reading this to contact your elected representatives to head off a military confrontation with Iran. We presented talking points that you can use.

We don't need another war on top of the disaster in Iraq.

Scientists, To the Blogs!

by CKR

While the Washington Post and Ellen Goodman and the New York Times struggle with the idea of blogging (no newsprint and anyone can play, fancy that!), scientists are being urged to get into the fray.

Alison Ashlin and Richard J. Ladle, from the Oxford University Centre for the Environment, surveyed thirty blogs for accuracy on global extinction rates. Scientific consensus is between 74 and 150; most of the blogs surveyed fell in this range, but there were significant outliers at one a day and thousands a day.

We scientists are quiet folk, not usually given to the prerorations and accusations of the mass media, so Ashlin and Ladle quietly make some recommendations for environmental and other scientists.

Environmental scientists should actively engage in blogging to increase the presence of informed opinions in the blogosphere. Research supervisors should encourage students to blog while providing training in science communication and dissemination. Senior scientists should set up their own high-profile weblogs to help allay fears that blogging is somewhat disreputable…Environmental research groups and peer groups should create weblogs for the discussion of new ideas and the dissemination of research findings.

The article is in the Policy Forum of the 14 April Science. Unfortunately, it’s behind a subscription wall. I have a subscription to Science in hard copy and could probably access it, but some time ago I ran into a series of snafus in accessing the site and gave up. I think I have an e-mail somewhere with a new password or whatever in it, but I really, really don’t like to waste time messing with internet mazes.

So there are things here that both Science and Jim Brady might learn. Listening, anyone?

Puffing up Karen Hughes

By PHK

Karen Hughes recently went on a “good news” media offensive here at home to tout her public diplomacy achievements to date. Glenn Kessler at the WaPo bought in hook, line and sinker. Although on balance positive, Pablo Bachelet at the Miami Herald is a little more realistic. The New York Times ignored the interview entirely – as far as I can tell.

To summarize Ms. Hughes’ achievements – according to Hughes as mostly reported by Kessler:

1. Setting up a rapid response team that monitors Arabic newscasts and then distributes early morning summaries in contrast to 14 disjointed reports that came out 24-48 hours after the news appeared overseas;
2. Eliminating the clearance process so the U.S. Ambassadors overseas can give interviews without prior Washington clearance;
3. Establishing a regional spokesperson’s office in Dubai to handle inquiries from Arab media and lifting the informal ban on U.S. officials appearing on Al Jazeera;
4. Developing a new program “to research messages and themes that resonate in certain countries and then coordinate with other agencies . . . to make sure the messages are delivered consistently;
5. Adding public diplomacy skills to criteria for evaluating Ambassadors for promotions;
6. Creating new senior level posts – placing a deputy assistant secretary responsible in every regional bureau in the State Department; and
7. “Seeking more funds for exchange programs while tapping the support of U.S. businesses;” Funds for exchange programs, according to Bachelet will include an increase of $6 million more dollars for student and youth exchanges for Latin America.

Oh, yes, and we’re also assured that Hughes meets with W regularly over lunch or dinner to update him on her progress so – I guess - she’s supposedly “in on the take offs as well as the landings.” Wonder if she’s ever discussed the likely public opinion blowback in the Muslim world and elsewhere abroad towards W’s insistence on keeping a nuclear option open in dealing with his latest nemesis - Ahmadinejad in Iran?

I guess I’d be far more enthusiastic about Hughes self-congratulatory public diplomacy achievements if I didn’t know that several of these “innovations” simply reinvent the wheel – but far less effectively – than when public diplomacy was run by USIA, not splintered and the remains mostly scattered throughout the U.S. State Department.

Free to Test: India

by CKR

A representative of the Indian Foreign Ministry has rejected any restrictions on India's testing its nuclear weapons.

The five nuclear weapon powers under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty have committed to a test moratorium. Although India agreed to a moratorium in the agreement announced by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Bush in March, the Foreign Ministry is now saying that a moratorium is unacceptable.

The BJP Party has come out against the agreement, calling it "an insult to India."

Meanwhile, Jim Hoagland has interviewed Prime Minister Singh and found him friendly.

And he said he could not imagine circumstances that would require India to resume nuclear testing, an option that his Indian critics assert is a sovereign right. "Our scientists tell me they need no further tests. As for the distant future, I cannot predict forever, but our commitment is to continue our unilateral moratorium."

Either Prime Minister Singh needs to speak to his foreign ministry or Jim Hoagland needs to read the Indian press. Or even the Voice of America.

Birds, Eggs, Nests: A Post Easter Story

By PLS

This is a story about eggs, blue specked eggs, and pink-throated house finches and saucer-sized nests lined with fluff and soft stipa grass. I wanted to make it into an Easter story, but I couldn’t, because it is really a story about nature red in tooth and claw. Oh, there’s a bald eagle and a snow jay in it, too.

I hiked with the local Sierra Club along the Rio Grande north of Taos, near Questa, two Saturdays ago. We hairpinned straight down the canyon wall for a few hundred feet than walked about four miles north, crossing the inflow of the Red River and laboring over several high rockfalls. The air was cool, the sun was warm and dormant deciduous things had decided it might be safe to unfurl some leaves, which gave the brushy meadowy spots a soft green haze.

We picnicked by an energetic little waterfall sluicing down from a idyllic pool with an awful name: Big Arsenic Spring. And then we retraced our steps along the river and up up up the canyon wall.

I have to believe that our path was an ancient one, because we passed many boulders marked with petroglyphs. Some glyphs represented deer and elk. Others depicted weirdly dressed humans. There were snakes and cornstalks, too. Several boulders offered amusing opportunities for selective perception. Looking at one particularly animal-rich speciman, I found myself thinking ruefully that local wildlife had been sadly depleted since the days when such plentiful herds grazed by the river running just below us. A guy standing right beside me saw a stag with a harem of does. On another he saw a spaceman in the humanoid figure; I saw a woman with curlers.