FIREBALLS AND BOLTS OF LIGHTNING

The Arab uprisings: Endgame in Tripoli – The Economist

As the autocratic dominoes/crucial western allies continue to fall, all eyes have fallen on the ‘double 6s’ that is Libya and its authoritarian ruler Qaddafi, sporting a look that would make fellow insane person Kim Jong II jealous, but who should really be swapping his military briefs for a poncho before getting skillfully disarmed by ‘The Man With No Name‘. Achieving ‘Cruella de Vil‘ degrees of derangement, Muammar “Soup Nazi” el-Qaddafi has vouched to rid his country of a population and rule only himself. The current trend in the Middle East dictates that his efforts are doomed to fail, which is why Qaddafi is resorting to unprecedented repressive means. In the absence of suitable candidates for finger-pointing other than the blatantly obvious lunatic under the pink umbrella, it seems only reasonable that the true culprits be held accountable for every innocent Libyan life lost fighting for their country’s freedom: social networking. Indeed although Qaddafi may be the only one currently able to digitally update his status (“is thinking salmon mousse for tonight’s Oscar party”?), after a sweeping victory in Egypt, it seems safe to say that Facebook and Twitter have really dropped the ball on this one. After helping coordinate protests in Cairo, spread opposition missives and, following now retired washed-up dictator Hosni Mubarak’s desperate buzzer-beating hail mary attempt of media censorship, helping journalists get the word out on daily happenings, wall posts and tweets have shown themselves powerless, unable to prevent the Libyan streets from being painted red. The death toll has reached such unattractive proportions that it has pressured even the UN Security Council to re-prioritize their respective oil interests in the region and denounce Mr. Qaddafi as something of a ‘douche bag’, further positive PR for Google. Surely ‘Androids’ and ‘YouTube’ would have the situation well under control by now.

It is rather unbecoming of the United States to consider that the country would sooner and quicker fire SCUD missiles on unsuspecting civilians in the name of spreading democracy, freedom, and finding disappearing weapons of mass destruction, than deliver a butchered people clamoring for help from a tyrant with a merciless fist. As the Middle East continues to demonstrate to the former Bush administration that they are in fact evolved enough to be masters of their own destiny, the Egyptian people accomplished what fundamentalist martyr Sayyid Qutb envisioned (albeit with a considerably larger role for Islam) and bin Laden right-hand man Ayman al-Zawahiri sought to produce for years through violent means. The future, however uncertain in years to come, is finally filled with hope, and the present inexorably beautiful following the events of the un-worthily named “18 day revolution”. However imperfect a science it is to study the butterfly effects of geopolitics, the beats of Mohammed Bouazizi‘s wings rippled throughout the world, lighting fires had that been attenuated for too long in too many arab souls. If it was its moral imperative to save the Iraqi people in the name of God, then perhaps it is now America’s subsequential duty to impose a cessation to Libyan hostilities/assist the Libyan rebels, if only because the Iraqi people, as bloody as it would assuredly have been, never got to seize their own destiny and initiate their own revolution. Memo to Baracky: silver bullet to the desert jackal’s head, “wasn’t me”  answers all ICC questions.

Note-worthy: “Mr Qaddafi, with a characteristic mix of bluntness and illogic, declared that his ideology was “theoretically” a genuine democracy, but in reality, “the strong always rule.” “I was the one who created Libya,” he is said to have declared recently, “and I will be the one to destroy it.””

O CAPTAIN MY CAPTAIN

Afghan Women Have Already Been Abandoned – The Nation

Seven years after George Bush felt “the need, the need for speed“, getting lavishly chauffeured in on a S-3B Viking jet before declaring ‘mission accomplished’, victory is finally ours. A few bureaucratic hiccups and diplomatic faux-pas can explain the lapse in time between “the United States and our allies prevailing” and Victory, but the last of US combat troops (excluding 50,000 left behind for lingering purposes) finally closed the book on ‘Aye-raq’, leaving behind “a whole new world, with new horizons to pursue”. The United States is once again a proud country that rejoins the batch of “normal” nations which have only one conflict on their hands, in this case Afghanistan, for which support is rapidly waning, despite Joe’s best efforts. The keystone to American strategy seems to be tactful extraction, however the by-product is suspicious. Withdrawal from Afghanistan will also happen gradually in the next year, regardless of there never having been this many US troops on Afghan soil before. In certain areas of the country, US involvement has diminished and Taliban presence has resurged. As in Iraq, Americans will most likely leave behind much unfinished business.

Obvious security issues aside (last week saw a heavy suicide bombing in Baghdad), a specific demographic, women, already in precarious positions before both conflicts and continuously neglected throughout, will not receive the support it really should have had from the beginning, especially in Iraq, where we aimed to spread democracy and liberty once we realized those WMDs were so passé. It’s an easy sell to debate that the Iraq offensive/invasion actually made things worse, leaving many women widowed/orphaned and thus easy prey to sex trafficking. In Afghanistan, the Karzai regime, one established under the semi-watchful eye of the US government, is responsible for the inception of the caveman-worthy Shia Personal Status Law. Does it not seem baffling to be leaving, WMD-less and Osama-less,without even leaving so much as an imprint of positive evolution behind? Baffling, comical or tragic? Is this not a good reason to stay? A way to salvage but a sliver of whatever positive image the US might have had pre-Bush?

In the end, there is nothing more intolerable, not so much regarding the Americans hightailing it as we have come to expect such levels of predictability, but rather with the overall situation concerning women, both pre and post-conflict. An unsettling debate by all means, such issues flirt with the notion that culture can be questionable. The employment of the veil or burqa in much of the Islamic world is not necessarily an aspect of culture as much as it is one of religion. The Qur’an advises it to achieve a sense of modesty, which is meant to in turn protect a woman from any kind of molestation. The disparity between the Qur’an’s honest intentions (a reason why, culturally, women appreciate the veil) and man’s stronghold on Islamic society is sometimes hard to discern but also very nuanced from one country to the next. The result, however, premeditated or not, may just mean the further subjugation of women when coupled with the politicization of categorizing women as second-rate citizens (in Afghanistan), something that cannot simply be blamed on the apparent re-talibanization of the country. Stoning, the type of barbaric capital punishment which persists to a certain extent in the Islamic world (including Iran), is said to find its roots in the Islamic legal traditions (hadiths), not the Qur’an. It also affects more female victims as they are usually targets for adultery charges. Adversely, the rise in recent Afghan stonings can be attributed to a Taliban resurgence. Unfortunately, Iran’s recent case casts shame on the rest of the Islamic world, which shouldn’t be held accountable for such antics. Whether the repression of women is firmly anchored in Islamic culture however is doubtful. Progressive behavior is on the rise, and feminine movements are growing, however severe repercussions for such conduct may be. This only renders the American inefficiency and implausible apathy towards the matter all the more frustrating and discouraging in this post-Bush Obama-mania. Victory has a bitter taste, if not to say repulsive. One year is hopefully enough to make a change in Afghanistan, according to Hilary Clinton anyway. As for Iraq, well, maybe we’ll be back in ten years, when al-Qaeda will actually have taken over and there will be more WMDs than there are prostitutes.

Note-worthy: “Before feminists and the antiwar left come to blows, we might do well to consider that every Afghan woman or girl who still goes to work or school does so with the support of a progressive husband or father.”