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Michael Ubaldi, February 28, 2005.
 

We cannot forget the sacrifices of Iraqis like those five-score brave men murdered today as they stood to join the tens of thousands defending a young free nation. And their deaths must keep close in our minds the ends their killers wish for us. But a month and a half ago I wrote in anticipation of atrocities that will be seen in months and years ahead:

[V]ulnerabilities will occasionally be pronounced as the liberalization and greater openness of Iraq coincides with the work of thugs who seek to exploit the mutual faith of free, public association.


Today's murders are striking example. How would any American city or suburb prevent the detonation of a car laden with explosives? Only the vigilance and conscience of citizens, the common good, could alert law enforcement if the police themselves weren't lucky enough to catch the perpetrators in conspicuous activity. After the crime, a community would quickly and naturally cooperate with authorities to find and apprehend suspects. According to reports, that is exactly what has happened. Terrorists can no longer kill Iraqis without revealing themselves, and each Allied-Iraqi yank on the exposed tentacle brings more valuable enemy assets.

And beyond the death and carnage, what will the attack bring Iraq's enemies? Little. Killing police recruits has long been a failed tactic; it may be simply that the gore sates terrorists' perversions, a red cheer for fiends. And existing police forces are growing in number and capability, totally unaffected by this bombing.

The country at large will mourn but it moves ever-forward. Omar's casual photography reflects a monumental construction effort; his brother Mohammed relates Iraqis' enthusiasm for a national conversation led by weblogs, the 21st-Century combination printing press and broadcast tower. Former interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi publicly speaks of Iraq's first popularly composed constitution; its "Founding Fathers." And Arthur Chrenkoff announces triumphs across Mesopotamia.

 
 
 
 
Michael Ubaldi, February 27, 2005.
 

More posturing, contrivance, observation and speculation follows the murder of Lebanon's former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri. On Thursday Syrian Ba'athists said they would quit Lebanon. A weekend report suggests Damascus coughed up thirty of Saddam Hussein's old henchmen who were until recently working freelance from Syria to unsettle the foundations of Iraqi democracy: twenty-nine plebes and one big fish, Sabawi Ibrahim al-Hassan. Given Damascus' sixteen years of procrastination, far deeper investment in Iraqi sedition than the thirty, and notable success in escaping all punishment from Washington but largely gestural sanctions, this is chaff to throw off the seeking bolt whose head is a coincidental Franco-American diplomatic alliance and whose shaft is an implacable Lebanese nationalism. Lebanese are suspicious, too:

Eyewitnesses along Lebanon's strategic Beirut-to-Damascus highway say they have seen no sign of any Syrian troop movements yet and many are openly questioning Syria's intentions. ...Beirut's influential An Nahar newspaper is also complaining that Syria's intention to redeploy does not include its feared secret police. Lebanese opposition politicians, including Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, have accused Syria's secret police of being responsible for the car bomb which killed former Prime Minister Rafik al Hariri.


The Syrian claw doesn't always squeeze, but it's never very far away, from the word of border town residents:

At a time where the Syrian Army's withdrawal remains a heated debate between Syrian and Lebanese officials, Chtaura residents are being cautious about what they say. Local taxi driver Assam Qurbie said: "The place is crawling with mukhabarat and the Syrian Army, if we anger Syria, we are the first to get into trouble."

The same concern was echoed by several Chtaura residents, where the Syrian Army maintains a large presence. "I just hope they leave soon and we never have to see a Syrian soldiers coming into any of our stores," said Qurbie, one of the few residents willing to express his views.


The greatest danger entails Bashar Assad's regime offering the same fate to Lebanon's patriots as their martyr Hariri. If all parties accepted the departure of Syrian troops as make-believe, certainly they wouldn't raise an objection to the mukhabarat "retiring" Lebanon's democratic resistance and returning the population to silent captivity. Damascus has already called for a ban on protests with vague crackdown orders to its hired thugs. Such a turn, however, would depend on deference from Washington and Paris. And while Jacques Chirac's true stance might make for good money in the futures trade, President Bush spoke on Wednesday expecting shadow puppetry from Damascus:

Asked whether he had convinced European leaders to seek sanctions against Syria, Bush said Damascus must withdraw its troops and "secret services" from Lebanon and not try to influence upcoming parliamentary elections there.

"We will see how they respond before there's any further discussions about going back to the United Nations," the US president said during a joint press conference with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who backed Bush's statement.


Assuming the president will not stand for Syrian violation, the White House will watch for two Ba'athist responses — either of which, if antagonistic, would exact Washington's physical intervention. The first response will be to a likely no-confidence vote in the Beirut parliament tomorrow. Hariri's death has made a coalition out of Lebanon's politicos, who are undeterred in their bid to vote Syria out; and post-Saddamite Iraqis out of the country's people, who toppled a bust of the man responsible for their thralldom, Bashar Assad's father. Damascus may let the Lebanese have their day, betting 15,000 troops against a single humiliation, leading to the second response.

That will be to the increasing skepticism towards Syrian withdrawal. In the three days since declaring troop movements Damascus has peddled a few excuses for obfuscation and non-performance, including a security threat from Israel. One, of a sort, has emerged: just yesterday, Jerusalem blamed Syria's terrorist bazaar, with Iran's, for the latest bombing murder of Jews. Given that both Israel and Palestinians officially suspect Hezbollah, Syria's most favored client, whose training camps Islamic Jihad — the terrorist group claiming responsibility — has been attending since the 1990s, the possibility of another event manufactured by Damascus is strong. If so, the "threat" from Israel would be altogether justified, and the murderous distraction will quickly falter. Then we may hear more of Bashar Assad's intention, as reported by the Turkish press, to filibuster. Knowing President Bush, it will be met with cloture.

 
 
 
 
Michael Ubaldi, February 26, 2005.
 

Turn back to one of the "tests" facing the Bush administration's democratization strategy: holding Egypt's regime to account for its repression. Liberty activist Ayman Nour is not yet free from unjust imprisonment but thanks to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's delivery of a diplomatic slap to the cheek of Cairo strongman Hosni Mubarak, Nour's fellow democrats may have won the chance to popularly defeat millenia of resident-tyrant rule. Tigerhawk has more. (Hat tip, IP.)

 
 
 
 
Michael Ubaldi, February 25, 2005.
 

I was astonished when I recently watched a brief 8-millimeter film of my paternal grandparents' wedding, an event I'd only ever known from a handful of posed pictures. Via Stephen Green, something almost too fantastic to believe: color photographs from the Great War.

MORE: One of Stephen's commenters pointed to a collection of color photographs by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii — from as early as 1907. We're well beyond words.

STILL MORE: The Second World War. Elite technology was far more accessible. But it's no less dazzling.

 
 
 
 
Michael Ubaldi, February 25, 2005.
 

Terrorists in Al Anbar province are being hammered by Allied and Iraqi forces engaged in Operation River Blitz. Fear among citizens continues to depreciate, and the courage shown in a developing Iraqi common good, the kind we knew we would see, is a weapon seditionists and invaders will be increasingly unable to counter:

North of Ar Ramadi, a local civilian directed a U.S. Marine combat patrol to an improvised-explosive device, which consisted of four 105 mm artillery rounds that were daisy-chained together in a brown bag hidden underneath a pile of leaves at approximately 10:00 a.m.

...In southern Fallujah, an Iraqi civilian guided a U.S. Marine patrol to a weapons cache, which consisted of one 82 mm mortar round, seven 57 mm rounds, three 23 mm rounds and one 30 mm round at approximately 1 p.m. Earlier in the day, another Iraqi civilian guided another U.S. Marine patrol to a weapons cache in the southeastern portion of the city that consisted of one missile warhead, 100 pounds of TNT and one 120 mm mortar round.


A spontaneous, inherent public inclination to just law, altruism, honesty and peacefulness makes the bedrock of right, free society. Laid thick with institutions that protect and reward the good, it will not yield.

 
 
 
 
Michael Ubaldi, February 25, 2005.
 

Another day, another twenty-percent upward revision in the measure of quarterly gross domestic product expansion:

The economy grew at a solid 3.8% annual rate in the final quarter of 2004 — stronger than previously estimated — and an encouraging sign that the business expansion was firmly entrenched at the start of the new year. The reading on gross domestic product, released by the Commerce Department on Friday, was better than the government's initial calculation a month ago. That estimate showed the economy growing at a 3.1% pace.

...The improvement reflected more robust spending by businesses to add capital equipment and build up inventories of goods. The trade deficit also was less of a drag on fourth-quarter growth than initially thought. ...The fourth-quarter GDP figure also was better than the 3.5% growth rate that economists had forecast.


An inconsequential trade-deficit bogeyman, vaulted expectations and an economic engine so supercharged we'll have to cut through the hood: all possible when the American entrepreneur is encouraged to enrich, invent and innovate. What was that about Herbert Hoover?

DRAG RACE DOWN WALL STREET: Couldn't resist stretching the metaphor. The stock market liked what it saw today, no doubt.

 
 
 
 
Michael Ubaldi, February 24, 2005.
 

The "uprising" marches on:

Opposition deputies said on Wednesday they would seek to topple Lebanon's Syrian-backed government in parliament and called for a one-day national strike next week. The deputies, riding high on mass protests over the past week, called for an international investigation into last week's assassination of ex-Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri and wanted security chiefs sacked and put on trial.

"Opposition MPs confirm that they will seek a no-confidence vote in the government during (the Feb. 28) general assembly meeting" called to discuss the assassination, they said in a statement after a meeting of 38 MPs in the mountain house of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt. The statement called for a strike on Monday, the day the parliament meets.


Walid Jumblatt is a recent and rather startling convert to President Bush's policy of peace through asserted liberty, telling interviewer David Ignatius that "this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq," and likening the eight-million-strong Iraqi electoral procession to the Berlin Wall's tumble.

The president's democratic allies have themselves been emboldened. President of the umbrella group Reform Party of Syria, Fadrid Ghadry, has advocated in the Washington Times sandwiching Damascus between dissent inside Syria as well as its Lebanese conquest:

The next U.S. step, following the withdrawal of the U.S. ambassador in Damascus, must be to open a front against the Syria Ba'athists in their own backyard. Not a military front, far from it, but a popular civilian offensive. The United States should aim to create the same disequilibrium in Syria that the Syrian Ba'athists so readily encourage elsewhere.


Mr. Ghadry is slightly concerned about Bashar Assad's inclination to violently resist the popular tide to his southwest. But if the last ten days have taught us one lesson, it's that a thug shrinks from daylight. Though President Bush will be behind closed doors in Bratislava, an observation point has been added to the collection already tracking Syria, its scope trained on Beirut. Bush is no Eisenhower, Beirut no Budapest. There is surely hell to pay if Lebanese patriots come to harm by Syrian hands. And we should have some faith in the Martyrs' Square tent city; if they follow the Orange Revolution with their own Red and White, their representative counterparts, ready to fit in legal terms the shouts from outside, are not far behind Kiev — and seeking to win for themselves much more. (Hat tip, Robert Mayer.)

FEINT: Bashar Assad's regime has released a statement promoting "commitment" to withdrawing its 15,000 troops from Lebanon. No explanation or time window was offered, and we should remember that on Monday it was "soon" — as it was in 1989. The dominative mind is not an awfully creative one; Damascus' gesture is probably a probe of Washington. If not rebuked and rejected by a distrustful White House the Ba'athists would do best to wait as long as possible before ordering any significant force movements. The longer the delay, the more tempting Damascus will find a roll-up to be.

But via Jim Geraghty, some are convinced that the Bush administration does not intend to let the Lebanese be silenced. And, helpfully enough, strange bedfellow Walid Jumblatt called the statement "a new farce."

WHAT EVERY TYRANT FEARS IS UNDER HIS BED: Syria's democrats.

 
 
 
 
Michael Ubaldi, February 23, 2005.
 

The Yomiuri Shimbun has been an excellent source of news on Japan's practical attainment of noble standing in the free world. Debate on the revision of war-renouncing Article 9 of the postwar constitution proceeds while less newsworthy — yet significant — operational changes, made in close coordination with the United States, are under consideration or due for implementation.

In the conference room, suggestions, differences, arguments and compromises shape constitutional draft amendments to be revealed in April:

The Liberal Democratic Party's committee on constitutional reform is involved in heated debates over whether the party should maintain its conservative stance or work with other parties to devise constitutional amendments that are feasible. The hottest topic at the meeting was whether the amended Constitution should clearly state the right to exercise collective self-defense.

...An advocate of the change said, "It would be bad if the government's interpretation of the stipulation could be easily altered after a change in administration. An ambiguous constitution is problematic."

But an opponent said, "It's a matter of course that the nation can exercise the right to collective self-defense. There's no need to put it in the Constitution."


The Liberal Democratic Party appears to be as solidly eager to establish Japan's right to military action as the party leading Diet opposition, the Democratic Party of Japan, is abhorrent. A two-thirds majority requirement for amendment passage will force the LDP to balance its venerable political power with parliamentary realities.

For Japanophobes reading a jingoist resurgence between the lines, relax: some committee members were reportedly dithering on the potential offensiveness of the newly directed armed forces' title.

The fact that Japanese (or any foreign) military self-reliance would modify (and eventually obviate) America's based military presence is lost on neither Washington nor Tokyo. During the recent meeting that produced Japan's first unambiguous statement respecting Taiwan's freedom from Chinese seizure, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld discussed with their Tokyo counterparts how best to renovate a San Franciscan house built in 1951:

At a bilateral meeting of foreign and defense chiefs, the two sides confirmed that within the next few months they would map out measures to realign U.S. troops in Japan by reviewing role-sharing between the SDF and U.S. troops and speeding up discussions on the realignment of U.S. military bases.

...Government plans for sharing U.S. military bases involve introducing a variety of sharing formats, including one in which the management rights to U.S. military bases would be returned to Japan, and another that would follow an existing format used at Misawa base in Aomori Prefecture, where SDF troops already use the base under U.S. administration.

...[Defense Agency Director General Yoshinori] Ono's remarks highlighted government plans to enhance base sharing, improve bilateral interoperability and increase joint exercises.


Diplomatically, bilateralism is in bold display:

The two sides also discussed measures relating to China, with Machimura saying it was important to ask the Chinese government to increase the transparency of its military spending.


With a touch of helpful initiative:

The LDP and Minshuto (Democratic Party of Japan) have been busy drafting bills to be presented to the current Diet session for a law aimed at improving the human rights situation in North Korea. The bills being prepared by the LDP and Minshuto are designed to increase pressure on North Korea over such issues as the abduction of Japanese by Pyongyang and assistance to North Koreans fleeing the country, sources said.


From enemy, to companion, to compatriot: quite a lot to be said for democratic creative destruction.

THE CATCH: Yomiuri's links are fly-by-night. All have been switched to caches or mirrors.

 
 
 
 
Michael Ubaldi, February 22, 2005.
 

When next publicly expressing yourself, count your blessings. Where you might live today still determines what you can say. (Via IP.)

 
 
 
 
Michael Ubaldi, February 22, 2005.
 

When rightist commentators fit "Ukraine" and "Lebanon" in the same sentence, I nodded at the parallel but was unsure of causality. According to this CBC report, the power of the Orange Revolution and Lebanon's miraculously porous media net have catalyzed the seized country's spirit:

A small tent city has popped up on Martyrs' Square in Beirut as anti-Syrian protesters call for political changes in the wake of former prime minister Rafik Hariri's assassination. Thousands of demonstrators have spent four nights in the square and more are joining them each day.

Inspired by recent protests in Ukraine's Independence Square, they say they're willing to stay as long as it takes to bring down Lebanon's pro-Syrian government and force 15,000 Syrian troops out of the country.


Satyagraha is just one method to wring justice out of the inequitable, and which should not be abused. But if the captor has a conscience — or is forced to feign one, as Syria is now by the strength of the free world — the peaceful army in Martyrs' may see Independence's fortune in battle.