Starting Points

Dec 17, 2009

Tiger Falls from Grace

Tiger Woods's self-imposed exile from golf is the most stunning--and stunningly rapid--fall from grace in the history of sports. Not since Shoeless Joe Jackson was banned from baseball after being dubiously blamed for helping throw the 1919 World Series have we seen such a supersonic transition from heroism to heel. And not since Michael Jordan retired from basketball in 1993, following the murder of his father, has a world-class athlete voluntarily taken himself out of his sport in his prime. Woods's exile may last three months or it may last three years. But one thing is certain: unlike the twenty-four-hour wall-to-wall sleaze that's dominated the airwaves since the initial revelations of Woods's infidelity, this is actual news. After fourteen years of being protected by the press, the Tiger has become carrion. And now, the greatest golfer in history is walking away.

The jury is out on whether Tiger's retreat makes him more sympathetic. But years from now when we look back at this saga, I hope we remember that Mr. Woods didn't choose to leave golf until his sponsors left him. Woods announced his departure on December 11. He hadn't been on a prime time commercial since November 29, three days after the accident, according to the Nielson Company.

The "global consulting company" Accenture dropped him from the homepage of their website. AT&T told him not to call. Gillette said that they could find others to shave for the camera. Every part of Tiger Woods Inc. sized up his moment of desperate need and, instead of offering solidarity and support, ran for cover.

Only a couple of companies decided to stand by Woods. "Tiger has been part of Nike for more than a decade," the company said in a statement. "He is the best golfer in the world and one of the greatest athletes of his era. We look forward to his return to golf. He and his family have Nike's full support." This is hardly surprising. Tiger has made Nike untold treasure--while resisting pressure to say word one about the abhorrent labor practices that define the company's profit margins.

And Mohammad Juma Bu Amin, the chief executive officer of Golf in Dubai said in a direct statement to Tiger: "We are with you in this difficult time and respect your request for family privacy. As and when you decide to return to the circuit, you can always count on us.... We will be more than delighted to welcome you to Dubai. Consider Dubai your second home."

So here is Tiger Woods in 2010: no tour, a busted marriage, and alone with nothing but his sweatshops to keep him warm.

This is what we call chickens roosting. The least attractive part of Woods's persona--including all recent peccadilloes--is his complete absence of conscience when it comes to peddling his billion-dollar brand. As we have been writing for years here at The Nation, Tiger's partnership with the habitual toxic waste dumpers Chevron and the financial criminals in Dubai deserves far more scrutiny from the sports press than it's received (none).

Then there was the Philippines. As detailed in the documentary The Golf War, the Filipino government, in conjunction with the military and developers, attempted in the late nineties to remove thousands of peasants from their land, known as Hacienda Looc, to build a golf course. They resisted and three movement leaders ended up dead. Where was Woods? He was brought in by the government to play in an exhibition match and sell golf (not explicitly the course, wink, wink), all for an undisclosed fee. The government called it "The Day of the Tiger" and followed his--assumedly G-rated--actions for twenty-four hours. The Golf War filmmakers show clips of Woods saying to kids, "I want all of you to learn and grow from this experience. Invariably you're gonna learn life, gonna learn about life because golf is a microcosm of life." Meanwhile the developers of the course were thrilled at the PR boost his appearance gave their project. Macky Maceda, a vice-president for Fil-Estate Land, Incorporated, the golf course developer in Hacienda Looc, commented, "Oh, I think it's going to be a great picker upper for the entire country in general. Everybody's feeling kind of down with this economic crisis. And Tiger is just, I know it, he's going to give everybody a good feeling."

Romy Capulong, legal counsel for the Hacienda Looc farmers, had a different take: "Tiger Woods should be barred from entering this country, I think. If I can do something about it--I'll certainly do that--to bar him from entering this country and propagating golf."

Tiger, with his global ethnic appeal, has been the sport's willing avatar, traveling the global south seeking new acres to conquer. The sports media has for years closed ranks around Tiger, defending his right "to not be political."

But he has been political. It's the politics of using golf as a weapon to reap untold riches and all the other attendant privileges of fame. It's the politics of selling yourself as a trailblazing icon, while rolling your eyes at the struggles that made your ascendance possible. It's the politics of placing your brand above any and all other concerns. It's the politics of turning a blind eye to your corporate partners' malfeasance, when there is a buck to be made. This is the real teachable moment of this whole circus: if you front for the worst of the worst, don't expect anyone to have your back.

About Dave Zirin

Dave Zirin is The Nation's sports editor. He is the author of Welcome to the Terrordome: the Pain Politics and Promise of Sports (Haymarket) and A People's History of Sports in the United States (The New Press). His writing has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Sports Illustrated.com and The Progressive. He is the host of Sirius/XM's Edge of Sports Radio.

Democrats' Blues Grow Deeper in New Poll

By PETER WALLSTEN

Associated Press

President Obama makes a statement on health care after meeting with Senators on Tuesday. From left: Senate Banking Committee Chairman Sen. Christopher Dodd; Senate Finance Committee Chairman Sen. Max Baucus; the president; and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

WASHINGTON -- Less than a year after Inauguration Day, support for the Democratic Party continues to slump, amid a difficult economy and a wave of public discontent, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll.

The findings underscored how dramatically the political landscape has changed during the Obama administration's first year. In January, despite the recession and financial crisis, voters expressed optimism about the future, the new president enjoyed soaring approval ratings, and congressional leaders promised to swiftly pass his ambitious agenda.

In December's survey, for the first time, less than half of Americans approved of the job President Barack Obama was doing, marking a steeper first-year fall for this president than his recent predecessors. Also for the first time this year, the electorate was split when asked which party it wanted to see in charge after the 2010 elections. For months, a clear plurality favored Democratic control.

The survey suggests that public discontent with Mr. Obama and his party is being driven by an unusually grim view of the country's status and future prospects.

A majority of Americans believe the U.S. is in decline. And a plurality now say the U.S. will be surpassed by China in 20 years as the top power.

Democrats' problems seem in part linked to their ambitious health-care plan, billed as the signature achievement of Mr. Obama's first year. Now, for the first time, more people said they would prefer Congress did nothing on health care than who wanted to see the overhaul enacted.

Following the Polls

View Interactive

See how your answers compare with the poll results.

See full results of the poll

Pulse of the Poll

View Interactive

Track Obama's approval on foreign policy, the economy, more.

More interactive graphics and photos

"For Democrats, the red flags are flying at full mast," said Democratic pollster Peter Hart, who conducted the survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff. "What we don't know for certain is: Have we reached a bottoming-out point?"

The biggest worry for Democrats is that the findings could set the stage for gains by Republican candidates in next year's elections. Support from independents for the president and his party continues to dwindle. In addition, voters intending to back Republicans expressed far more interest in the 2010 races than those planning to vote for Democrats, illustrating how disappointment on the left over attempts by party leaders to compromise on health care and other issues is damping enthusiasm among core party voters.

But public displeasure with Democrats wasn't translating directly into warmth for Republicans. Twenty-eight percent of voters expressed positive feelings about the GOP -- a number that has remained constant through the Democrats' decline over the summer and fall. Only 5% said their feelings toward the Republicans were "very positive."

And in one arena, Afghanistan, Mr. Obama appeared to have some success in winning support for his planned troop surge. Liberals remain largely opposed to the strategy, but in fewer numbers compared with before Mr. Obama made his case in a speech at West Point. Overall, by 44% to 41%, a plurality believe his strategy is the right approach.

Still, the survey paints a decidedly gloomy picture for Democrats, who appear to be bearing the brunt of public unease as unemployment has risen from 7.6% to 10% since Mr. Obama took office. Just 35% of voters said they felt positively about the Democratic Party, a 14-point slide since February. Ten percent felt "very positive."

In exclusive NBC/WSJ poll has Barack Obama's popularity below 50 percent for the first time in his presidency. But, as WSJ's Peter Wallsten points out, the news for the GOP isn't all good.

"Overall, it's just a depressing time right now," said Mike Ashmore, 23 years old, of Lansdale, Pa., an independent who supported Mr. Obama last year but now complained about the president's lack of action on jobs.

Julie Edwards, 52, an aircraft technician for Boeing Co. in Mesa, Ariz., said she voted Democratic in the past two elections but wasn't sure how she would vote next time. She wondered why Wall Street firms were bailed out when average Americans needed help. "We can bail out Wall Street, but everybody else has to suffer in spades for it," she said.

Democratic leaders, while bracing for losses next year, have argued that unlike the 1994 elections, in which Republicans gained 54 seats and took the House majority, Democrats would survive 2010 in part because they are taking steps to avoid that possibility. Republicans must gain 41 seats to take control.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Wednesday that Democrats "fully intend to be in the majority" after November 2010, and she was now shifting to "campaign mode" to help candidates. Party officials are leaning on a number of longtime colleagues to fight for their seats rather than retire.

The Journal/NBC survey found Ms. Pelosi's presence on the campaign trail could do more harm than good. Fifty-two percent said they would be less likely to vote for a candidate who agreed with the speaker almost all the time, compared with 42% who felt that way about candidates siding with Republican leaders.

For Mr. Obama, who has relied on his personal popularity to retain the clout he needs to enact his legislative agenda, the survey pointed to troubling signs.

A majority for the first time disapproved of his handling of the economy. And the public's personal affection for the president, a consistent strong suit, has begun to fray. Fifty percent now feel positive about him, six points lower than in October and an 18-point drop since his early weeks in office.

Democrats' troubles can be attributed in part to changing feelings among some core supporters. A third of voters 34 and under, a group that turned out heavily for Democrats last year, feel negative toward the Democratic Party. And just 38% of Hispanics feel positive, down sharply from 60% in February.

The survey, which was conducted Dec. 11-14, has a margin of error of 3.1 percentage points.

—Nomaan Merchant contributed to this article.

Write to Peter Wallsten at peter.wallsten@wsj.com

Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

Image via Wikipedia

$26 Software Is Used to Breach Key Weapons in Iraq; Iranian Backing Suspected

By SIOBHAN GORMAN, YOCHI J. DREAZEN and AUGUST COLE

WASHINGTON -- Militants in Iraq have used $26 off-the-shelf software to intercept live video feeds from U.S. Predator drones, potentially providing them with information they need to evade or monitor U.S. military operations.

Senior defense and intelligence officials said Iranian-backed insurgents intercepted the video feeds by taking advantage of an unprotected communications link in some of the remotely flown planes' systems. Shiite fighters in Iraq used software programs such as SkyGrabber -- available for as little as $25.95 on the Internet -- to regularly capture drone video feeds, according to a person familiar with reports on the matter.

The State of U.S. Intelligence

Drone Kills a Leader of Al Qaeda,
Dec. 12, 2009
Terrorists Are Likely Testing Cyber Attacks,
Nov. 19, 2009
U.S. Spy Efforts Have Improved,
Sept. 17, 2009
White House Cybersecurity Czar Steps Down,
Aug. 4, 2009
Cyber Blitz Hits U.S., Korea,
July 9, 2009
Troubles Plague Cyberspy Defense,
July 3, 2009
U.S. Cyber Infrastructure Vulnerable to Attacks,
May 6, 2009

U.S. officials say there is no evidence that militants were able to take control of the drones or otherwise interfere with their flights. Still, the intercepts could give America's enemies battlefield advantages by removing the element of surprise from certain missions and making it easier for insurgents to determine which roads and buildings are under U.S. surveillance.

The drone intercepts mark the emergence of a shadow cyber war within the U.S.-led conflicts overseas. They also point to a potentially serious vulnerability in Washington's growing network of unmanned drones, which have become the American weapon of choice in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The Obama administration has come to rely heavily on the unmanned drones because they allow the U.S. to safely monitor and stalk insurgent targets in areas where sending American troops would be either politically untenable or too risky.

The stolen video feeds also indicate that U.S. adversaries continue to find simple ways of counteracting sophisticated American military technologies.

U.S. military personnel in Iraq discovered the problem late last year when they apprehended a Shiite militant whose laptop contained files of intercepted drone video feeds. In July, the U.S. military found pirated drone video feeds on other militant laptops, leading some officials to conclude that militant groups trained and funded by Iran were regularly intercepting feeds.

Global Restructions on Religion

Image via Wikipedia

Executive Summary

For more than half a century, the United Nations and numerous international organizations have affirmed the principle of religious freedom.¹ For just as many decades, journalists and human rights groups have reported on persecution of minority faiths, outbreaks of sectarian violence and other pressures on religious individuals and communities in many countries. But until now, there has been no quantitative study that reviews an extensive number of sources to measure how governments and private actors infringe on religious beliefs and practices around the world.

"Global Restrictions on Religion," a new study by the Pew Research Center's Forum on Religion & Public Life, finds that 64 nations -- about one-third of the countries in the world -- have high or very high restrictions on religion. But because some of the most restrictive countries are very populous, nearly 70% of the world's 6.8 billion people live in countries with heavy restrictions on religion, the brunt of which often falls on religious minorities.

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Some restrictions result from government actions, policies and laws. Others result from hostile acts by private individuals, organizations and social groups. The highest overall levels of restrictions are found in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Iran, where both the government and society at large impose numerous limits on religious beliefs and practices. But government policies and social hostilities do not always move in tandem. Vietnam and China, for instance, have high government restrictions on religion but are in the moderate or low range when it comes to social hostilities. Nigeria and Bangladesh follow the opposite pattern: high in social hostilities but moderate in terms of government actions.

Among all regions, the Middle East-North Africa region has the most government and social restrictions on religion, while the Americas are the least-restrictive region on both measures. Among the world's 25 most populous countries, Iran, Egypt, Indonesia, Pakistan and India stand out as having the most restrictions when both measures are taken into account, while Brazil, Japan, the United States, Italy, South Africa and the United Kingdom have the least.

Image by wallyg via Flickr

This study examines the incidence of many specific types of government and social restrictions on religion around the world. In 75 countries (38%), for example, national or local governments limit efforts by religious groups or individuals to persuade others to join their faith. In 178 countries (90%), religious groups must register with the government for various purposes, and in 117 (59%) the registration requirements resulted in major problems for, or outright discrimination against, certain faiths.

Public tensions between religious groups were reported in the vast majority (87%) of countries in the period studied (mid-2006 through mid-2008). In 126 countries (64%), these hostilities involved physical violence. In 49 countries (25%), private individuals or groups used force or the threat of force to compel adherence to religious norms. Religion-related terrorism caused casualties in 17 countries, nearly one-in-ten (9%) worldwide.

Image via Wikipedia

These are some of the key findings of "Global Restrictions on Religion." The study covers 198 countries and self-administering territories, representing more than 99.5% of the world's population. In preparing this study, the Pew Forum devised a battery of measures, phrased as questions, to gauge the levels of government and social restrictions on religion in each country. To answer these questions, Pew Forum researchers combed through 16 widely cited, publicly available sources of information, including reports by the U.S. State Department, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, the U.N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, the Council of the European Union, the United Kingdom's Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Human Rights Watch, the International Crisis Group, the Hudson Institute and Amnesty International. (The complete list of sources is available in the Methodology.)

The researchers involved in this process recorded only factual reports about government actions, policies and laws, as well as specific incidents of religious violence or intolerance over the main two-year period covered by this study, from mid-2006 to mid-2008; they did not rely on the commentaries or opinions of the sources. (For a more detailed explanation of the coding and data verification procedures, see the Methodology. For the wording of the questions, see the Summary of Results.) The goal was to devise quantifiable, objective measures that could be combined into two comprehensive indexes, the Government Restrictions Index and the Social Hostilities Index. Using the current, two-year average as a baseline, future editions of the indexes will be able to chart changes and trends over time.

Read the full report at pewforum.org

"Global Restrictions on Religion" is part of a larger effort -- the Global Religious Futures Project, jointly funded by The Pew Charitable Trusts and the John Templeton Foundation -- that aims to increase knowledge and understanding of religion around the world.

_{1. According to Article 18 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, one of the foundational documents of the U.N., "Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance."}

Little Support for Terrorism Among Muslim Americans

Image via Wikipedia

by Richard Wike, Pew Global Attitudes Project, Greg Smith, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life
December 17, 2009

Recent events such as the Fort Hood shootings and the arrest of five Muslim American students in Pakistan have raised questions about the threat of homegrown terrorism in the United States. However, the Pew Research Center's comprehensive portrait of the Muslim American population suggests it is less likely to be a fertile breeding ground for terrorism than Muslim minority communities in other countries. Violent jihad is discordant with the values, outlook and attitudes of the vast majority of Muslim Americans, most of whom reject extremism.

A Middle Class, Mainstream Minority Group

As the title of Pew Research's 2007 study suggests, Muslim Americans are "middle class and mostly mainstream." Compared with their co-religionists in other Western societies, they are relatively well integrated into mainstream society. Unlike Western Europe's Muslim populations, Muslims in the U.S. are generally as well-educated and financially well-off as the general population. Most (72%) say their communities are good or excellent places to live, and most believe in the American dream -- 71% say that in the U.S., most people who want to get ahead can make it if they are willing to work hard.

When asked whether they think of themselves first as an American or as a Muslim, 47% of Muslims in the U.S. think of themselves first in terms of their religion, while 28% identify themselves first as Americans and 18% volunteer that they identify as both. At 46%, French Muslims are about equally as likely as those in the U.S. to think of themselves first as Muslim. However, Muslim Americans are less likely to identify primarily with their religion than are Muslims living in Britain, Germany, and Spain.

Primary identification with religious affiliation is not unique to Muslims. Religious identity is almost equally as high among American Christians, 42% of whom say they think of themselves first as Christian. About half (48%) of Christians in the U.S. identify first as Americans, while 7% volunteer that they identify both with their nationality and their religion.¹

Roughly six-in-ten Muslim Americans (62%) say that the quality of life for Muslim women in the U.S. is better than the quality of life for women in most Muslim countries, while 7% say it is worse, and 23% believe it is about the same. French Muslims are equally likely to think that life is better for Muslim women in their country, while in Britain, Germany and Spain, Muslims are somewhat less likely to hold this view.

Many Muslim Americans share the concerns of the broader population about Islamic extremism. Roughly three-quarters (76%) are very or somewhat concerned about the rise of Islamic extremism around the world, compared with 81% of the U.S. general population.² About six-in-ten Muslim Americans (61%) are also worried about the potential rise of Islamic extremism in the U.S., although this is lower than the level of concern among the general public (78%).³

Few Endorse Extremism

Very few Muslim Americans hold a positive opinion of al Qaeda -- only 5% give the terrorist organization a favorable rating, while 68% express an unfavorable view, including 58% who describe their view as very unfavorable. About one-quarter (27%) decline to offer an opinion.

Support for suicide terrorism among Muslim Americans is similarly rare: 78% believe that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilian targets to defend Islam from its enemies can never be justified, and another 5% say these types of attacks are rarely justified. Fewer than one-in-ten American Muslims say that suicide bombing is sometimes (7%) or often (1%) justified.

Over the course of the decade, the Pew Global Attitudes Project has asked this same question of Muslim populations around the world, and results show that Muslims in the U.S. are among the most likely to reject suicide bombing. Among the populations surveyed recently, opposition to suicide bombing is highest in Pakistan (87% say it is never justified) -- a nation currently plagued by suicide bombings and violence by extremist groups. As recently as 2004, only 35% of Pakistani Muslims held this view. As Pew Global Attitudes surveys have documented, the growing rejection of extremism in Pakistan is part of a broader pattern in the Muslim world.

Most European Muslims surveyed agree that suicide attacks can never be justified. This view is especially prevalent in Germany, where 83% of the country's largely Turkish Muslim community say that suicide attacks are not justifiable. Most Muslims in Turkey, Indonesia, Jordan, Israel and Egypt agree, while fewer than half take this position in Lebanon and Nigeria. Palestinians are the clear outlier on this issue -- only 17% think violence against civilian targets can never be justified.

But Small Pockets of Support and Doubts About Sept. 11

Of course, although American Muslims largely reject extremist ideologies, results from the 2007 survey do reveal small pockets of support for extremism. And the survey found that younger Muslims in the U.S. are slightly more accepting of Islamic extremism than are older Muslims. Those under age 30 are more than twice as likely as those age 30 and older to believe that suicide bombings in the defense of Islam can often or sometimes be justified (15% vs. 6%). This pattern is consistent with findings from Europe -- Muslims under age 30 in Britain, France, Germany and Spain are slightly more likely than those in older age groups to endorse suicide attacks.

The survey also finds that native-born African-American Muslims are less likely than other U.S. Muslims to condemn al Qaeda completely. Only 9% express a favorable view of the organization, but at the same time, just 36% give it a very unfavorable rating.

And fewer than half of Muslim Americans -- just four-in-10 -- accept the fact that groups of Arabs carried out the Sept. 11 attacks. Roughly a third (32%) express no opinion as to who was behind the attacks, while 28% flatly disbelieve that Arabs conducted the attacks. Fewer highly religious Muslim Americans believe that groups of Arabs carried out the attacks than do less religious Muslims. The survey also finds that those who say suicide bombings in defense of Islam can often or sometimes be justified are more disbelieving than others that Arabs carried out the Sept. 11 attacks.

_{1. Data for U.S. Christians from 2006 Pew Global Attitudes survey.
2. U.S. general public data from April 2007 survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.
3. U.S. general public data from April 2007 survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press.}

Burmese Dissident Meets With Party

By MARK McDONALD

Image by totaloutnow via Flickr

HONG KONG — The military junta in Myanmar allowed the opposition leader, Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, to meet with senior members of her party on Wednesday, the latest in a recent series of signals that suggest the junta might be responding to diplomatic overtures from the West.

A Western diplomat in the main city of Yangon, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi was permitted to leave her home under military guard to meet with three elderly leaders of her National League for Democracy. She has been under house arrest for 14 of the past 20 years.

The meeting took place at a state guesthouse in Yangon, formerly Rangoon. She had not been permitted to confer with her party colleagues in nearly a year.

Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi, the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, had requested the meeting in a letter to the leader of the junta, Senior Gen. Than Shwe. She also requested a meeting with the general himself.

Despite her continuing detention, Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi has been able to meet in recent months with a number of visiting diplomats, including a high-level delegation from the United States led by Kurt M. Campbell, an assistant secretary of state, and his deputy, Scot Marciel.

Earlier this year, the Obama administration undertook a review of American policy toward Myanmar, formerly known as Burma, and decided to seek a new approach, including direct talks with the junta.

“A policy of pragmatic engagement with the Burmese authorities holds the best hope for advancing our goals,” Mr. Campbell said in testimony before the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in October. “A central element of this approach is a direct, senior-level dialogue with representatives of the Burmese leadership.”

But Mr. Campbell said a wide array of sanctions against Myanmar would not be immediately relaxed, and improved bilateral relations depended on the government’s making “real progress on democracy and human rights,” a demand reiterated by President Obama at a regional summit meeting last month in Singapore.

While in Singapore, Mr. Obama sat in a meeting near the prime minister of Myanmar, Gen. Thein Sein — the first time an American president had met with a member of the military junta.

Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi met for 45 minutes on Wednesday with the National League for Democracy chairman, Aung Shwe, 92; the party secretary, U Lwin, 87; and another senior official, Lun Tin. The elderly leaders of the party are known collectively in diplomatic circles in Yangon as “the uncles.”

Their meeting, which U Lwin discussed with reporters afterward, took place less than a week before the highest court in Myanmar was scheduled to begin considering an appeal of the 18-month extension of Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi’s longstanding house arrest. That extension, which was handed down in August, came after an American man swam to her lakeside home in May, evaded military guards and briefly stayed at the house — a breach of the terms of her detention.

One of her lawyers, Kyi Win, said this month that the hearing would most likely be a procedural affair. But a successful appeal and a lifting of her detention could allow Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi to play a role in national elections that the junta has vowed to hold next year.

Image via Wikipedia

Analysts and diplomats say the country’s new Constitution virtually ensures the continuing dominance of the military in the political life of the country, despite the election. Mrs. Aung San Suu Kyi would likely be barred from running for office because her husband, who died in 1999, was a foreigner.

Her party won a landslide victory in national elections in 1990, and she was elected prime minister. The election results were annulled by the junta, which has continued to govern ever since.

Pakistan Reported to Be Harassing U.S. Diplomats

Image by Kash_if via Flickr

By JANE PERLEZ and ERIC SCHMITT

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Parts of the Pakistani military and intelligence services are mounting what American officials here describe as a campaign to harass American diplomats, fraying relations at a critical moment when the Obama administration is demanding more help to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

The campaign includes the refusal to extend or approve visas for more than 100 American officials and the frequent searches of American diplomatic vehicles in major cities, said an American official briefed on the cases.

The problems affected military attachés, C.I.A. officers, development experts, junior level diplomats and others, a senior American diplomat said. As a result, some American aid programs to Pakistan, which President Obama has called a critical ally, are “grinding to a halt,” the diplomat said.

American helicopters used by Pakistan to fight militants can no longer be serviced because visas for 14 American mechanics have not been approved, the diplomat said. Reimbursements to Pakistan of nearly $1 billion a year for counterterrorism have been suspended because the last of the American Embassy’s five accountants left the country this week after his visa expired.

“There’s an incredible disconnect between what they want of us and the fact we can’t get the visas,” the diplomat said.

Pakistani officials acknowledged the situation but said the menacing atmosphere resulted from American arrogance and provocations, like taking photographs in sensitive areas, and a lack of understanding of how divided Pakistanis were about the alliance with the United States.

Image by Omer Wazir via Flickr

American and Pakistani officials declined to be identified while speaking about the issues because of their senior positions and the desire not to further inflame tensions.

The campaign comes after months of rising anti-American sentiment here and complaints by the military that the government of President Asif Ali Zardari has grown too dependent on a new $7.5 billion, five-year aid plan from Washington.

It also appears to be an attempt to blunt the planned expansion of the United States Embassy to 800 Americans from 500 in the next 18 months, growth that American officials say is necessary to channel the expanded American assistance.

“They don’t want more Americans here,” another American diplomat said. “They’re not sure what the Americans are doing. It’s pretty pervasive.”

The harassment has grown so frequent that American officials said they viewed it as a concerted effort by parts of the military and intelligence services that had grown resentful of American demands to step up the war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Though the United States has been sending large amounts of military assistance to the Pakistani Army, and helping its premier spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, the campaign shows the ambivalence, even “hatred” toward the United States in those quarters, the American official said.

A Pakistani security official, who has kept a tally of many of the incidents, was not sympathetic, saying the Americans had brought on the problems.

“Unfortunately, the Americans are arrogant,” the Pakistani security official said. “They think of themselves as omnipotent. That’s how they come across.”

For instance, he said, the Pakistani police were not harassing American diplomats as they drove up to checkpoints, but rather were responding to provocations by American officials.

He cited a recent report in some Pakistani newspapers that an American diplomat had been taking photographs in a military area of the city of Lahore.

The reports were false, an American Embassy spokesman said. He said the suspected diplomat, a technical support officer, was not carrying a camera.

In another instance, the Pakistani security official said, Americans in an S.U.V. last week fled after the police tried to search their car at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Islamabad, the capital.

The embassy spokesman denied that Americans had fled the checkpoint. “Nonsense, diplomats don’t run away,” he said.

The searching of American diplomatic vehicles at the many checkpoints in the cities has become one of the biggest irritants.

Because diplomatic license plates registered to the embassy would provide an easy target for militants, the Americans reached an accord some time ago with Pakistan’s government that their official plates would be carried inside the car, the spokesman said.

But the absence of plates left the American cars vulnerable to searches at checkpoints, he said. Under international conventions diplomatic cars are not subject to searches, and American diplomats were instructed not to permit searches beyond opening the trunk, the spokesman said.

The Pakistani security official said, “We are in a state of war that calls for extraordinary measures.” His vehicle is searched every morning he goes to the office in Islamabad, and Americans should expect the same, he said.

He also said the Americans should not be surprised about the visa problem. But the issue is now affecting Pakistan’s own interests, American officials said.

At least 135 American diplomats have been refused extensions on their visas, the senior American diplomat said, leaving some sections of the embassy operating at 60 percent of capacity.

One of the most harmful consequences, the diplomat said, is the scaling back of helicopter missions by the Frontier Corps paramilitary troops fighting the Taliban because of a lack of trained American mechanics.

Much of the heightened suspicions about American diplomats appears to revolve around persistent stories in the Pakistani press about the presence of the American security company Blackwater, now called Xe Services, in Pakistan.

The embassy has denied that Xe operates in Pakistan. But those statements have collided with reports that Xe operatives worked for the C.I.A. to load missiles onto drones used to kill Qaeda militants in the tribal areas.

The public distrust toward American officials has led many American diplomats to keep a low profile, and adopt a bunker mentality, American diplomats acknowledge. Americans are warned by security advisers to steer clear of restaurants and shopping areas.

The skittishness between the sides was put aside Wednesday when the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Mike Mullen, was taken on a helicopter tour of the South Waziristan tribal area by the Pakistani Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, to show what the Pakistanis had achieved against the Taliban.

No Pakistani or American reporter was taken along, a sign the Pakistanis preferred to keep the American help there quiet.

Holiday of White Conquest Persists in South Africa

Image via Wikipedia

By BARRY BEARAK

PRETORIA, South Africa — The 16th of December was once a day of rival holidays here, two opposing flows of memory colliding at a junction.

Afrikaners, the descendants of white settlers, celebrated the Day of the Vow, a covenant said to be made between their ancestors and God in 1838 that led to the slaughter of 3,000 Zulus. Blacks commemorated the same day on the calendar, marking the start of armed struggle against the apartheid regime by the African National Congress in 1961.

With the arrival of multiracial democracy in 1994, lawmakers considered it wise to maintain Dec. 16 as a holiday, proclaiming it a Day of Reconciliation, a time for all races to come together in the spirit of national unity.

But 15 years later, that happily-ever-after ending is a long way off, and the ideal of a rainbow nation now seems little more than a deft turn of phrase. According to a poll released last week by the highly regarded Institute for Justice and Reconciliation, 31 percent of South Africans believe that race relations have not improved since the end of apartheid, and 16 percent actually think they have gotten worse. (About 50 percent said relations had improved.)

As for the holiday itself, most Afrikaners have found it hard to set aside one of their most sacred occasions, and on Wednesday, thousands of them gathered, as they do every year, inside the marble chamber of a mammoth granite monument near Pretoria. The structure is a shrine to the Great Trek, when white pioneers migrated north with their ox-drawn wagons and ramrod-loading muskets, completing a conquest they saw as the fulfillment of a divine mission.

Image via Wikipedia

“The Day of Reconciliation may be a good idea, but for Afrikaners, the Day of the Vow is still what’s in our hearts,” said Johan de Beer, 46, a teacher waiting on the steps for the gates of the monument to open in the early morning. “This is a religious holiday that is based on our people’s history.”

In his inauguration address, Nelson Mandela spoke of a covenant of his own, longing for “a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world.” Viewers of the new American movie “Invictus” might be tempted to conclude that such racial harmony prevailed in the aftermath of a long-shot upset in a rugby game.

Image via Wikipedia

The recent survey results would probably stun someone who went to sleep during apartheid and awakened in the present. After all, blacks not only control the government, they mingle in the finest restaurants and swankiest malls. The so-called black diamonds include liberation struggle heroes who have been welcomed into the boardrooms of the nation’s largest corporations.

But while South Africa is the continent’s wealthiest country, income inequality here remains among the worst in the world. About 29 percent of blacks are unemployed, compared with 5 percent of whites, according to recent figures. When statistics include discouraged workers — dropouts from the labor force — the jobless rate climbs to nearly 50 percent. Most of the unemployed have never held a single job, according to a study by a panel of international economists.

The recent poll results also showed that nearly one in four South Africans never speaks to people of other races in a typical day. “In the upper income groups there is a lot of integration, but very little among the poor,” said Fanie du Toit, the executive director of the institute that released the poll. “About 40 to 50 percent of blacks are slum dwellers or rural people who never come in contact with whites.”

At the Voortrekker Monument, among those celebrating the Day of the Vow, barely a black person was in sight but for the men in blue uniforms picking up the trash. “I don’t know anything about their holiday,” said one of those workers, Elias Selema.

The earliest attendees took seats beneath the monument’s dome in the main hall, a huge room encircled by friezes made from Italian marble that depict the epic migration. Others sat a level below, surrounding the cenotaph, the empty tomb that is the symbolic resting place of those who died during the trek. Still more took seats on the surrounding lawns and in the gardens.

“This is my day of thanksgiving,” said Callie van Merwe, an 89-year-old woman dressed in the loose frock and white cotton bonnet of a settler. She added: “Today is a happy time, but I feel bad about the future. This country is changing, changing too much.”

There are several versions of the Day of the Vow and the Battle of Blood River that followed. The historical record is one-sided, and no doubt the retellings lend themselves to myth. One historian, Leonard Thompson, has said the mythology came to serve a political purpose, used to justify the racial oppression of apartheid as God’s will.

Image via Wikipedia

In the story’s most common rendition, a brigade of 468 voortrekkers, or pioneers, and about 60 of their slaves set out to avenge hundreds of deaths at the hands of the Zulus. Their leader, Andries Pretorius, cleverly selected a place to camp that was protected by a steep ravine and the Ncome River, which broadened at that spot into a deep hippopotamus pool.

Preceding the Zulu attack that was sure to come, the trekkers came together to recite a vow. In part it read, “If he will protect us and give our enemy into our hand, we shall keep this day and date every year as a day of thanksgiving like a Sabbath, and that we shall erect a church in his honor.”

The Afrikaners chained their covered wagons together, placing barbed shrubs beneath them. Wave after wave of Zulus charged, trying to use their short spears in close combat, but instead dying in heaps as smoke rose from muskets and cannons. As the story goes, 3,000 Zulus died while the trekkers suffered only three injuries. So many warriors fell dead in the Ncome it then became known as Blood River.

“We believe it was God’s will to have Christians lead the way in this land,” said Lukas de Kock, one of the leaders of Wednesday’s worship. “On that day, the Day of the Vow, God made a clear statement that this was his will for South Africa.”

The reading of the vow is one of the two most solemn moments of the prayer service. The other comes precisely at midday as families lean over the parapets that overlook the cenotaph.

Careful calculations were made by the monument’s designers, and exactly at noon on each Dec. 16, the sun shines through a small opening in the dome, alighting on the empty tomb 138 feet below and yet again signaling for many that it was the Lord’s will that the land be theirs.

U.N. Officials Say American Offered Plan to Replace Karzai

Image via Wikipedia

By JAMES GLANZ and RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr.

As widespread fraud in the Afghanistan presidential election was becoming clear three months ago, the No. 2 United Nations official in the country, the American Peter W. Galbraith, proposed enlisting the White House in a plan to replace the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, according to two senior United Nations officials.

Mr. Karzai, the officials said, became incensed when he learned of the plan and was told it had been put forth by Mr. Galbraith, who had been installed in his position with the strong backing of Richard C. Holbrooke, the top American envoy to Afghanistan. Mr. Holbrooke had himself clashed with the Afghan president over the election.

Mr. Galbraith abruptly left the country in early September and was fired weeks later. Mr. Galbraith has said that he believes that he was forced out because he was feuding with his boss, the Norwegian Kai Eide, the top United Nations official in Kabul, over how to respond to what he termed wholesale fraud in the Afghan presidential election. He accused Mr. Eide of concealing the degree of fraud benefiting Mr. Karzai.

Mr. Galbraith said in an interview that he discussed but never actively promoted the idea of persuading Mr. Karzai to leave office.

Mr. Galbraith’s warnings about fraud were largely confirmed in October, when a United Nations-backed audit stripped Mr. Karzai of almost one-third of his votes, preventing a first-round victory and forcing him into a runoff. He was proclaimed the winner last month after his challenger withdrew, saying the runoff would not be fair.

But the disclosure of Mr. Galbraith’s proposal to replace Mr. Karzai, contained in a letter written by Mr. Eide and reported in interviews with United Nations and American officials, provides new perspective on the crisis in Kabul that enveloped the United Nations and the bitter feud between Mr. Galbraith and Mr. Eide.

The degree to which the United States should stand behind Mr. Karzai was vigorously debated in Washington in the fall, as the Obama administration pondered how to handle the disputed election in Afghanistan. Mr. Karzai is often criticized as being an ineffective leader in the battle against the Taliban who tolerates widespread corruption in his ranks. He has an acrimonious relationship with many American leaders.

Mr. Holbrooke said he was unaware of the idea. “And it does not reflect in any way any idea that Secretary Clinton or anyone else in the State Department would have considered,” he said.

Mr. Galbraith, a former American ambassador and an influential voice on Iraq, also came under scrutiny recently for his stake in an oil field in the Kurdish region of Iraq.

Mr. Eide, who is set to leave his job as head of the United Nations mission in Afghanistan by early next year, said Mr. Galbraith’s departure from Afghanistan in early September came immediately after he rejected what he described as Mr. Galbraith’s proposal to replace Mr. Karzai and install a more Western-friendly figure.

He said he told his deputy the plan was “unconstitutional, it represented interference of the worst sort, and if pursued it would provoke not only a strong international reaction” but also civil insurrection. It was during this conversation, Mr. Eide said, that Mr. Galbraith proposed taking a leave to the United States, and Mr. Eide accepted.

Mr. Galbraith’s proposal would begin with “a secret mission to Washington,” Mr. Eide wrote last week in a letter responding to a critical public report of his work by the International Crisis Group, a research organization.

“He told me he would first meet with Vice President Biden,” Mr. Eide wrote. “If the vice president agreed with Galbraith’s proposal they would approach President Obama with the following plan: President Karzai should be forced to resign as president.” Then a new government would be installed led by a former finance minister, Ashraf Ghani, or a former interior minister, Ali A. Jalali, both favorites of American officials.

In response to questions from The New York Times, Mr. Galbraith said that he never put forth any fully fledged proposal and said that he only considered an effort to persuade Mr. Karzai to leave so that an interim government, allowed under the Constitution, could be installed in case a runoff election did not occur until May 2010.

Mr. Galbraith said the United Nations never informed him that these discussions played a role in his firing.

“There were internal discussions,” Mr. Galbraith said. “I’m sure I discussed the crisis and I’m sure I discussed a way out. But that is an entirely different matter from acting on it.”

He said he never promoted the idea with officials outside the United Nations.

But according to a Western diplomat, Mr. Galbraith discussed his plan with Frank Ricciardone, the deputy American ambassador in Kabul. Mr. Ricciardone was subsequently alerted to Mr. Galbraith’s plan as well by Mr. Eide, the diplomat said.

A spokeswoman for the American Embassy in Kabul, Caitlin Hayden, confirmed that Mr. Galbraith had brought the plan to the embassy. She said that it was summarily rejected.

“Mr. Galbraith was outspoken within the diplomatic community about his concerns regarding fraud and its consequences, and raised questions about various alternatives to the elections,” Ms. Hayden said. “The U.S. Embassy discouraged consideration of theoretical alternatives to the constitutional elections process whenever they were raised by any party, even while acknowledging flaws in the process.”

Mr. Galbraith and a senior United Nations official said that a staff member from Mr. Holbrooke’s office was at some of the meetings where the idea was discussed. But Mr. Galbraith says that he does not recall any communication with Mr. Holbrooke on the subject.

Vijay Nambiar, chief of staff to the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said that he was aware of Mr. Galbraith’s proposal to go to Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and develop support for the plan, and later learned of Mr. Karzai’s anger over the episode. Mr. Nambiar said it played a role in Mr. Galbraith’s firing.

“It was one of several factors,” he said.

Mr. Galbraith also says he never actually contacted Mr. Biden or his staff on this matter. James F. Carney, a spokesman for Mr. Biden, said in an e-mail message that one of the vice president’s staff members, Tony Blinken, did receive a call from Mr. Galbraith while he was still working for the United Nations in Afghanistan, but he did not say exactly when the call was made.

“Galbraith told Blinken that he had thoughts about Afghanistan and wanted to talk about them at some point. Blinken said he’d be glad to discuss them. However, the discussion never took place. Blinken has not heard from Galbraith since or received any information from Galbraith about his thoughts or ideas on Afghanistan,” Mr. Carney said.

Mr. Eide said the Galbraith plan caused strong reactions in Kabul. Mr. Karzai was “deeply upset,” he said. “I spent quite some time trying to calm down the accusations of international interference by talking to the president,” he said.

A spokesman for Mr. Karzai said he was not available for comment on the matter.

James Glanz reported from New York, and Richard A. Oppel Jr. from Kabul. Mark Landler contributed reporting from Washington, and Walter Gibbs from Oslo.

Starting Points

Dec 17, 2009

Tiger Falls from Grace

About Dave Zirin

Democrats' Blues Grow Deeper in New Poll

By PETER WALLSTEN

Following the Polls

Pulse of the Poll

Related

Insurgents Hack U.S. Drones

$26 Software Is Used to Breach Key Weapons in Iraq; Iranian Backing Suspected

The State of U.S. Intelligence

Related Intelligence Videos

Global Restructions on Religion

Executive Summary

Little Support for Terrorism Among Muslim Americans

A Middle Class, Mainstream Minority Group

Few Endorse Extremism

But Small Pockets of Support and Doubts About Sept. 11

Burmese Dissident Meets With Party

Pakistan Reported to Be Harassing U.S. Diplomats

Holiday of White Conquest Persists in South Africa

U.N. Officials Say American Offered Plan to Replace Karzai