Enough is enough!

Six months ago, he said that those Muslims who want to stay in the country must “rip out and throw away half of the Quran ”. Today, in an opinion piece in a Dutch newspaper, he went further:

Enough is enough. Let us stop beating about the bush with political correctness. […] The core of the problem is fascistic Islam, the sick ideology of Allah and Mohammed as laid down in the Islamic Mein Kampf: the Quran. The texts from the Quran do not leave much to the imagination.

In different Suras, Muslims are called upon to suppress, persecute or kill Jews, Christians, believers of other faiths and non-believers, to hit women, and to rape, and to establish a worldwide Islamic state with violence. Suras call upon and instigate Muslims to death and destruction.

Ban that book like Mein Kampf is also banned. […]

How ashamed I am for the Dutch politicians. Their naivety and sickly strive towards the utopian moderate Islam, which will only bring our country hell and doom. How ashamed I am of those in and outside of the Cabinet and Parliament, who refuse to stop the Islamic invasion of the Netherlands. […]

The Hague is full of cowardly people. Scared people who are born cowardly and will die cowardly. Who believe and advocate that Dutch culture will be founded on a Judeo-Christian-Islamic tradition. […] Who [ignore] the interests Dutch population and cooperate in the transformation of the Netherlands into a Netherarabia as a province of the Islamic superstate of Eurabia.

I have had enough of Islam in the Netherlands: no more Muslim immigrant. I have enough with the worship of Allah and Mohammed in the Netherlands: no more mosque. I have had enough of the Quaran in the Netherlands: ban that fascistic book.

Enough is enough.

Strong words. Provocative words. Insane words from a raving Parliamentarian with a great big shock of dyed blond hair called Geert Wilders. He and his Part for Freedom (Partij voor de Vrijheid) managed to gain 9 seats in the last elections with (most notably) calls for a complete stop to immigration and the rooting out of Islamic elements in the country. To him the cause of crime and nuisance is Moroccan and Turkish “street-terrorists” who behave and think in ways that are at odds with Western ideas of liberalism democracy. Whether on the issue of treatment of women, homosexuals or fundaments of democracy, his warned that “tsuanami of Islamisation” is beginning to swamp the Netherlands and before you know it this will be a country governed by oppressive Sharia law. We must firmly reassert “the dominant Dutch culture”, he says, and no more mosques should be build, because he claims he’s “going crazy with all those mosques”.

Crazy indeed, but was he ever sane? All this preaching and threatening tones about Islamic radicalisation and creeping fundamentalism doesn’t help at all to the growing misunderstanding and divide between large segments of Dutch society. Instead, Wilders’ cheap rhetoric echoes those tried and failed populist insinuations and stereotyping that stirred the entire country when Fortuyn-fever swept through the country a few years ago. Two high profile politically motivated murders, a heightened state of alert, and a continuing wave of Islam-phobia later, and Wilders still wants to provoke and beat the already battered corpse of xenophobia and feelings of them-against-us.

Funny thing is, within the last six months the contents of the Quaran has not changed at all. If anything changed, it’s Mr. Wilders, who has become the very hardened extremist and militant raving village lunatic that he has been warning people will ‘invade’ this country and lead us all to ‘death and destruction’.

The Quran is but a book, a holy book with special meaning to over one million Muslims in the Netherlands. Admittedly, it does contain passages and words that are incongruent with this age and place, but it is not the book that kills and radicalizes. People kill and radicalise, people commit murders and rapes and incite hatred and others towards violence and revenge. It is people who hijack the Quaran, just as people have hijacked the holy Bible or Tora or any other religious text, to justify actions that defy all the teachings of love and compassion contained in the same books all in the name of ‘religion’.

Wilders’ allusion to Mein Kampf is telling. Some sixty odd years, millions of deaths and untold suffering caused by that infamous book penned by Hitler later, Wilders wants to ban a book in a free and democratic society where the freedom of press and belief are fundamental rights of every citizen regardless of race or creed. Who is the fascist now?

Thank goodness no else one in Parliament supports Wilders and his rants, and already a civil suit has been filed against Wilders for inciting hatred between racial groups.

Wilders was right about one thing though…

“Enough is enough”!

"One World, Different Dreams"

Six foreign activists unfurled a banner on the Great Wall of China today. Scribbled on it was the official slogan of the 2008 Beijing Olympics: “One world, one dream”. Celebrating the one year countdown to the greatest sporting event in the world perhaps? Underneath, the words “Free Tibet” on the same banner was less cause for celebration. The group of six has been detained, and their fates are unknown.

In 2001, there was much commotion when the Olympic Games were awarded to Beijing by the slimmest of votes by the International Olympic Committee (IOC). This self-proclaimed “non-profit organisation” decides who gets the Olympic honour in secret ballots, and has been trying hard to salvage its tainted reputation of being a corrupt club of self-serving internationalists. The Beijing decision did not help improve its image.

Critics cried foul and disbelief, when the Chinese capital triumphed over Toronto, Paris, and even Osaka—which was deemed one of the most hospitable cities in Asia. But rest assured, the IOC said. It will be a clean game, and it will bring great changes to China. To placate those critics who point to China’s poor human rights record, the IOC was adamant that the Games would bring the world to China, and China to the world, and in doing so put pressure on the regime to liberalise. Deals were struck with the regime to allow unprecedented press freedom to foreign journalists in this infamously repressive state, where news is known to be government propaganda and strictly censored.

Thus the Olympic dream began. In the past few years magnificent architecture and landscapes have been erected from the ground up. There is no doubt preparations is right on target to deliver what has been promised the most spectacular Games in history. To borrow those wise words of Chairman Mao, the opportunity to host the Olympics is perhaps the ultimate symbolism showing the rest of the world that China has finally “stood up”. The slogan “One world, one dream” is supposed to capture the spirit of “a great nation, with a long history of 5,000 years and on its way towards modernization, that is committed to peaceful development, harmonious society and people's happiness”. Applaud here.

But the nightmares of human rights and other abuses are far from having ended. A former UNICEF spokesperson and Hollywood began a campaign to dub the 2008 Games “Genocide Olympics”, in the face of China’s continuing financial and armaments support of Sudanese government:

That nightmare is Darfur, where more than 400,000 people have been killed and more than two-and-a-half million driven from flaming villages by the Chinese-backed government of Sudan.

That so many corporate sponsors want the world to look away from that atrocity during the games is bad enough. But equally disappointing is the decision of artists like director Steven Spielberg — who quietly visited China this month as he prepares to help stage the Olympic ceremonies — to sanitize Beijing's image. Is Mr. Spielberg, who in 1994 founded the Shoah Foundation to record the testimony of survivors of the holocaust, aware that China is bankrolling Darfur's genocide?

[…] Whether that opportunity goes unexploited lies in the hands of the high-profile supporters of these Olympic Games. Corporate sponsors like Johnson & Johnson, Coca-Cola, General Electric and McDonalds, and key collaborators like Mr. Spielberg, should be put on notice. For there is another slogan afoot, one that is fast becoming viral amongst advocacy groups; rather than "One World, One Dream," people are beginning to speak of the coming "Genocide Olympics."

Does Mr. Spielberg really want to go down in history as the Leni Riefenstahl of the Beijing Games? Do the various television sponsors around the world want to share in that shame? Because they will. Unless, of course, all of them add their singularly well-positioned voices to the growing calls for Chinese action to end the slaughter in Darfur.

Despite assertions by the Beijing Organizing Committee that the foreign press is being
“treated kindly”, Reporters without Borders begs to differ:

The Chinese authorities promised the IOC and international community concrete improvements in human rights in order to win the 2008 Olympics for Beijing. But they changed their tone after getting what they wanted. For example, then deputy Prime Minister Li Lanqing said, four days after the IOC vote in 2001, that “China’s Olympic victory” should encourage the country to maintain its “healthy life” by combatting such problems as the Falungong spiritual movement, which had “stirred up violent crime.” Several thousands of Falungong followers have been jailed since the movement was banned and at least 100 have died in detention.

A short while later, it was the turn of then Vice-President Hu Jintao (now president) to argue that after the Beijing “triumph,” it was “crucial to fight without equivocation against the separatist forces orchestrated by the Dalai Lama and the world’s anti-China forces.” In the west of the country, where there is a sizeable Muslim minority, the authorities in Xinjiang province executed Uyghurs for “separatism.” Finally, the police and judicial authorities were given orders to pursue the “Hit Hard” campaign against crime. Every year, several thousand Chinese are executed in public, often in stadiums, by means of a bullet in the back of the neck or lethal injection.

And so does the Committee to Protect Journalists, which warned of a

[…] yawning gap between China’s poor press freedom record and the promises made in 2001 when Beijing was awarded the Olympic Games. The International Olympic Committee awarded the 2008 Games to the Chinese capital based on assurances that authorities would allow the media “complete freedom,” and that they would apply “no restrictions” to coverage. While the government has eased some travel and interview rules that apply to foreign journalists, it continues to impose severe constraints on the domestic press. Chinese journalists are in jail. Vast censorship rules are in place. Harassment, attacks, and threats occur with impunity. China has fallen short thus far in its pledge to the international community.

To echo this, Amnesty International reports:

growing crackdown on Chinese human rights activists and journalists as well as the continued use of ‘Re-education through Labour’ (RTL) and other forms of detention without trial. Official statements suggest that the Olympics are being used to justify such repression in the name of ‘harmony’ or ‘social stability’ rather than acting as a catalyst for reform. […] the image of the Olympics continues to be being tarnished by ongoing reports of the ‘house arrest’, torture or unfair trial of Chinese activists and the extension of systems for detention without trial in Beijing as part of the city’s ‘clean-up’ ahead of August 2008. If the authorities fail to take significant action to reform such practices, reports of abuses are likely to increase as the Olympics approach with adverse publicity potentially affecting not only China, but other stakeholders in the Olympic movement, including the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the corporate sponsors of the Games.

And so does Human Rights Watch, which wrote:

On paper, the temporary regulations appear to free foreign correspondents from a decades-old regulatory handcuff of time-consuming and rarely granted foreign ministry approval for interviews and reporting trips o[…]. However, the new latitude granted by the temporary regulations is conditioned on being “in conformity with Chinese laws and regulations.” This is problematic, as many Chinese laws and regulations limit free expression. The continuing applicability of these other laws and regulations and the lack of independence of the judiciary limit the chances that the temporary regulations will be enforced, or enforceable.

[…]In addition, foreign journalists must still apply for rarely-granted official permits for reporting visits to Tibet. Worse, many say that they are often harassed, detained, and intimidated by government and state security officials in the course of their reporting activities. More disturbingly, such treatment is increasingly being meted out by threatening and occasionally violent groups whom journalists often suspect to be plainclothes police personnel […]

Human Rights in China wrote that the Chinese regime is (ab)using the Olympics to package and advertise its strengths and overshadow its failings. Stories are being revealed of small children driven to the brink all in the name of “Honour for the Nation”. Further, news reports that have leaked out of the country report that Olympic merchandise are being produced by child labour. Whereas big multinationals stand to reap billions in profits from selling their shoes, clothes, puppets and pens at exuberant prices, workers are being forced to work long hours in poor conditions:

Yet the Olympics movement, particularly the International Olympics Committee, has refused to acknowledge that labour violations in their supply chain exist, and that they need to take responsibility to create an ethical marketing and licensing program in the face of these contraventions. […] Even though the IOC Code of Ethics stating clearly that “The Olympic parties must not be involved with firms or persons whose activity is inconsistent with the principles set out in the Olympic Charter”, the IOC refuses to accept responsibility for even the most minimum adherence to basic labour standards in the production and sportswear bearing the Olympic Games logo. […] The IOC has consistently favoured an approach of denial and rebuttal of claims that it address the need for oversight and responsibility in the production of Olympic logo goods.

And yet, despite all these well-founded criticisms and misgivings, the IOC President just yesterday praised Beijing for its “excellent work”. “One world, one dream”, indeed.

Ironic. The UK (and others) can proudly announce their intention to boycott sports competitions in Zimbabwe, yet when it comes to China, a regime perhaps just as, if not more, oppressive and obnoxious, they welcome it with open arms. What kind of signal did the IOC want to send to similarly brutal governments out there when it gave China the gift of the Olympics? That it’s alright to torture your own people, and send them into gulags where they slave away manufacturing cheap goods? That it’s alright to stifle dissent and arbitrarily detain opposition, and to censor the internet and all negative news about the country? And that’s it’s perfectly alright to invade Tibet and destroy the last vestiges of that country’s cultural and religious heritage? Or perhaps the IOC wanted to condone China with its continuous war-mongering and warnings of invading Taiwan?

Whatever the message, whatever the motivation or incentive, in a year’s time fanfare and fireworks will fly over Beijing, as the city, and the country, proudly invites the world to see. See the proud achievements and progress it has made in recent years, see the beauty and magnificence of this up-and-coming economic and political dragon that has now reawakened, and see how civilised people have become through the ‘no spitting’ campaigns.

But there are things that the regime does not want you to see… people who have been forcibly rounded up and sent away to make room for the Olympic dream, the people who spoke out too loudly and are now being persecuted in prison… and those resisting in silence of one day seeing their own country freed from occupation and intimidation.

Look.

And you will see.

More cartoons here.

Cabinet formation

It took over ten weeks, but it appears that the two biggest parties of the last parliamentarian elections, and a smaller fringe party, are about to close the deal on a new cabinet.

There was a lot of name-calling, mud slinging and irritated live television debates during the campaigns. The Labour Party (PvdA) leader Wouter Bos explicitly said that he would never sit in the same cabinet as the incumbent Christian Democrats (CDA) leader and prime minister Jan-Peter Balkenende.

But politics is about pragmatism and reality, and given that the PdvA (33 seats) and CDA (41 seats) both got the highest number of votes, they decided to sit down together with the Christian Union (CD, 6 seats) in order to form a safe majority. A combo of two centre-right Christian parties and a centre-left social-democratic party.

Dutch politics is really all about compromise and consensus, and because none of the parties stand to gain a majority of the votes, it’s always inevitably a coalition of parties that go on to form the cabinet government. It’s a delicate process, bringing together at times parties that do not agree and even conflict on a number of issues. You do run the danger of the ‘tail wagging the dog’, whereby the smaller coalition partner causes the downfall of the entire cabinet over some controversial issue (like last time when the coalition partner Democrats-66 broke the formation over the Ayaan Hirsi Ali affair). In the current coalition, there are fears that the small Christian Union will be ‘troublesome’ on moral issues like the same-sex marriage and euthanasia. But supposedly coalitions governments represent the popular will better and more directly than majoritarianism. Hence the Netherlands is famed for its ‘polder model’.

So for the past few weeks they leaders of the parties have been sitting in secret meeting rooms, in an attempt to strike a ‘governing coalition agreement’ [regeerakkoord]. Everything was done in secret, and only the parties involved and mediator [informateur], Herman Wijfels who is responsible for getting the politicians around the table, know what is happening. It’s done in utter secrecy, even the location of the meetings are different every single week to avoid the press chasing after the party leaders for information (though the very table they sit around to discuss at is apparently always the same one). Even the 150 newly-elected parliamentarians have no idea of what kind of discussions and compromises taking place. So basically the future of this country is decided by the ‘wheeling and dealing’ of these four men.

To date, some points from the draft ‘governing coalition agreement’ have been agreed upon:

- General amnesty for asylum seekers who were in the Netherlands before 2001

- State pension plan (AOW) every pensioner is entitled to receive (around €700 per month): an irksome bone of contention when PvdA leader suggested during the election campaign that rich(er) old people should have to finance their own state pension. Compromise seems to be that those who stop working before 65, and have a top-up pension of over €15000 will have to finance their own pensions from 2011; while those who work until 65 do not have to; those who continue working after 65 even get a tax benefit

- Child care: while the CU and PvdA want free child care from the state, the compromise has been to make parents pay part of the costs, and that there will be more money invested in the crèche system.

- Some €800 million will be put aside for the environment, probably because of the recent sudden media attention (and climate changes) that suggest that global warming is taking place: a new ministership position will be installed.

- Mortgage tax refund: the PvdA wants to remove this because it believes rich(er) people who can afford to buy (a) house(s) should not enjoy tax benefits; but the CDA believes this will stunt the economy and hurt business; so current tax refund will remain.

- Economic growth will be capped at around 2% per year, whereby by 2011 there will be a big government surplus.

Allochthon, allochthon...

If you’re a white you’re an expat. Every other foreigner is an allochthon.[1]

This differentiation (or perhaps a better word is segregation) is even entrenched in the official Central Bureau of Statistics [Centraal Bureau voor de Statistiek, CBS] of the Netherlands. In official census surveys, they make the distinction between ‘autochtoons’ (locals) and ‘allochtoons’ (people originally born in a different country). Strictly speaking, the Dutch royal family (of German descent) would be allochtons, but no one would ever dare say in public. And then there’s the third, dreadful distinction: the so-called ‘non-western allochthon’ (niet-westerse allochtoon), defined as someone from :

“one of the countries in the continents of Africa, Latin-America and Asia (excluding Indonesia and Japan), or Turkey.”

Coincidentally (or maybe deliberately) people from these places happen to have a different skin colour. But why are people from Indonesia and Japan not considered a so-called ‘non-western allochthon’?

“On the ground of their social-economic and social-cultural position, allochthons from Indonesia and Japan are seen as western allochthons. It primarily is concerned with people who are born in the formal Dutch-Indies, and employers of Japanese companies with their family.”

In truth, people born in the formal Dutch-Indies are (mostly) white people, whereas people from Japan, a nation long considered developed and part of the civilised world, are supposed to have a more… (putting it mildly in their own words) sophisticated “social-economic and social-cultural position”.

So when are you not an allochthon? According to the CBS, the third generation of people with a different skin colour. So for those in the first and second generation (like me), tough luck… whatever you do, however you try to integrate, eat, dress, drink and talk like a local Dutchman, you look and speak foreign, so you are foreign.

Why is every deed of an allochthon seen in a different light from that of an autochthon? Simple: Because it’s about allochthons! As long as you are deviate from the norm (generations who are born and bred in the Netherlands), your ‘deviation’ is often included in [other people’s] judgement of you and also placed in that perspective. This is the idea that we mention someone by the most characteristic [element] of his/her existence.

[…] It is actually more fundamental [than this]: while you can change your career, you are allochthon for your entire life. You simply cannot stop with it. It is like your gender. Of course, there are people who change their gender, but to change your ethnic background, that is only possible with Michael Jackson […]
Bahram Sadeghi

Time and again you get official statistics which show what a great gap there is between (non-western) allochthons and autochthons. In a recent report, it was revealed that by the year 2050, a third of the population will be ‘allochthon’. This is compared to around the 19% of allochtoons now (or more precisely 10% ‘non-western’ and 9% ‘western’). And in the latest report finds concludes that (so-called non-western) allochthons have less of a rate of success in completing higher education than autochtoons. So, while 60% of the ‘locals’ graduate after five years of tertiary professional education (hbo), only 40% of do so. And in terms of those enrolled in university, while around the half of the ‘locals’ graduate after six years of study, only a third of (non-western) allochthons succeed.

As helpful as they are, statistics are just numbers, figures, calculations and abstract facts which have nothing or little to reveal about reality. They lump people together into nicely compartmentalised groupings which has little purpose other than divide and stigmatise certain portions of the population. It seems like the perfect means for the government machinery to more easily and readily divide, classify and rule the population for the sake of efficiency and bureaucracy.

Again, ask yourselves these questions: What does it say about those so-called allochthons who are born and bred here and know of no other home than this country? What does this say about the level of integration between people of different backgrounds? And how does making an explicit differentiation between people of so-called ‘western’ and ‘non-western’ background help with integration at all? If anything, it polarises people and society, and plays into the hands of those populist politicians and parties who use these kind of figures and facts to fool the unknowing voter. A popular weblog (Geenstijl.nl) produced a ‘Allochtoon-O-Meter’: with the use of the CBS statistics people can find out the percentage of (non-western) allochthons living in their neighbourhoods. The reactions of readers, those with few or no ‘allochthons’ as their neighbours rejoicing, and those with many ‘allochthons’ in their neighbourhood complaining and planning to move house, shows exactly how this kind of statistics is not at all helpful and counterproductive .

Discriminating, and disappointing… that, however much I personally do not fit into that wrong and racist stigma of the uncivilised, uneducated, benefit-claiming alien with a different skin colour, I should have to live the rest of my life labelled and seen as an ‘allochthon’…

I leave you with remarks from Iranian-born Dutch professor of integration at the University of Amsterdam, Halleh Ghorashi (emphasis mine and square brackets mine). She summed up the problem and issues in better words than I could:

”A positive development is that many more allochthons are belonging to the middle class. They have a great drive to emancipate themselves. The first generation began a new life here, they do everything to make something wonderful of it. And their children want to do better than their parents. That is succeeding more and more; there are many ‘social climbers’ amongst allochthons. Many more follow higher education, have jobs, pay taxes, go vote and feel themselves to be involved in society. But they must prove themselves time and again. [They are asked] time and again to distance [themselves] from the radicals. It is never enough. You become tired of this, and then you retreat to your own circle. […]

You should not lump people together into one [op één hoop gooien]. There are so many different new Netherlanders Turks, Surinamers, Morrocans, Indonesian Netherlanders, Antillians, Chinese, Vietnamese, Somalians, French, Afghans, Spaniards, and many more still. They are often equated with the group that cause problems. Take for example that TV-game show in which a candidate has to give another word for ‘non-conformistic person’ [‘onaangepast persoon’]. Instead of ‘asocial’ she said ‘allochthon’. […]

The new Netherlander is dynamic, future-oriented and self-conscious. He is open, prepared to change, he dares to undergo the experiment. He is hybrid: he dares to combine the best of diverse worlds with one another. […]

It is now about seeking contact with one another. We should look for ways to bridge the differences between groups. This is possible from a communal sense: we all feel like a Netherlander. It is an important step that many more new Netherlanders dare to come out for this: I am a Netherlander. […]

Often it is asked where we are from. Netherlanders always put so much emphasis [on the fact] that we do not belong here. This way, this will never be our country.


[This] was part of the Dutch democratic culture: giving others room. Tolerance is also a characteristic of civilisation. The society of today is no longer tolerant. You can treat others rudely without having to feel ashamed. Tolerance is choosing between two evils: between a taking up a conflict and letting the other be as he is. Now, we appear to be choosing for conflict and for laying down obligations [on others, namely foreigners]. But a hard attitude does not make you feel safer; instead you are going to feel even more unsafe.

We are accustomed to our freedom of expression. we act as if we can say anything, even if you insult others, even if you denigrate others. But the louder you scream, the weaker you stand. Whoever stands strong in his shoes is calm, peaceful, listens, lets others finish talking.

Freedom is important, but you must know how to treat it. Someone who only considers himself, is a democratic amateur. You are a professional when you also know the boundaries of freedom. You must give the other room, you must create room for the other. […] The Netherlands in the past few years has falling back from a professional democracy to amateur democracy.

---

[1] Allochthon comes from the Greek ‘allo' = other, and 'chthon' = earth. Autochthon also.

No magic formula

"I watched Bush's speech with some people who thought it would be a good idea to take a sip of liquor every time he told a lie. Three days later my head is aching.”
David Swanson

Mr Bush’s long-awaited speech was supposed to signal a change of US strategy in Iraq.

We consulted Members of Congress from both parties, allies abroad, and distinguished outside experts.

[…]

‘Allies’ as in the UK? Well, you have the UK’s support, but don’t expect it to contribute more troops.

In our discussions, we all agreed that there is no magic formula for success in Iraq.

And one message came through loud and clear: Failure in Iraq would be a disaster for the United States.

The consequences of failure are clear: Radical Islamic extremists would grow in strength and gain new recruits.

They would be in a better position to topple moderate governments, create chaos in the region, and use oil revenues to fund their ambitions.

Iran would be emboldened in its pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Our enemies would have a safe haven from which to plan and launch attacks on the American people.

Commitment and ‘deepening’ is not what the Iraqi Study Group led by James Baker advised. Even though Mr Bush took the “no magic formula” phrase directly from the report, he seemed to have disregarded the rest:

Many Americans are dissatisfied, not just with the situation in Iraq but with the state of
our political debate regarding Iraq. Our political leaders must build a bipartisan approach to bring a responsible conclusion to what is now a lengthy and costly war. Our country deserves a debate that prizes substance over rhetoric, and a policy that is adequately funded and sustainable. The President and Congress must work together. Our leaders must be candid and forthright with the American people in order to win their support.

Bipartisan approach… try convincing the Democrat-dominated Congress to give the rubber stamp to pour more funds and troops into Iraq.

Reason for failure:

Our past efforts to secure Baghdad failed for two principal reasons: There were not enough Iraqi and American troops to secure neighbourhoods that had been cleared of terrorists and insurgents.

And there were too many restrictions on the troops we did have.

Our military commanders reviewed the new Iraqi plan to ensure that it addressed these mistakes.

They report that it does. They also report that this plan can work.

The ‘cure’

This is a strong commitment. But for it to succeed, our commanders say the Iraqis will need our help.

So America will change our strategy to help the Iraqis carry out their campaign to put down sectarian violence - and bring security to the people of Baghdad.

This will require increasing American force levels. So I have committed more than 20,000 additional American troops to Iraq.

[…]

Many listening tonight will ask why this effort will succeed when previous operations to secure Baghdad did not.

Here are the differences: In earlier operations, Iraqi and American forces cleared many neighbourhoods of terrorists and insurgents - but when our forces moved on to other targets, the killers returned.

This time, we will have the force levels we need to hold the areas that have been cleared.

In earlier operations, political and sectarian interference prevented Iraqi and American forces from going into neighbourhoods that are home to those fuelling the sectarian violence.

This time, Iraqi and American forces will have a green light to enter these neighbourhoods - and [Iraqi] Prime Minister [Nouri] Maliki has pledged that political or sectarian interference will not be tolerated.

What’s to guarantee that the ‘terrorists and insurgents’ won’t return again? Are the Americans going to be stationed in these neighbourhoods on a permanent basis?

More strategy for success: throw money at the people

A successful strategy for Iraq goes beyond military operations.

Ordinary Iraqi citizens must see that military operations are accompanied by visible improvements in their neighbourhoods and communities.

So America will hold the Iraqi government to the benchmarks it has announced.

To establish its authority, the Iraqi government plans to take responsibility for security in all of Iraq's provinces by November.

To give every Iraqi citizen a stake in the country's economy, Iraq will pass legislation to share oil revenues among all Iraqis.

Not just Iraq

This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing terrorists and insurgents to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq.

Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops.

We will disrupt the attacks on our forces. We will interrupt the flow of support from Iran and Syria.

And we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq.

We are also taking other steps to bolster the security of Iraq and protect American interests in the Middle East.

Such an aggressive approach and tone toward Iran and Syria is totally contrary to the advice of the Iraqi Study Group:

The United States should immediately launch a new diplomatic offensive to build an

international consensus for stability in Iraq and the region. This diplomatic effort should include every country that has an interest in avoiding a chaotic Iraq, including all of Iraq’s neighbors. Iraq’s neighbors and key states in and outside the region should form a support group to reinforce security and national reconciliation within Iraq, neither of which Iraq can achieve on its own.

Given the ability of Iran and Syria to influence events within Iraq and their interest in avoiding chaos in Iraq, the United States should try to engage them constructively. In seeking to influence the behavior of both countries, the United States has disincentives and incentives available.

“Decisive ideological struggle of our time”

On one side are those who believe in freedom and moderation. On the other side are extremists who kill the innocent, and have declared their intention to destroy our way of life.

In the long run, the most realistic way to protect the American people is to provide a hopeful alternative to the hateful ideology of the enemy - by advancing liberty across a troubled region.

It is in the interests of the United States to stand with the brave men and women who are risking their lives to claim their freedom - and help them as they work to raise up just and hopeful societies across the Middle East.

A disguised way to say it’s a struggle between good and evil. What makes it so certain that it is ‘our’ way of life that the Iraqis and peoples of the Middle East want?

Don’t hope for victory

Let me be clear: The terrorists and insurgents in Iraq are without conscience, and they will make the year ahead bloody and violent.

Even if our new strategy works exactly as planned, deadly acts of violence will continue - and we must expect more Iraqi and American casualties.

The question is whether our new strategy will bring us closer to success. I believe that it will.

Victory will not look like the ones our fathers and grandfathers achieved.

There will be no surrender ceremony on the deck of a battleship.

But victory in Iraq will bring something new in the Arab world - a functioning democracy that polices its territory, upholds the rule of law, respects fundamental human liberties, and answers to its people.

‘Deck of a battleship’? This image looks strangely familiar…

‘Go big’ before going home’

If we increase our support at this crucial moment, and help the Iraqis break the current cycle of violence, we can hasten the day our troops begin coming home.

There are a few more strategies that Bush has forgotten.

‘Noble and necessary cause’

We also need to examine ways to mobilize talented American civilians to deploy overseas - where they can help build democratic institutions in communities and nations recovering from war and tyranny.

In these dangerous times, the United States is blessed to have extraordinary and selfless men and women willing to step forward and defend us.

These young Americans understand that our cause in Iraq is noble and necessary - and that the advance of freedom is the calling of our time.

Self-proclaimed messiah

It can be tempting to think that America can put aside the burdens of freedom.

Yet times of testing reveal the character of a Nation.

And throughout our history, Americans have always defied the pessimists and seen our faith in freedom redeemed.

Now America is engaged in a new struggle that will set the course for a new century. We can and we will prevail.

We go forward with trust that the Author of Liberty will guide us through these trying hours. Thank you and good night.

‘Author of Liberty’? Sounds like another of Bush’s fundamentalist Christian thinking … The ‘Readers of Liberty’ are not impressed, especially with the high death toll every single day:

Underscoring the challenge, even as the United Nations released its figure — 34,452 deaths in all — at least 70 more Iraqis were killed on Tuesday when a series of bomb blasts struck a largely Shiite university in northeast Baghdad.

After almost four years of war, in which Americans have focused largely on fighting an elusive enemy — Sunni militants and, more recently, Shiite death squads — military commanders say that keeping Iraqis alive has now moved to the center of the new strategy proposed by President Bush.

For many Iraqis, the pledge comes too late. The numbers reported by the United Nations were more than tenfold the number of American deaths for the entire war. As previous attempts to secure Baghdad have failed, tens of thousands of middle-class Iraqis have given up and fled the country. Those who remain are becoming increasingly radicalized as the violence draws them into a cycle of revenge.

The United Nations report said an average of 94 Iraqis died every day in 2006, with about half the deaths occurring in the capital. The majority died from gunshot wounds, in execution-style killings that are a common method for death squads, both Sunni and Shiite. The report registered the most lethal month as October, with deaths declining slightly in November and December.

Iraqi death toll exceeded 34,000 in '06, UN Says

The ‘surge’ in the number of troops and money to be poured into Iraq has been called the ‘The Texas Strategy’:

The "surge" is just another stalling tactic, designed to buy more time.

Oh, and one of the favorite techniques used by the owners of savings and loan associations to generate phony profits - it involved making high-interest loans to crooked or flaky real estate developers - came to be known as the "Texas strategy."
[…]
The administration has spent the last three years pretending that its splendid little war isn't a big disaster. There have been the bromides (we're making "good progress"); the promises (we have a "strategy for victory"); and, as always, attacks on the media for not reporting the good news from Iraq.

Who you gonna believe, the president or your lying eyes?

Now Mr. Bush has grudgingly sort- of admitted that things aren't going well - but he says his "new way forward" will fix everything.

So it's still the Texas strategy: the war's architects are trying to keep their failed venture going as long as possible.
[…]

Mr. Bush calls his critics "irresponsible," saying that they don't have an alternative to his strategy. But they do: setting a timetable for withdrawal, so that we can cut our losses, and trying to save what can be saved. It isn't a strategy for victory because that's no longer an option. It's a strategy for acknowledging reality.

The lesson of the savings and loan scandal was that when a bank has failed, you shouldn't let the owner string you along with promises - you should shut the thing down. We should do the same with Mr. Bush's failed war.

What did Mr Bush forget to mention?

Earlier this evening we aired a speech by President George W. Bush that may have left you with some false impressions. We need to correct these matters of fact.

The president's speech did not mention WMDs or Saddam Hussein or attempt to explain why we are occupying the nation of Iraq or what it would mean for that occupation to "win" or "lose." This may have left you with the impression that no justification is required by law to forcibly occupy someone else's country and kill a significant portion of their population. That is not the case.

The president made no reference to the permanent military bases he is illegally constructing in Iraq. This may have left you with the impression that he plans to leave Iraq some day. This, combined with his references to democracy, may have given you a certain idea of his plans for Iraq that does not seem to be suggested by the president's actions.

Bush also expressed support for a number of Middle-Eastern nations allied with the United States, notably Saudi Arabia. This may have given you the idea that these nations are democracies. They are dictatorships.

Bush began his speech by connecting Iraq to 9/11. In fact, Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11. We apologize to the millions who have lost loved ones because of this lie. When Bush said that al Qaeda was "still" active in Iraq, he failed to add that it had only become active in Iraq as a result of his invasion and occupation of that nation.

Bush said that he would see that the people of Iraq profit from its oil. This statement bears no relationship to actual US policy, and Bush has no legal right to decide what happens to another nation's resources.

Bush suggested that most Iraqis want the occupation to continue. This is false.

Bush suggested that occupying Iraq was making Americans safer. His own intelligence analysts disagree.

Bush implied that he can escalate wars at his own discretion. In fact, Congress can prevent him from doing so if it chooses to.

Of course, Bush has escalated this war in the past. We have not reported on that as such because he did not make a big deal of it. The reason he is making a big deal of it this time was not addressed in his speech.

What was new in the speech was a threat to Iran and Syria. Bush claimed that Iran is providing material to Iraqi resisters. There is no evidence of this. Bush said he was sending ships and missile defense systems to the region. These steps have no clear connection to Iraq and may be seen as part of a threat to Iran.

Bush said not one word about all of the Iraqi blood he has spilled. Approximately 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the United States' invasion and occupation of Iraq, thus far. And the death rate is increasing, not diminishing.

Why the surge? The reason maybe the hidden agenda to go to Iraq in the first place: "It's the oil, stupid." More evidence here:

As the [UK’s The Independent] notes, the [new Iraqi hydrocarbon] law will give Exxon Mobil, BP, Shell and other carbon cronies of the White House unprecedented sweetheart deals, allowing them to pump gargantuan profits from Iraq's nominally state-owned oilfields for decades to come. This law has been in the works since the very beginning of the invasion - indeed, since months before the invasion, when the Bush administration brought in Phillip Carroll, former CEO of both Shell and Fluor, the politically-wired oil servicing firm, to devise "contingency plans" for divvying up Iraq's oil after the attack. Once the deed was done, Carroll was made head of the American "advisory committee" overseeing the oil industry of the conquered land, as Joshua Holland of Alternet.com has chronicled in two remarkable reports on the backroom maneuvering over Iraq's oil: "Bush's Petro-Cartel Almost Has Iraq's Oil and "The US Takeover of Iraqi Oil."

From those earliest days until now, throughout all the twists and turns, the blood and chaos of the occupation, the Bush administration has kept its eye on this prize. The new law offers the barrelling buccaneers of the West a juicy set of production-sharing agreements (PSAs) that will maintain a fig leaf of Iraqi ownership of the nation's oil industry - while letting Bush's Big Oil buddies rake off up to 75 percent of all oil profits for an indefinite period up front, until they decide that their "infrastructure investments" have been repaid. Even then, the agreements will give the Western oil majors an unheard-of 20 percent of Iraq's oil profits - more than twice the average of standard PSAs, the Independent notes.

Of course, at the moment, the "security situation" - i.e., the living hell of death and suffering that Bush's "war of choice" has wrought in Iraq - prevents the Oil Barons from setting up shop in the looted fields. Hence Bush's overwhelming urge to "surge" despite the fierce opposition to his plans from Congress, the Pentagon and some members of his own party. Bush and his inner circle, including his chief adviser, old oilman Dick Cheney, believe that a bigger dose of blood and iron in Iraq will produce a sufficient level of stability to allow the oil majors to cash in the PSA chips that more than 3,000 American soldiers have purchased for them with their lives.
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As the Independent wryly noted in its Sunday story, Dick Cheney himself revealed the true goal of the war back in 1999, in a speech he gave when he was still CEO of Halliburton. "Where is the oil going to come from" to slake the world's ever-growing thirst, asked Cheney, who then answered his own question: "The Middle East, with two-thirds of the world's oil and the lowest cost, is still where the prize ultimately lies."

New Oil Law Means Victory in Iraq for Bush

Striking similarities with Nixon’s ‘Vietnamisation’ speech in 1969. Just substitute totalitarianism for terrorism.

And I want to end the war for another reason. I want to end it so that the energy and dedication of you, our young people, now too often directed into bitter hatred against those responsible for the war, can be turned to the great challenges of peace, a better life for all Americans, a better life for all people on this earth.

I have chosen a plan for peace. I believe it will succeed.

If it does succeed, what the critics say now won't matter. If it does not succeed, anything I say then won't matter.

I know it may not be fashionable to speak of patriotism or national destiny these days. But I feel it is appropriate to do so on this occasion. Two hundred years ago this Nation was weak and poor. But even then, America was the hope of millions in the world. Today we have become the strongest and richest nation in the world. And the wheel of destiny has turned so that any hope the world has for the survival of peace and freedom will be determined by whether the American people have the moral stamina and the courage to meet the challenge of free world leadership.

Let historians not record that when America was the most powerful nation in the world we passed on the other side of the road and allowed the last hopes for peace and freedom of millions of people to be suffocated by the forces of totalitarianism.

It’s too easy to draw parallels:

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First there is the realisation in Washington that it is not winning. Mr Bush has admitted this himself

Second, there is a policy of trying to hand over responsibility to the local government in the midst of battle, not after it - this happened in Vietnam with the policy of Vietnamisation

Third, there is the belief by the US administration that more troops are an important part of the answer

Fourth, there is an opposite belief by others that the enterprise cannot work and that disengagement must be sought - US public doubt is a theme common to both conflicts

Fifth, in Vietnam too the president consulted an outside group - they were called the Wise Men and, like the Iraq Study group, they too urged a policy designed to lead to withdrawal

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This opinion piece to agrees too:

How similar this all is to the situation we face in Iraq now.

In Vietnam and Iraq, we tried to occupy a country that posed minimal threat to the US. We waged a counterinsurgency effort against adequately skilled, motivated and well-supplied fighters who did not want us occupying their land. We tried to prop up a weak and corrupt foreign government that we had helped to install.

The circle has come around again in frightening and depressing ways, complete with thousands of US troops and innocent civilians (including children) dead and horribly injured, war profiteers getting rich, and America's reputation in the world severely damaged.

We also have a US administration, like the Nixon administration, that has lost the trust of most of the people and the Congress, and which strikes many as being out of touch with reality and dangerous.

Now, as in the days when Nixon was leaving the presidency and Ford assumed office, Congress is trying to take responsibility to resolve a difficult and poorly thought-out war of choice, waged in an apparently incompetent way.

Some reactions to Bush’s new ‘strategy’:

What we will discover in the next few months, therefore, is simply whether the entire premise of this strategy is actually true. The president is asking us to find this out one more time. He seems to disbelieve the overwhelming evidence on the ground - that the dynamic has changed beyond recognition. His intellectual rubric - democracy versus terror - has not changed to deal with fast-changing events, or to take account of the sectarian dynamic that his appallingly managed occupation has spawned. […]

[…] The only leverage this president really has left is the looming regional war that withdrawal would bring. Yes, if we leave, the civil war will take off. And if we stay, with this level of troops, the civil war will also take off. One way, we get enmeshed in the brutal civil war in the region. One way, we get to face them another day, and perhaps benefit by setting them against each other, and destabilizing Iran. That's the awful choice this president has brought us to. Under these circumstances, I favor withdrawal, while of course, hoping that a miracle could take place. But make no mistake: a miracle is what this president needs. And a miracle is what we will now have to pray for.
Andrew Sullivan, The Daily Dish

"2007 is going to be a difficult year. There is going to be violence."
Senior Adviser to President Bush, Dan Bartlett

Aside: a fascinating account of Bush’s psyche:

Much of the world outside the US considers Bush a bully. "You're either with us or against us" is a bully's threat that anyone can recognize. The Bush doctrine of pre-emptive strikes is a bully's doctrine.

For his intimates and those closer to home, Bush appears to be what is called an emotional bully. An emotional bully gains control using sarcasm, teasing, mocking, name calling, threatening, ignoring, lying, or angering the other and forcing him to back down. Bush administration insider accounts describe this sort of behavior from the president. He's well known for his dismissive remarks. His penchant for giving nicknames to everyone has its dark, bully's side. Naming people is a way to control them.

[…]

[On] famous Bushisms, such as:

There is no doubt in my mind that we should allow the world's worst leaders to hold America hostage, to threaten our peace, to threaten our friends and allies with the world's worst weapons.

They [the terrorists] never stop thinking of ways to harm our country and our people - and neither do we.

To a psychiatrist, these are not mere malapropisms and mistakes in speech. They suggest ambivalence oscillating violently between poles. They suggest a desperate uncertainty about everything that the president reflexively seeks to hide by taking absolutist, rigid positions about "victory," "success," "mission accomplished," "stay the course," "compassion," "tax cuts," "no child left behind," and a host of other issues.

[…]

"I'm the commander - see, I don't need to explain - I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation." [Bush in an interview]

As commander in chief, as a war president, he could assemble his other psychological defenses around him. He could split the world into good and evil and the country would follow. His internal oppositions could be projected without much resistance from the populace or his adversaries. He could be the gut-led, divinely inspired "Decider," to save the country. He could project own internal fears of being "discovered as a fraud" into a threat "out there" waiting to happen. He could surround himself with loyalists whom he could emotionally bully, creating a new family that would admire him and that he could control. Meanwhile the ambiguities of political decisions that can always be rationalized offer a safe haven. Until history judges me (and that's a long way off, maybe never) I can't be definitively seen as incompetent.

"And we understand. And the American people are beginning to understand. This crusade, this war on terrorism is going to take a while." (16 September 2001)

It’s a crusade, as Bush has repeatedly called the ‘war on terror’, but it’s an unfortunate metaphor which only serves to arouse historical animosity and pains:

When the crusaders first arrived amid their slaughter of Arabs (and of Jews), as the remarkable Lebanese novelist Amin Maalouf reminds us in his history, The Crusades through Arab Eyes, they were looked on with horror by local Arab populations. They were feared as barbarians, as mass murderers, quite literally as cannibals. The chronicler Usamah Ibn Munqidh, would, for instance, write: "All those who were well-informed about the [crusaders] saw them as beasts, superior in courage and fighting ardour but in nothing else, just as animals are superior in strength and aggression."

"This unkind assessment," adds Maalouf, "accurately reflects the impression made by the [crusaders] upon their arrival in Syria: they aroused a mixture of fear and contempt, quite understandable on the part of an Arab nation which, while far superior in culture, had lost all combative spirit."

Americans, despite heavy competition, now look like the new barbarians of the arc of instability - and things are going to get worse. Don't think the calling of air power into downtown Baghdad is likely to be forgotten. This is the behavior of barbarians, no less so than the use of suicide bombs in Baghdad's streets.