A few stories of note

These stories here aren't literally connected with much we've been talking about, but they are there thematically.

Start with Ukraine. Arrests were made yesterday in the 4-year-old murder of Georgian journalist Heorhiy Gongadze, found beheaded in the Ukraine in September of 2000. Why is this important? It was widely believed that Gongadze, an intense investigative journalist and enemy of the Ukrainian regime, was killed at the behest of ex-President Leonoid Kuchma. On a curse-laced tape from an ex-bodyguard, a voice that supposedly is Kuchma is heard speaking of Gongazde in less than flattering terms: "drive him out, throw him out, give him to the Chechens." Generally, when one is given to the Chechens it is not for a pleasant reason. And Gongazde ended up dead. There were protests, which threatened the government, but nothing came of it.

However, following the Orange Revolution, reformist President Viktor Yuschenko has re-opened the case, claiming that Kuchma's government "sheltered Gongadze's killers." This is more than political retribution; this speaks to the heart of the Ukranian Revolution: a journalist cannot be killed for being disagreeable, and there is no one who cannot be held accountable. Even the "ruling class," who previously seemed untouchable in perpetuity.

A bad note, close to home. The husband and 80-year-old mother of US District Judge Joan Lefkow were found murdered in their Chicago home. There are no solid suspects yet, but Judge Lefkow had previously found the vile Matthew Hale in contempt of court, and has been his main legal foe. Hale is the founder and High Priest (or whatever) of the Creativity Movement, formerly the World Church of the Creator. This is a violent, absurd and previously dangerous White Supremacist group that was responsible for the murders of several people, including former Northwestern basketball coach Ricky Byrdsong, on a hot, bullet-filled night in Chicago's ethnically-diverse Roger's Park.

Now, Hale is in jail, locked up so deep and so tight that he can't preach his "Racial Holy War" (or RaHoWa, as is their idiotic rallying cry). They believe there is no god, no heaven or hell, but only the white "race" to stand supreme. Hale is removed from that now, but it stands to reason that any of his followers, who now officially eschew violence, could have done this. It also might not have been them- a judge has a lot of enemies, and it seems her husband had his share of them as well- but that it seems to make sense to fit the murders as part of a RaHoWa (Lefkow is not Jewish, but Hale believes she is) shows that some of the stories around the world fit easily inside an American framework as well. There are bad and stupid thugs everywhere.

But progress inches here, as it should. The US Supreme Court ruled executing people who committed their crimes at 16 or 17 cannot be eligible for the death penalty. It was, of course, a 5-4 decision, and could be reversed with judicial changes, but it was an important ruling in the expansion of the 8th Admendment. Torture and the death penalty are the rights of kings, not of men who bind themselves only to temporal documents, like the Constitution. Torture and execution are for Saudi Arabia. They are the vestiges of tyranny. Every step we take to abolish both makes America a more civilized, decent, and honest country, true to itself, and every step we take away shames the founding documents.

"Don't need a weatherman..."

The line above comes from Bob Dylan in "Subterranean Homesick Blues," a brilliant a disjointed song about the strange tides in the 1960s. The world was spinning faster, things seemed out of control, no one was sure what was up or down, and the bizarre imagery of the song emotively captured that feeling. The line in full said "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows." Indeed: they were blowing toward a change (though which way, nobody could tell. More on that later).

Apt lines when one reads the news coming out of the Arab world. These are head-spinning days in the Middle East, when every newscheck reveals another miracle, small or large. Things are happening that just a few weeks ago seemed impossible. We've been tracking them on this blog, but let's try to put it all together. This is a time for optimism, more so now than ever before. Let's not get too ahead of ourselves, though: we are in the early stages of something, and have no idea if the wind is going to shift and blow all the junk and bloody debris right back in our faces.

Start with the beauty of the Lebanese government resigning in the face of massive protests. Though Lebanon still has many problems, as the BBC article explains, this was an amazing turn of events. A few months ago, there would not have been any talk of pushing Syria out, save for some opposition leaders with little political power. It is clear now that the bulk of Lebanese wanted Syria out, but with few exceptions they had been numbed into political impotence, like people all over the Arab world.

That changed with the murder of Rafik Hariri. At the time, much speculation was about who committed the crime and what it meant for Syria, with side worries about whether or not Lebanon would plunge back into the dark days of its brutal civil war. This was not something I saw coming, and didn't read anyone who did (though someone surely did). The people of Lebanon united, in a way that history seemed to preclude. But history is the nightmare from which Lebanon has awoken.

Walid Jumblat, Druze patriarch, is a convert from history. As this Across the Bay post explains, Jumblat woke up with the elections in Iraq. "It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq," explains Jumblat. "I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting three weeks ago, 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world." Jumblat says this spark of democratic revolt is spreading. "The Syrian people, the Egyptian people, all say that something is changing. The Berlin Wall has fallen. We can see it." Keep reading Across the Bay- being entirely about the Middle East it provides some excellent links.

It took the assassination of Hariri to provide the spark, but it was Iraq that laid down the needed kindling. And for the first time that I can recall, a peaceful protest took down an Arab government. This was the kind of people power that we saw in Eastern Europe in 1989, and more recently in Georgia and Ukraine. Read this blog for inspiring updates. The idea that a group of ordinary people, young and old, Christian and Muslim and all their various factions, could come together against a government and its powerful backer while the military and security forces largely stand by, gives a fresh meaning to the overly-used term "inspiring."

Now, factionalism in Lebanon has not mysteriously, magically, vanished. There is still a lot of activity beneath the surface, as group jockey to play their power games. No one knows who will be the new PM, and the President, Emile Lahoud, still enjoys Syria's friendship as much as Syria needs his. This cozy relationship provides the reminder that a wounded Syria sits hovering over Lebanon, mulling its options.

Syria. Kid President Bashar al-Asad seems paralyzed by fear, completely incapable of action. It recently surrendered Saddam's half-brother, the Six of Diamonds, whose stock in the poker game of resistance has gone up as all his mates have been captured or killed. This is a typical Syria move- a bold gesture to show they are on the right side that is actually an implicit admission of having him in their country all along. Syria expects to be showered with rode petals, but have ended up making themselves look worse. Bashar is in a bind, and with every mistake and day of inaction his ability to handle anything looks more and more ephemeral.
They are facing trouble on more fronts than Israel in 1967, and with far less capability.

It is far too early to speak of regime change, though. Syria is not Lebanon. Even with the outside pressure, one can have no trouble envisioning a savage backlash if the people of Syria try to emulate their neighbors. Even if Bashar is weak and stupid, those running the security services have maintained their jackboot mentality and capacity for massive violence. There is a lot of gold when running a country (and a lot of drug money in controlling the Lebanese Bekka Valley, which is where a redeploying Syria will hunker down for their final stand). No one is ready to give it up.

But no one is ready to give up power anywhere. It is happening though. In Egypt, President Hosni Mubarak is pushing for laws to change the election rules. Normally when this happens it is for the current President to appoint himself lifetime powers or dynastic rule or prima nocte or something. Not in Egypt. The long-ruling party, the party of Nasser, is opening up its election process. Normally, and for the last 25 years, Mubarak is "re-elected" by referendum: Do you want President Mubarak to stay in power? Yes or no (the correct answer, by the way, is "Yes," and try to smile when pushing the lever, ok?). Now he is pushing a new law that paves the way for other candidates to run against him.

Of course, they won't win. They may be hand-picked candidates who will support Mubarak, much like what happens in Yemen (where President Saleh is legitimately popular). But I think there will be a surprise. Remember Iran- the hardliners picked Khatami to run as a sop to the whining clamor of the reformers, and he surprised them by getting over 75% of the votes. A similar thing, though not to that extent, could happen in Egypt. People are fed up with the regime, which had best tread carefully.

Even when Mubarak cruises to victory, this is a gigantic step. He sees that Jumblat is right, that the wave of democracy is rolling. They are trying to stave it off by minor measures, but every minor measure is another step. Even Saudi Arabia is playing the game, albeit in their own primitive, cynical and retarded (in its true sense) manner. Mubarak could roll all of this back, following the Khatami example to perfection, but it won't be as easy. Iran is far more contained. Although the filthy idea of the Arab Street has been shown to be fraudulent, the connection Arabs have with each other is still real. That is why this has been a rolling tide- the Arab countries are saying "If X can have a say, why can't I?"

And that head X is Iraq. That sounds like a vampire thing, I understand, and maybe it isn't that far off. Iraq is the leader, and their super-human courage in the face of terror and war pulled a "Lost Boys" and have begun to pick off the other countries, one by one. Bin Laden, Zarqawi and the Ba'athists realize this, which explains yesterday's awful and sobering carnage. They are trying to kill the head vampire, Iraq (we'll stop this analogy now. The head vampire in Lost Boys was Kiefer Sutherland, who is now America's number one terrorist fighter in "24." It is connections like these that make me shy away from pop culture). The Bushies realized this early on: as Iraq goes, so goes the rest. It makes one weep to think about what could have been if they didn't mess it up so badly- if we could have had elections without the chaos and looting and power outages and murder that came with the botched occupation. The result is looking good, but...

...but maybe we wouldn't have to fear the savage backlash. Iraq can still be tainted with the Administration's lack of planning and the different kind of misery it brought to the Iraqi people. I hope that the last month has demonstrated once and for all the need for the war, but one still wishes it could have been better handled. Had it been, it would be impossible for the degenerate and corrupt Arab leaders to link the legitimate aspirations of their people with American/Zionist conspiracy gibberish (by the way, we haven't even tackled Palestine, but needless to say it falls in here and deserves its own article very soon).

The potential for backlash is there, and if it comes it will be brutal and cruel, full of either violence or the more subtle and in many ways worse torture of slowly demolished hopes. But one thing is clear. The status quo is over. There could be a backslide or things could move forward, but we are in the middle of an Arab sea change- of that there is no doubt.

To end where we began: the hopes and dreams of the 60s ended with violence and chaos and bad drugs and strange cults and a return of Nixon. In "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas" Hunter Thompson describes being able to look, east from Frisco, through the mountains and seeing where the high water mark came crashing down, and we were left with waste. The same thing could happen here. But it doesn't have to. It is an odd thing, being inside a historical moment. One wishes to rush to conclusions; one longs to see history as essentially a benevolent force, guiding us forward with the Hand of Progress. But it isn't. History has many hands, and it isn't written until the end. In the meanwhile, the ghosts of history pull at the actors, and nowhere is this more true than the Middle East. It is up to those actors to shake them free, as the people of Lebanon have tentatively done, and it is up to the outside world to keep pressuring them to be free.

Rumblings of a Revolution?

Within the last ten minutes the besieged and embattled pro-Syrian government of Lebanon has resigned, in the face of massive protests and against a backdrop of a united Lebanon, fiercely resisting their occupation and willing to transcend sectarian lines.

This is a situation that would have been unthinkable but a few months ago- or even a month ago. But it seems that the election in Iraq really has set the ground shaking. Even Walid Jumblatt has changed his tune, saying that as cynical as he was about the occupation, the sight of 8 million Iraqis voting led to this willingness in Lebanon to stand up to Ba'athi thugs.

We'll have more on this major story as it develops, with a little more analysis. Excited? I bet you are!