What has the Kremlin drawn from the recently concluded NATO Summit in Bucharest? Among other things, Dmitry Kosyrev writes for Russia’s Novosti News Service:

“The Bucharest summit has shown that NATO - or Europe and the West in general, is in more difficulty that it at first appeared. … The well-concealed disagreements about the participation of NATO members in operations in Afghanistan demonstrate the failure of the military Alliance, and its ambiguous position as an accessory to the American war machine.”

And what, according to the Russians, is at the root of the problem? Kosyrev writes,
Read the rest of this entry »

Now that what was billed as one of the most important NATO Summits in decades is over, what nations made out the best? Yeltsin’s former Foreign and Prime Minister, Evgeny Primakov, writes for Kommersant, “Those who ran headlong to NATO despite the likely implications have unequivocally lost. … Russia’s voice is being heard … and that can be considered a great achievement. On the other hand, we shouldn’t deceive ourselves: what happened in Bucharest did nothing to negate Georgian and Ukrainian aspirations to join NATO.”

As far as the Americans, Primakov writes, “And as paradoxical as it is, I think that among the winners was the United States. President Bush stated very firmly that he is fully behind the accession of Ukraine and Georgia, and has thus dramatically improved America’s position among the ruling elites of these countries. But now he must meet with Vladimir Putin. I dare to hope that Bush is interested in having a successful meeting.”
Read the rest of this entry »

What’s Europe’s perception of President Bush, now that he’s appearing at his last NATO Summit? From Le Figaro, France’s largest and most pro-American newspaper, comes this editorial. Written by Pierre Rousselin, the judgment of Bush’s legacy is a harsh one. Rousselin writes, “If the American president would take a sincere accounting of his actions, he would observe that he leaves a weakened Atlantic Alliance in military difficulty in Afghanistan, politically divided in the face of a more aggressive Russia, and ever-hesitant about its missions, its scope of activity and its raison d’être in the 21st century.”

Rousselin goes on to say, “Beyond the press releases glorifying painstaking compromise, the summit, which is to be followed on Friday by an unprecedented dialog with Vladimir Putin, highlights the lack of American “leadership” in the world at the end of a period marked by the Iraq War and the transatlantic crisis that it has unleashed. It is a sad result for a presidency that at its inception placed itself under the rubric of putting the use of force at the service of a conquering ideology.”

Editorial By Pierre Rousselin

Translated By Sandrine Ageorges

April 3, 2008

France - Le Figaro - Original Article (France)

The NATO summit in Bucharest is the final farewell of the allies to George W. Bush. If the American president would take a sincere accounting of his actions, he would observe that he leaves a weakened Atlantic Alliance in military difficulty in Afghanistan, politically divided in the face of a more aggressive Russia, and ever-hesitant about its missions, its scope of activity and its raison d’être in the 21st century.
Read the rest of this entry »

Wonder how the NATO Summit in Bucharest is being covered in the Russian press? Russian concerns about the meeting, infighting over why President Putin isn’t being given a platform to speak at the summit, and the details of Thursday’s events are all covered in somewhat excruciating detail in this analysis from Russia’s Kommersant. Apparently, the Kremlin is upset that President Putin won’t be able to address the public at the conference, suspicious that the Alliance is trying to prevent a repeat of his Munich Speech of last year, in which Putin criticized the United States.

According to Dmitry Rogozin, Russian Ambassador to NATO, “The leadership of the Alliance is committed to curtailing most of the debate. The Russian President will be unable speak publicly on the most important questions of world politics. This is an ugly spectacle, and attempts to blame it on the rules are inappropriate.

By Mikhail Zygar and Vladimir Solovyev

Translated By Igor Medvidev

April 2, 2009

Kommersant - Russia - Original Article (Russian)

The NATO summit opens today in Bucharest, and it may be the most scandalous summit in the history of the organization. Ukraine and Georgia will attempt to obtain entry into the Alliance’s Membership Action Plan, while Russia and its key economic partners try to prevent this. The format of the Russia-NATO meetings won’t give Putin a chance to make another Munich speech. But the presidents of Georgia and Ukraine and former Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov will be given a chance to speak.

[Editor’s Note: In his speech to the Munich Conference on Security Policy last year, President Putin said, among other things, “One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this? And of course this is extremely dangerous. The result of this is that no one feels safe. I want to emphasize this no one feels safe! Because no one feels that international law is like a stone wall that will protect them!”
Read the rest of this entry »

With Russia angry about America’s proposed missile shield and NATO in need of the Kremlin’s help in Afghanistan, will the NATO Alliance agree to admit the Ukraine and Georgia at the annual NATO Summit this week? According to Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza, NATO membership for these former Russian satellites depends on how hard President Bush wants to push the reluctant nations of old Europe, who question the wisdom of angering President Putin at this moment of global high-tension.

Jacek Pawlicki writes for Gazeta, “Diplomatic sources told Gazeta yesterday that U.S. pressure had been so strong that Germany had begun to hesitate. It’s possible Berlin will make its final position conditional on France’s stance. If Paris doesn’t say no, neither will Berlin.”

By Jacek Pawlicki

Translated By Marcin Wawrzy?czak

April 1, 2008

Poland - Gazeta Wyborcza - Original Article (Polish)

The chance that NATO will open its door to Ukraine and Georgia remains, although the door is unlikely to be opened as wide as Poland would like. At least not just yet.

What NATO offers Ukraine and Georgia at its Bucharest summit, which begins tomorrow, will be decided by the Alliance’s leaders at the last moment. As Gazeta has learned, in the communiqué now being prepared, the section concerning NATO’s future relationship with Kiev and Tbilisi has been left blank. Read the rest of this entry »

Has President Bush decided to send weapons to the newly-independent nation of Kosovo to keep NATO’s hands clean, as Albanians in the former Serbian province ‘cleanse’ Kosovo of Serbs? Tamara Zamyatina of Russia’s Novosti writes, ‘Arming the Kosovars is a kind of legalization of future action by the Albanian side to oust the Serb minority … In other words, to give the Kosovars a chance to complete what NATO started: To clear the non-Albanian population out of the province, but to have the job done by Albanians, so as not to cast a shadow on the NATO peacekeepers of KFOR - not to mention the United States.’

By Global Affairs Commentator Tamara Zamyatina

Translated By Igor Medvedev

March 25, 2008

Russia - Novosti - Original Article (Russian)

MOSCOW: Things the experts warned about even before Kosovo’s illegal declaration of independence are coming true - the territory seized from Serbia is gradually accruing all the attributes of a giant military base of NATO and the United States.

As far as the “basic accessories” required for the task, George W. Bush has ordered the flow of arms shipments to Kosovo to begin - something that Moscow is sure to focus on at an emergency session of the NATO-Russia Council - to be held in Brussels on March 28.

Incidentally, Bush issued this order two days after U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Moscow to urge the Kremlin to strengthen cooperation, expand consultation and generally display more openness.

The haste with which the Pentagon is seeking to take the fledgling Kosovo under its wing says only one thing - that there is uncertainty in the West that peace will come to the Balkans after Kosovo’s cessation. But it was precisely this rhetoric - that there is an urgent need to end the Yugoslav crisis - that the West used to justify its support for the Kosovo separatists. As far as peace is concerned, there can be none when one side is being armed against the other. This is like taking a raging fire and pouring more fuel on top …

The Serbs have already gotten the message. In the town of Kosovska Mitrovica (in northern Kosovo), they began a doomed rush to defend their last refuge - the courthouse - where Serbian justice once ruled but which now is occupied by international lawyers planning to turn it over to their Albanian colleagues [Kosovo is largely Albanian]. Blood was spilled there during clashes with [NATO] peacekeepers - and Belgrade [capital of Serbia] continues to seethe with rallies in support of Kosovo’s Serbian minority.

The city [Kosovska Mitrovica], divided by the Ibar River into Albanian and Serbian halves, will long be a bone of contention between the two sided. Belgrade has already officially appealled to the U.N. demanding that Kosovo’s northern region adjacent to Kosovska Mitrovica, which contains a Serbian population of 100,000, be returned to Serbia. These people require basic physical protection, but this is unlikely to move advocates of Kosovo’s independence at the United Nations.

In the first half of the 1990s, Western countries closed their eyes to the expulsion of 300,000 Serbs from Croatia, so they’re unlikely to bother over a mere hundred thousand today. “If 300,000 birds suddenly leave a place, the world would be alarmed, but the tragedy of the Serbs, mankind hardly notices” - so they say in Belgrade.

America’s intention to begin arms shipments to Kosovo is not only due to a desire to hold on to Kosovska Mitrovica - this strategically important but recalcitrant Serbian city. There is a more important reason - to give the Kosovars carte-blanche to suppress the protest in Serb enclaves throughout the province [actually - it’s now a nation]. So says Yelena Guskova, director of the Balkans Crisis Center at the Russian Institute of Slavic Studies, Russian Academy of Sciences.

Arming the Kosovars - is a kind of legalization of future action by the Albanian side to oust the Serb minority from the province. In other words, to give the Kosovars a chance to complete what NATO started: To clear the non-Albanian population out of the province, but to have the job done by Albanians, so as not to cast a shadow on the NATO peacekeepers of KFOR - not to mention the United States.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the United States.

How difficult will NATO’s upcoming annual summit be? According to this analysis from Russia’s Novosti news service, beyond the issue of getting more NATO troops to the danger zone in Afghanistan, there is the touchy subject of NATO expansion and the somewhat mysterious decision - made on March 6 - that neither Ukraine nor Georgia will be considered for admission this year. Novosti’s Andrei Fedyashin writes in part, “Germany could potentially ‘break lots of dishes’ … The U.S. and Britain have been unable to persuade Berlin to send German Army units to the south where there is a real war. … The Greeks are threatening to ruin the picture with an issue that seems extremely ridiculous … The Greeks are flatly refusing to permit Macedonia’s entry into NATO until it changes its name. Greece argues that Macedonia is part of northern Greece, is the birthplace of Alexander the Great, and that it won’t allow anyone to take that glorious name away from them!’

By Andrei Fedyashin

Translated By Igor Medvivev

March 3, 2008

Russia - Novosti - Original Article (Russian)

MOSCOW: So, NATO foreign ministers at a working meeting in Brussels decided - for the time being - not to add Georgia and Ukraine to the Membership Action Plan. The plan represents something like a formal “road map” for NATO. By following the road signs and landmarks, potential candidates should eventually reach the gates of alliance headquarters in Brussels. But Ukraine and Georgia haven’t made it to the roadside yet. That decision was taken at a NATO meeting on March 6, which was called to discuss the upcoming NATO summit in April in Bucharest.

NATO, it must be said, hasn’t given up on plans to bring Yushchenko’s Kiev and Saakashvili’s Tbilisi into the alliance. Rather, this is a postponement. In practice it means that they won’t be any closer to NATO for at least a year, and so can’t become members for at least another four years. The arithmetic is simple: implementing the plan’s requirements usually takes a year or two, so another two years pass before candidates receive official invitations to NATO, which is usually done at the annual summit.

There are several reasons for the decision in Brussels. Although the U.S. is pressing for early admission, NATO veterans like France and Germany strongly recommended this delay, in order - to quote a German diplomat, “not to further antagonize Moscow, with which relations are bad enough due to the ‘Kosovo precedent,’ quarrels over new [U.S.] missile defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic and differences over conventional arms control in Europe.”

European diplomats of “old NATO” didn’t hide their views that to alienate Russia further in order to please Tbilisi and Kiev, would be a serious mistake. Especially when in Moscow a new President - Dmitry Medvedev — is taking the reins of power. For whatever reason, in Europe he is widely perceived to be pro-Western, unlike Putin. So it is thought that accession provide a “good opportunity” to revive relations with Moscow, which have greatly deteriorated over the past four years.

All of these lines of reasoning are valid. But, there’s one more issue that now seems to outweigh all other considerations. That is the forthcoming NATO summit in Bucharest in April. The allies head to the summit so heavy with differences, simply no one wanted to squeeze the ” Georgia-Ukraine trifles” onto the agenda.

The thing is that this summit simply must be a success. After all, it is slated to be the largest in the history of the alliance. Moreover, it will be attended by all 26 heads of state and government. The invited participants include all the non-NATO countries of the anti-terrorist coalition in Afghanistan, financial donors such as Japan, in addition to officials from the United Nations and the European Union. Also waiting in Budapest will be outgoing Russian President Vladimir Putin. The media are already emphasizing that this will be the first time that Russia will officially participate at a NATO summit.

READ ON AT WORLDMEETS.US, along with continuing translated foreign press coverage of the United States.

For the Russians, U.S. recognition of Kosovo’s independence was tantamount to an international crime, and the burning of the United States Embassy in Belgrade by angry Serbs could hardly have been avoided. The New York Bureau Chief of Russia’s Novosti News Service, Dmitry Gornostayev writes, ‘It was somewhat ridiculous to hear the appeal by Deputy Secretary of State Nicholas Burns to the Serbs to respect international law. What is he talking about? He and his colleagues violated it themselves last Monday by recognizing Kosovo’s independence!’ In regard to the past two U.S. presidents and the larger issues of Yugoslavia and Iraq, he writes with a burning sarcasm, ‘If reduced to the terms of criminal law, these global actions at least qualify as robbery and murder. According to the laws of Arkansas and Texas - the home states of the past two U.S. Presidents - the crimes of launching illegal wars in Yugoslavia and Iraq would be punishable by the death penalty. But at the homes of these U.S. presidents no one behaves that way - they are decent gentlemen: they play the saxophone, ride bicycles, keep mistresses under the desk and at the very worst, they drop their bagels and ice cream on the couch. All with perfect decency. But once they go outside, you had better get out of the way.’

By Dmitry Gornostayev, Novosti’s New York Bureau Chief

Translated By Igor Medvedev

February 22, 2008

Russia - Novosti - Original Article (Russian)

When the burning of the American Embassy in Belgrade appeared on television along with armored personnel carriers (filled with Serb policemen bereft of any desire to disperse fellow Serbs with Molotov cocktails), I thought to myself: How long will it be until the Americans recall international law and the Vienna Conventions? [which safeguard the immunity of diplomats and embassies] … They remembered very quickly.

It was somewhat ridiculous to hear the appeal by Deputy Secretary of State Nicholas Burns to the Serbs to respect international law. What is he talking about? He and his colleagues violated it themselves last Monday by recognizing Kosovo’s independence!
Read the rest of this entry »

All the announcements and tributes mention Congressman Tom Lantos’ distinction as being the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress. I don’t know how many Holocaust survivors have ever run for congress, but regardless, the fact that he will no longer bring the ideas and experience of that distinction to the legislative branch of our American government is unfortunate.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi:

As the only Holocaust survivor ever elected to Congress, Tom Lantos devoted his life to shining a bright light on dark corners of oppression. He used his chairmanship of the Foreign Affairs Committee to empower the powerless and give voice to the voiceless throughout the world.

Capitol Briefing:

Though a party-line Democrat on most issues, Lantos was known for teaming up with conservatives on the panel like Rep. Christopher Smith (R-N.J.) to bring scrutiny to the suppression of free speech in China and other issues. He also teamed up with many Republicans to back the Iraq war and advocate staunch support for Israel.

House Republican Whip Roy Blunt:

“Chairman Lantos will be remembered as a man of uncommon integrity and sincere moral conviction — and a public servant who never wavered in his pursuit of a better, freer and more religiously tolerant world,” House Republican Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri said in a statement.

JTA:

Lantos was not afraid to take on his allies. On the foreign affairs committee, he blasted Silicon Valley giants like Google and Yahho for colluding with China’s government in censorship. He authored tough Iran sanctions legislation but broke with pro-Israel orthodoxy by offering to meet with the Islamic Republic’s leaders. Pro-Israel groups also opposed a non-binding resolution that recognized the Ottoman era massacres of Armenians as a genocide, worried that it would cause a rift between Israel and Turkey — Lantos pushed it through the committee, unwilling to countenance what he saw as genocide revisionism.

His appeal crossed political aisles: Both the National Jewish Democratic Council and the Republican Jewish Coalition issued statements mourning his passing. Top Republicans on his committee also chimed in: “An unfailingly gracious and courageous man, Tom was recognized by friends and colleagues alike as a leader who left an enviable legacy of service to his country,” said U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros Lehtinen (R-Fla.), the committee’s ranking member.

DNC:

Our nation has lost a great public servant with the passing of Representative Tom Lantos. In serving his constituents and his country, Tom never forgot the Democratic Party’s ideals of freedom, fairness, and opportunity for all. As Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, he was an authority on foreign policy issues and a voice for the oppressed. The only Holocaust survivor in Congress, he was a forceful and passionate advocate for civil liberties and human rights. Today, I join with countless others across the country in offering my thoughts and prayers to Rep. Lantos’ family and friends as we honor his life and legacy.

NJDC:

Among his first major legislative accomplishments was legislation to give honorary citizenship to Swedish diplomat Raoul Wallenberg, a hero, who protected Lantos and many others from the Nazis. He went on to sponsor U.S. aid for Eastern European countries that had broken the shackles of communism, and became a strong voice of conscience against human rights abuses in China He was one of the leading voices in the House for sanctioning Myanmar’s regime due to human rights abuses. Among his other accomplishments, Rep. Lantos teamed with the late GOP Rep. Henry Hyde to secure $1.3 billion to fight AIDS around the world and to incentivize India to cooperate with international weapons inspectors.

Save the GOP:

In October, when Dutch parliament members came to Washington to complain to congress about Guantanamo Bay, Lantos reminded them that if not for the United States, they would be a province of Nazi Germany. He also added that “Europe was not as outraged by Auschwitz as by Guantanamo Bay.”

Lantos himself was an opponent of the Bush administration on the prosecution of the war, on Guantanamo, and on most other issues. But he never balked at an opportunity to defend the United States against those that would denigrate it. He recognized that politics stops at the waters edge. He was a great man, and he will be missed in Washington.

While in recent days, the news has been that Poland has accepted the stationing of a base of missile interceptors as part of America’s anti-missile shield, according to this op-ed from columnist Roman KuŸniar of Poland’s Gazeta Wyborcza, the debate inside Poland continues, and it still isn’t clear how it will turn out. KuŸniar writes, ‘The compensation should be calculated not in billions of dollars, but in providing Poland with the same standard of security that we had before the base’s installation, no matter how much it will cost the United States … Washington must also understand that if our expectations are not met and Warsaw resists caving into pressure from Washington and America’s friends in Poland and decides against locating such a base in our country, this will not mean a retreat from its close alliance with the United States.’

By Roman KuŸniar

Translated By Halszka Czarnocka

January 29, 2008

Poland - Gazeta Wyborcza - Original Article (Polish)

Poland is in the middle of difficult negotiations about its possible role in the American ballistic missile defense program WATCH . And just when our government faces the difficult task of rationalizing Poland’s position, a growing wave of criticism has arisen to try and hurry things up and take the government to task over its conduct.

“By defying Washington, we risk Read the rest of this entry »

It’s no secret that the EU is pushing Ankara hard to reform its policy towards minority groups. In Turkey, the Kurds and the Alevis, for example, are not officially recognized as minorities and have struggled, as a result, to maintain their respective identities. The Islamist AKP government, under European pressure, has made some limited changes. Kurds are now allowed to speak their language on certain radio and tv outlets, and the use of Kurdish has also been decriminalized in private educational establishments. Meanwhile, there have been government efforts to reach out to the Alevi minority. The Europeans, however, are holding out the fruits of accession until these issues are resolved, with a Dutch politician this week criticizing Ankara’s minority policy as ‘shocking.’

But is it fair to hold the Turks to such a high standard with regards to minority rights? Michael Johns wrote a must-read article (note that it was published awhile ago) that argues that the EU is making its newest applicants attain a very high bar. A double standard has been put in place, Johns suggests, in which Western European states have ducked the reforms on minority rights that Eastern European states are now being forced to make. Take Germany, for example:

The Turks began arriving in what was West Germany in the early 1950s as a solution to Germany’s labor shortage. It was expected that when the shortage ended, they would return to Turkey. In reality, many stayed and have continued to arrive. Many have now been in Germany for generations and have little connection with Turkey. They speak German, and feel German, but face restrictive barriers to citizenship and continue to be classified as foreigners. The Turks in German face restrictions on voting, access to jobs in the civil service or military, and face expulsion for illegal activities. While the restrictions on citizenship have been loosened, less than 10% of the total Turkish population was able to vote in the 1998 election, and only one Read the rest of this entry »

How important an issue is America’s missile-defense shield to Eastern Europeans? According to this frustrated op-ed from Romania’s Ziarul newspaper, given the increasingly shrill nuclear threats coming from Moscow, Romania must demand more from Washington to assure its own security - just as Poland and others already have.

“The government of Romania had absolutely no reaction when ‘Putin’s Mace,’ General Yuri Baluyevsky, struck us with a nuclear slap right in the forehead … which proves that the chair under Defense Minister Melescanu’s ass is more important to him than the American anti-missile shield …”

By Igor Drag, Translated By Marcel Iliescu. January 23, 2008
Romania - Ziarul - Original Article (Romanian)

Two days ago, Russia, in the voice of General Yuri Baluyevsky, the chief of the Russian General Staff who is also known as “Putin’s mace,” threatened NATO in general, and the Czech Republic, Poland, and Bulgaria in particular, with nuclear bombing. Not even 24 hours had passed before NATO responded: A group of former high-ranking American [and European] military officials argues that a preemptive attack with nuclear weapons represents an “indispensable” tool for NATO . So what have some others who have had their “ears pulled” by Putin done?
Read the rest of this entry »

Just under the radar screen of most of the American media, comments and threats from the Russians have set our East European allies on edge. In this somewhat alarming op-ed from Romania’s Ziarul newspaper, the author frets, “The Russian Defense Minister said that to ‘defend the sovereignty of Russia and its allies,’ the Russian state could use nuclear weapons against NATO allies like Romania, the Czech Republic, Poland and Bulgaria. Hello NATO, have you heard this? Hello E.U., have you heard this? Do you understand that Romania is now a Russian nuclear target? BAAAA!!”

By Igor Drag, Translated By Marcel Iliescu, January 22, 2008
Romania - Ziarul - Original Article (Romanian)

While Defense Minister Melescanu talks nonsense about Romania not having enough heart and blood to keep troops in Iraq, and while the same Melescanu walks parade-style walk through the Ministry of Justice’s domain, hindering the release of National Anti-corruption Agency files calling into question the fairness of the trial process, what’s has the world come to?

It’s raining, some would say. It’s raining declarations about how Romania could soon be one of Europe’s most important “mushroom plantations” [a reference to the mushroom clous of a nuclear blast]. Read the rest of this entry »

Like the Burmese presently, like other innocent groups risking their lives for true liberty just to be allowed to live in free and decent ways without governmental oppression… in 1956 the Hungarian young, middle-aged and elderly, took to the streets to rail against the Soviets, fighting for freedom for Hungary.

When the marchers were met in the streets by Russian soldiers in iron tanks, the Hungarians fought with rocks, with wine bottles filled with benzene lighter fluid and stuffed with doilies made by the old women. When the people ran out of their munitions, they fought the tanks with their hands.

President Bush issued a proclamation honoring the 1956 Hungarian Revolution… “The story of Hungarian democracy represents the triumph of liberty over tyranny. In the fall of 1956, the Hungarian people demanded change, and tens of thousands of students, workers, and other citizens bravely marched through the streets to call for freedom. Though Soviet tanks brutally crushed the Hungarian uprising, the thirst for freedom lived on, and in 1989 Hungary became the first communist nation in Europe to make the transition to democracy.”

THE TELEVISION WARRIOR

My foster father is Magyarok, a Hungarian born Hungarian. He came to ‘Amereeka’ with a sewing machine under his arm. And now, he is in the living room yelling at the television again. He thinks the people inside the TV can hear him.
Hollering is a form of Hungarian aerobics;
it’s kept Dad strong all these years.
He immigrated to the USA before World War II.
Afterwards, the small ancestral farm still worked by
his mother and brothers and sisters in Hungary,
was confiscated by Germans, then Soviets.
The men dragged onto freight rollers,
the women, their children held like empty rifles,
were marched to Russian labor camps,
the rest forced from Hungary to Germany.
No children survived. Dad found
his people in the camps, brought the tiny band
one by one and oh so filled with bad night dreams,
to ‘Amereeka’.

My much older cousin had fallen in love with a man
she’d met in the refugee camps.
They’d married in secret there and she was now pregnant.
Now, in ‘Amereeka’, the old people watched over her round belly
as though a ghost Bread of Life
was baking there. A child, a child, they all
sighed, and said hope makes people cry harder than hurt.

So, we all lived together in our little house with Dad going toe to toe every night with the evening news. He’d yell at the TV in his broken English, “You e-diots, you fools!” and heave back in his chair like a soldier thrown by a blast. Dad was the intimate enemy of Vyacheslav Molotov who was a protégé of Stalin; the fascist Franco; Nikita Khrushchev, any dictator who said he wasn’t.

In 1956, so distraught was he seeing the first news reels of Russian tanks in the streets of Budapest, and the young and elderly Hungarians trying to fight the iron tanks with rocks and bare hands, that Dad waved his arms like windmills and threw himself down on the living room rug, daring the tanks to come run over him, “Come get me, you cowards, Come! Get! me!!”

In the ‘60s it was missiles in Cuba and these last many years he has had a yell-fest with apartheid and ayatollahs. He warned Ortega, “Hah! Roll yourself in a tamale, let the comunistos eat you. May they all suffer indigestion.” To the lone student in Tiananmen Square, he waggled his finger, “Ya, ya, I told you so. Ve haf seen dis before. So run him over already!
Get it over with! Dere are no living heroes.” Dad’s eyes watered and watered — he said — from sitting too close to the TV screen.

Last year when Dad was 80 years old, he went hoarse from indicting the televised Ceausescu.
“He vants to bulldozing 7,000 farm villages?
You vant to tear people away from their trees??
You craze man! You want to stack them like chickens?? Read the rest of this entry »

(This is my first ‘pointer post’, at least I think that’s what it is. Going into my 7th month of blogging, I haven’t yet got all the tools and details down pat and under control yet…but here goes…)

…It’s a beautiful starry night tonight, no gusty winds, the magic carpet newly cleaned and brushed. We’ll just criss-cross the world for a little bit, just go wherever we see a shower of sparks below. Here, take the good seat. That’s right. Just hold on. Visibility is pretty good tonight. We’ll just taxi up to the carpet que. Oh!, we just got clearance. Hold on, hold on… we’re rolling, hold on, we’re up… up… and awaaaaaay….

Dont mind the birds, just duck if they fly too close. Look! Look down, we’re over Southeast Asia. They still have pirates. Yes! for reallies. And they also have the usual criminals and terrorists, everyone else has worldwide. But in all gravitas now, like the 2000 mile border between Canada and the US, and between the US and Mexico, there are thousands of miles of ocean without walls and without oversight there in the Asian Pacific… this allows the nefarious to go about their bad deeds… This from SouthEast Asia news:

When it comes to post-September 11 Asia-Pacific maritime security, the Strait of Malacca gets the lion’s share of attention. Lesser known, but teeming with transnational criminals, including terrorists, is the woefully porous “triborder sea” area between the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia. Maritime security cooperation between the three is limited, and only Malaysia has anything resembling an effective naval force. Unless outside funds can bring them all up to speed, the scenario for disaster can only get worse.

Read more here by Ian Storey at Asia Times:

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/IJ18Ae01.html

On to Burma now. Observers there have an interesting take. You know, in the US, we sometimes think of Canada as the shoulders of the North American continent, and we tend to think of traveling cross country as a several weeks long journey. But in other parts of the world where relatively small nations have huge frontages on oceans and seas, they think not so much about traveling across terrain, but rather, negotiating across big water. While some ‘across the sea’ are calling George Bush’s interest in Burma by the code name, The Saffron Robe Revolution, …and regardless whether President Bush knows saffron yellow from sunflower yellow… apparently some in Asia think his only interest in Burma comes from wanting to have access to and control over the shipping lanes from the Persian Gulf to the China Sea. This article has an interesting plaint about the US ‘cooking up new democracies by color notation,” and puts President Bush and George Soros in the same bed together, which… no doubt would startle both men to find they are being scorned for much the same reasons.

The Myanmar military junta is on the hit list of the Bush administration for its repressive ways, we are told. Or does Washington have a more opaque agenda? Some not-so-publicized facts indicate that behind the latest US-orchestrated, color-coordinated effort at regime change (this one is called the “Saffron Revolution”, after the marching monks’ robes), a battle of major geopolitical consequence is under way.

See the article by F William Engdahl here:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/IJ17Ae01.html


Flying over the countryside now that once used to be called Arabia, down there is a Christian woman telling about how something surely is wrong when the unholiest of aggressions and vigilante redresses of grievances occurs during the holiest month. She is speaking about a stepping up of persecution and murder of Christians in Gaza, and she is filled with passion: See that little box there on the corner of our magic carpet? Just open it and empty it over the side; it’s filled with strongest prayer for those who suffer so.

[I was] Shocked to see what is coming off the printing press is the photo of the recent tragic death announcement of 30-year-old Rami Ayyad in Gaza, a son, a husband, a father of two preschool sons and minority Christian worker in Gaza for the Bible Society. Kidnapped at 4 pm on Saturday, October 6, 2007 at his Bible Society office called “The Teacher Book Shop” he was returned dead early Sunday morning with a bullet to his head and shoulder, four knife wounds, and a deep slash to his forehead with what might have been a heavy duty wooden object which apparently tortured Rami prior to his death.

You can read what Mary Khoury wrote about this, here, in the Arabic Media Network:
http://www.amin.org/look/amin/en.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=7&NrArticle=42724&NrIssue=1&NrSection=3

We’re going to bank and head toward South America now. It is generally good to know that all across the world, others are dealing with core values and not monkeying around with mere intellectual frou-frou, as in Chile. Look down and you’ll see that there is a serious investigation going on about substandard fertilizer. And all this time we’ve been thinking ‘S happens’… exactly the same everywhere. But, oh no. No no no. Apparently not. It must have something to do with chronically malnourished cows or something. I wonder if there’s a market for Wheaties For Bovines. There’s got to be a cartoon in here somewhere: cows sitting around in their rockers discussing the quality of that day’s, um, waste materials…

“This is not an excuse either. We must improve the quality of our fertilizers, period,” the executive said.

You can read about what is actually a serious Ag issue, here at Business News from Santiago Chile:

http://www.bnamericas.com/story.jsp?sector=12&noticia=410445&idioma=I

And now, on to the Bay of Plenty, which as elsewhere, you can’t get any peace it seems, for there’s a terrorist under every set of bedsprings apparently, even in the most remote corners of Earth. The Maori, the aboriginal tribal group of New Zealand whose elders often still have acres of body tattoos in the ancient styles… are protesting being thought terrorists themselves. Their homes and camps have been raided by the military elite, and poignantly, one of the plaints which perhaps only tribal and deeply ethnic people would understand as a point of huge intrusion and shame to the soul of the community… is this: “He said heavily armed officers had searched school buses and arrested men in front of their children.” You can see a stark contrast too as we fly over, that the Maori are often poor and raggedly clothed people in contrast to the helmeted, sharply suited, armored and Kevlar vested military men who arrest them.

Police said yesterday that they had neutralised a militant group running secret military-style, weapons-training camps in rugged North Island bush. Media reports said that two hunters had alerted police to the presence of armed men in camouflage in the Ureweras after stumbling into their camp.More than 300 police stormed several camps and homes, making at least 15 arrests, including prominent campaigners from Maori sovereignty and environmental groups. The operation was continuing last night.

You can read more about their story here: http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/4238903a8153.html

Ah, now, we fly over a land that takes a long time to fly over, for so huge is its terrain. And in one tiny corner of that land, well, look down, see? The Tawainese are saying that their president has boldly rejected China’s “conditional peace proposal,” rather baldly calling it ‘China’s idea not of peace, but of Taiwan’s surrender.’ Pretty stand up idea for such a tiny used-to-be sovereignty. China has pushed ‘the one China’ idea, whether it be Taiwan or Tibet. One of the best quotes by a Taiwanese about the Chinese negotiator: “”Hu is like a smiling tiger, hiding a dagger in a smile, with honey in his mouth but a sword at his stomach….”

You can read more here: http://www.taiwanheadlines.gov.tw/ct.asp?xItem=91894&ctNode=45

Well, it took some time to get to hovering over Ghana, but look… God bless Mrs. Anna. In Ghana, Mrs. Anna (Nyamekye) who is Deputy Minister of Food and Agriculture has said everyone must go back to the era of “Operation Feed Yourself”… meaning a time when most every householder kept a backyard garden to grow nourishment for the famly. I love this quote: “Mrs Nyamekye was addressing community members of Kpone Bawaleshie in the Greater Accra Region.” And we thought it was hard to say AF of L & CIO, without stumbling. Looking at the world from an aerial view, we see that Western junk food is not the only concern in Ghana: “…we are moving away from our local diets that provided adequate nutrition to foreign ones that are posing as health threats …such as the sugary foods, fried rice and the like.” And then there’s Mr. Theophilus Osei Owusu, Municipal Director of Agriculture. What mellifluous names. You can read more about the warrioress, Mrs. Anna, here:

https://nii.com.gh/gh/index.html

And onward to Europe now. Maybe a “Dutch Only” amendment to the constitution, or perhaps bilingual education has come to call in Holland nowadays. Interestingly, The Netherlands and Ireland too, have experienced many Polish and other eastern European immigrants in the past many years. Sometimes you wonder if the entire world isn’t playing a horrible game of musical chairs; when the music stops, one country disappears… and an entire hoard of new refugees is turned loose… Immigrants might be refugees, but many migrating across Europe are presently fleeing social conditions rather than wars.

“Employers should teach Polish Staff Dutch: Integration minister Ella Vogelaar is to talk to employers about how they can help Polish and other eastern European staff learn Dutch. The increasing number of eastern European children at Dutch schools are performing badly because they have not learned Dutch, Vogelaar said. But she told MPs it was impossible to force eastern Europeans to take compulsory language lessons or parental guidance classes because they are EU citizens.”

As we travel the world, from our aerial port we can see that most everyone struggles with their own variations of the same challenges. Down there, in Papua New Guinea, they are establishing a school especially for drop outs. The report says; many have proposed this before but they have rarely been brought to fruition. There is an op ed that takes issue with the idea that government ought subsidize this process, saying bluntly: “…many governments have proved to be signally incompetent at running businesses. It’s equally true that business should not attempt to take over the role of government. …We don’t think it is simplistic to suggest that governments should govern while businesses do business.” The writer obviously could be an able commenter at TMV and fit right in.

You can read the entire opinion piece here: http://www.thenational.com.pg/101907/Editorial.htm

And now, as we fly on, Dateline: Turkey. And infrastructure, infrastructure, infrastructure, what did I tell you? As here in the US, also in Turkey, one disposes of the old ways at one’s own peril, for the new is often not as well built. “While modern suspension bridges built with state-of-the-art technology are not holding up as well as expected, many stone bridges built centuries ago have endured, challenging both nature and time… The earliest bridges consisted mainly of logs, cable ropes and stones. Bridges made of timber usually were built in forests and rope bridges in tropical regions. ” Except there’s a difference between Turkey’s bridges old and new, and those in the US. We cant quite attribute such august comments to our potholes and cracking pediments: “The collapse of Roman Empire caused stagnation in bridge construction.”

Ah, I see that our air time is up and we are nearing home once again. Hold on tight now, you’re safe with me, no foreseen turbulence ahead…it will be a gentle landing I believe. It was good to have you aboard; you flew like an angel, and I hope we will fly over the world together another time… because

Well, you don’t know what we can find
Why don’t you come with me little girl
On a magic carpet ride
You don’t know what we can see
Why don’t you tell your dreams to me
Fantasy will set you free
Close your eyes girl
Look inside girl
Let the sound take you away…

Steppenwolf

Some musicians seem like they’re made to lead the world. Some seem born citizens of the earth, regardless whichever country, heritage, religion they’re born into. Regardless what their parents wanted for them; regardless of childhood introjects… they travel the world, often as what I’d call ‘rememberers,’ musicians who help us remember that water can flow through stone.

If spoken words are capable of too easily offending some, destroying and dividing us, then music seems far more often able to unite, to cross tightly controlled checkpoints that bar babblers and blabbers, but let through musicians carrying a stringed, wind, or percussion instrument… like water through stone. Maybe the musicians who are Rememberers could for a while, lead the detente talks, the conciliation talks, the cease fires and peace agreements. Arion of Methymna and Orpheus of Thrace are celebrated in song to this day, for Arion surrounded Thebes with walls by the power of music, and Orpheus tamed the wild beasts by the mere might of song. Some element inside the mythic is always very real.

Tisha B’av is about mourning what has been destroyed and finding a way to build a new, even more beautiful temple, whether cultural, personal, religious or creative. Here are some musicians who are pylons and piers and guy wires and girders for bridges across roiling waters:

Jewish-Muslim music: Gerard Edery…”I’m not naive about the political reality, or about how polarized Jews and Arabs have become.” Edery is a singer and classical guitarist …Standing before a room full of Muslims, this Jewish musician launched into “a very Jewish song” in Hebrew about Elijah the prophet. Then, “without even thinking,” he started teaching the audience the words. “At first, I sensed a hesitation from the audience… After a few measures…700 to 800 Muslims [were] singing with me in Hebrew.” Edery, who was born in Casablanca, moved to Paris at age 4 and then the United States at age 8… Like those of Central Asia, Jews and Muslims in pre-Inquisition Spain, the place of Edery’s maternal ancestry, “shared similar, musical, poetical and artistic” license. There was a tolerance and a cross-pollination…”I’m not a politician or a scholar. I’m a musician. And I believe in doing what I can through music…: “We should all delve into our past and embrace all our traditions, whether Jewish or Muslim. Let me sing to you in Arabic and you can sing to me in Hebrew and let’s realize, very specifically, that we Jews and Arabs are from the same soil.”

Hindu-Muslim music: Bismillah Khan’s ancestors were court musicians who played in Naqqar khana in the princely states of Bhojpur. His father was a shehnai player in the court of Maharaja Keshav Prasad. Despite his fame, Khan’s lifestyle retained old world Benares: his chief mode of transport was the cycle rickshaw. A man of tenderness, he believed in remaining private, and that “musicians are supposed to be heard and not seen.” He was a pious Shiía Muslim and also, like many Indian musicians regardless of creed, a devotee of Mother Saraswati. He often played at various temples and on the banks of the river Ganga in Varanasi, besides playing outside the famous Vishwanath temple in Varanasi. Khan is one of the finest musicians in post-independent Indian Classical music and one of the best examples of Hindu-Muslim unity in India. He said, “Even if the world ends, the music will still survive… Music has no caste”.

AfricanAmerican-Jewish music: In New York, The American Symphony Orchestra wove this: concerts that “contribute to the current political debate by presenting a moment of history when matters were different. Not nostalgia, but rather the exploration of different models from which to draw inspiration for the present and future. The composers on this program born into Jewish families who integrated African-American materials in their work–Gershwin, Gruenberg and Gould–did so in ways which earned the respect and admiration of their African-American contemporaries and colleagues. The composers of African-American descent–Price, Ellington and Kay–who integrated European traditions with African-American traditions, did so in ways which earned the respect and admiration of their non-African-American contemporaries and colleagues. Read the rest of this entry »

The news is full of Albanians being ‘unanimously’ in agreement with George Bush’s War in Iraq. Really? I don’t doubt that some Albanians might agree, for Albanians are fierce; they come from ancient tribal people.

They have been in constant war or resistance since the time the Romans came to crush them. Then the Turks, then Italy and Germany. Then the Russians. Then the Serbian government murdered and tried to drive out 2 million ethnic Albanians from Kosova.

But also, because of these hundreds of years of nearly unrelieved wars, many Albanians across many generations, are peace-loving, and are tired, sometimes literally to death, of war.

Albania’s enthusiasm for Bush may be about quite different matters altogether. And Bush’s motives to come to Albania may not be ‘as advertised.’

Viz: Albania is an impoverished Eastern European country. It is smaller than Maryland. Albania badly wants to be part of the European Union. They would be the only other predominantly Muslim and economically poor country, that is, if Turkey is accepted into the EU in the next few years.

Would it really be wise for Albania to jeopardize relations with the USA, the money-granting USA? the USA on the verge of a change at the top which may bring good rather than scornful relationships with other ‘foreign countries’ already in the European Union, that Union that Albania wants to join? That Union that the USA might be able to have influence with.

The Albanians I’ve known, are salt of the earth people. One of Albania’s biggest achievements during WWII was protecting their own Jews and taking in more Jews from other countries. The Albanians were the only country to have more Jews after WWII than they started with, unlike other countries who allowed their Jewish populations to be destroyed. Thus, Albania is celebrated in Israel, noted in the Halls and Wall of The Just.

Albania has only been ‘free’ of Mother Russia, since 1991. The New York Times journalist who recently reported he couldn’t find any person in Albania who disapproved of Bush, except one man, and he happened to be out of the country and couldn’t be interviewed. Fair enough, except, there’s a far different cultural interpretation of that comment … one that far different insight into what the Albanians might really be thinking about Bush, and why Bush is really in Albania.

Read the rest of this entry »