Obama’s lastest on Tehran Protests Makes Sense

Barack Obama latest comments on Iran’s street protests make a lot of sense. Indeed he has taken a couple days, made sense of events and now that he is speaking out, his words seem to be charting the right course, on politics, and as rachel Maddow says, on basic strategery, and on understanding recent history.  Further, he has explained things today in several media interviews in a very accessible way :

Briefly, here’s why the president has not come out supporting the street protesters.  these are the points:

1) Obama does not want war with Iran.

2) Obama does not want to impose American beliefs upon Iranians.

3) Were the US government to publicly support the protesters, it would be the kiss of death to the protest movement. As Obama said, there is not better way to discredit the protesters than to give credence to the charge that they are dupes of the US government.

Here’s what I like about these comments. 1) They are smart and likewise treat the American people and iranian protesters as smart.  2) they recognize the history of US imperialism in Iran: 1953 coup, and elevation to power and support of the shah of iran; 3) they seek to avoid war and the hysteria that is beginning to accompany Republican cries for regime change in iran; 4) they are responsive to the implicit requests of Mousavi and Iranian human rights leaders.

(consider it ample evidence of what Obma thinks, that the State Department has asked Twitter not to go off line today so as to give street protesters a much relied upon tool for communication.)

But common sense never stopped the republican opposition to exploit extremely delicate international affairs for short term sound bites and political gain.  Thanks to Republicans: (”bomb, bomb, bomb iran” Mccain, Pence, Rorbacher, Lieberman, a chorus is building to overtly support the protesters, threaten the iranian government with regime change,” and impose America’s will on the Iranian people. 

Makes me extremely glad I voted last November.

Is Mousavi different than a Week Ago?

From my reading of twitter’s live feeds about the street protests in tehran #iranelection, #tehran, #iran9; it seems to me that the students, intellectuals and other reformists who are curently risking their lives on the streets of tehran desire more than just seeing the election of their candidate validated.

I do not know a lot about Mousavi, but from what i am reading is seems during the campaign, Mousavi ran as a borderline reformer; he was more part of the iranian political elite and theocracy than he was a symbol of resistance. If anyhing it is likely he would be a more reliable pawn of the theocratic elites.  

Until last saturday…

Now he is a hero of a democratic movement.  His stature as a beacon for democracy has grown enormously  in the 3 days since the election because of millions of people flooding the streets and millions more tweeting support. What we are seeing of course is a tsunami of social forces that have been dormant for 30 years and now unleashed, are flooding the streets of Tehran and the global internet. 

The significance of this sheer human release, however, remains unknown.  Mousavi may be a symbol of the street revolution today, but the revolution is already much larger than he is.  

It will be interesting to observe the role he assumes as this plays out. Might he still go on iran tv and urge compromise and reconciliation, which is what I fear, or might he assume the mantle of the opposition, and having been emboldened by events, urge his supporters to to  fight  in the streets for genuine reform: starting with a re-vote (not a re-count) and then systemic reform that institutionalizes freedom of speech and dissent, and perhaps even separates the existing theocracy from the levers of government power.

Obama responds to street violence in Tehran

Keith Olberman tonite started with President Obama speaking about the street violence in Tehran, which he finds deeply disturbing. He cites Iran’s lack of tolerance for political dissent as running against the currents of international law.

But Obama’s words only went so far. the prevailing wisdom is that Obama cannot speak too stridently about the stolen election because Mousavi would then be perceived as a stool pigeon of the U.S. government.  Obama said US does not want to make decisions for Iranians.

Here’s a supplementary take. President Obama risks being branded a hypocrite due our our own stolen 2000 election, which we did nothing about.  Was the 2000 election stolen? Yes. ask Greg Palast. Better yet, ask Justice Souter.

That’s right, the suggestion here is that Obama’s words are limited by America’s  own diminished moral authority, a plague that  spreads into several other Bush era wrongs that have yet to be remedied. 

Obama moral voice here is constrained because  we did nothing when our “Ahmadinejad” became president for 8 years. It serves notice that the president’s voice and actions  might well be constrained on several other fronts as well, unless we act.

Obama Silence on Tehran Protests

News reports of President Obama boarding his plane for Chicago this morning without saying word about the election protests in tehran say more about his mo than it does necessarily about policy. 

In a spring news conference ABC reporter jake tapper (I think) asked Obama why he hadn’t responded immediately to some crisis of the day to which the president responded, (paraphrase here) “I want to know what I am talking about before I open my mouth” 

It seems the Obama m.o. is at play here regarding the Iranian elections.  I don’t begrudge the president for wanting to speak with deliberation. But at the moment the world is experiencing a citizen revolution, the scale of which has not been seen since Tianamon Square 20 years ago.  Obam’s moral leadership as a world leader is also something that a US leader has not had in several decades.

It might be useful were the President to find a way to reconcile deliberation with responsiveness.

At some point during the next day or 2, the Iranian government is likely to move in even fuller force against the protests. Once they are quashed, and Ahmadinejad solidifies control again, it will be too late for Obama to do anything but “congratulate the winner.”  At that point, Obama’s words or his silence will amount to policy, and we all lose.

check out link of people power on streets of Tehran, which demands a response:

Tehran protests

word from the streets of Tehran

anascreen RT @persiankiwi: I cannot see directly from my position but am being told many many people in streets – too many to count. #Iranelection

persiankiwitehran is at standstill. all major routes jammed with people. #Iranelection4 minutes ago from web

persiankiwiwe do not know if foreign press are covering this. we cannot access satellites. #Iranelection

 

MrNewsDK RT @persiankiwi: ADVICE – carry photos of imam khomeini. they cannot shoot at us with these. #Iranelection

 

hamednz I ran away from there. ppl were saying ‘Alaho Akbar’ then anti riot forces … #IranElection

verkut @WordMarvin Look at NYTimes Editorial today. It says everything. They need Ahmadinejad, not serious Iranian politicians. #IranElection

Twitilution in Tehran?

While MSM anchors this morning are wearing their typical morning smiley faces and drinking mornings cups of joe, twitter has a live feed of the thousands of students in Tehran going to Enghelab Square. tear gas, machne guns… the tweets look like this, “ ariehkovler RT: @persiankiwi: call in from Enghelab Sq. Baseej outnumbered, just watching people march.#Iranelection”

With limits of 140 characters, the tweets convey messages of this emerging revolution in almost poetic terms, beneath the radar of the iranian government. Actually the government is doing its best to shut down acess to the internet, but savvy protesters remain at least one or two steps ahead. They are providing live information, with facts, numbers and feelings along with links to photos and video feeds of the action.

All this happening while the MSM congratulates Ahmadinejad on having won the election and declaring  that democracy works in Iran. As for this later claim, we are about to put it to the test, as tanks roll down the streets towards the marchers.

In the last 24 hours, twitter put CNN to shame. using the hashtag #cnnfail, many thousands of live feeds showed cnn what it was missing by contrasting its coverage of skiiing squirrels with live feeds of marchers being skattered by clubs and motorcycles and of at least one demonstrater beaten to death.  CNN was forced by the sudden new media onslaught to give more time to the protests. so much for small victories…

check it out at twitter #iranelection.

Obama Should Walk Back new Drug Cartel Policy

President Obama should ‘walk back’ his March 24 announcement to further militarize the border and instead focus on the prevalence of guns and the violence caused by the illegal drug trade. Border militarization will not end drug cartel violence; putting an end to the source of gun and drug violence might.

 In 2008, over 6,000 people died as a result of violence caused by warring drug cartels in northern Mexico.  This is just another costly mess that President Obama inherited from the previous administration.  It is a mess that allows the new president to respond in one of two ways.  First is the way he has already responded, which is to double down on some egregiously bad border control policies enacted by his predecessor. The other response would be one that would prove much more effective, speak truth to power, and advances a social justice agenda that many of his supporters had hoped Obama would follow as president. 

 On March 24, the Obama Administration announced it would respond to the cartel violence by committing hundreds of millions of dollars for additional law enforcement, surveillance technology, and perhaps also send the national guard to Texas and Arizona as requested by the governors from these two states.

 The problem with this response is that it won’t work and that perpetuates an extra-legal approach to immigration and border control.  The Bush administration spent multiple billions of dollars during the last eight years militarizing the border with beefed up staffing, military presence, bricks and mortar border walls and virtual border fences. Embedded biometric and rfid technologies in passports and smart drivers licenses don’t work on their own terms as they violate the personal privacy the persons carrying them.  During the last several years, the GAO has criticized most of these projects for insufficient management and being replete with technical kinks, and cost overruns.  Investigations by civil liberties and human rights organizations point to police-state-like conditions that are created in many border communities.  At root these projects were poorly conceived and are incompetently administered.  They cropped up profitable opportunities for military contractors eager to domesticate Iraq war technologies.  Problem is they compromise constitutional norms of due process and flat out don’t work.  The military presence and beefed up border enforcement presence failed to deter undocumented immigrant crossings.  Only economic recession managed to accomplish that, temporarily.  In the meantime, the border fence has destroyed wildlife, evicted property owners including land grant families; threatened university campuses and public parks; ruined local economies and for what?  As DHS Secretary has said, “Show me a 50-foot fence and I’ll show you a 51-foot ladder…”

 Now the Obama administration might well say the new technology is designed only for the purpose of helping to stem caret related violence, is it is likely that this is their intent.  But much of the surveillance technology under consideration is infrastructural and permanent; it will remain along the border long after this crisis subsides.  And once the surveillance technology exists, it remains and the federal and local governments will make use of it, directing it against border residents as it has done for many years.

 The alternative is not politically popular but does cut to the chase of a problem that border militarization cannot get close to solving.  First, close down the 7,000 or so gun shops that dot the border with Mexico that sell guns everyday to folks bringing them down into Mexico for the cartels. Two, surveillance along the border already exists. Use it to track gun purchasers (particularly assault weapons buyers)  headed back into Mexico. 

Next, consider (drug) legalization alternatives.   Hillary Clinton today said that the US assumes its share of responsibility in the current crisis, citing the insatiable demand for drugs coming the the US.  Clinton also pegged the availability of assault weapons and spoke of the difficulty of taking of the NRA to reverse the repeal of the assault weapons ban.  A surprisingly rational take on the current mess.  How to diminish demand for illegal drugs?  the lesson from Prohibition is legalization, education and government regulation.  The end of prohibition was a horrible thing for organized crime.  And  gun control and assault weapons bans?  Clinton is suggesting at the least that the time has come for this dialogue to get going, and that just perhaps, these two things would be the most dramatic and effective way to stem drug related violence along the border and in our cities as well.

Obama Seeks to Stem Mexican Drug Violence with Bush Policy

When he was running the president, there was little hint that Obama’s first important address on immigration would have him doubling down on some of President Bush’s most troubling social control policies.  The Administration announcement March 24, 2009 has helped usher in a new era of intelligence-led policing at the border. 

Border militarization under Obama continues Bush policies that failed on their own terms and include:  beefing up border security, advancing the federalization of immigration control, public/private counter-intelligence projects, and moving forward with state of the art virtual fence and counter-intelligence technologies.

This new policy  runs counter to the more progressive pro-immigrant rights speeches heard during the  campaign particularly during the primaries. Few would have imagined, for example, that Obama would have doubled the size of border enforcement task forces and violent criminal alien teams; triple the number of intelligence analysts along the border; and quadruple the number of border liaisons working with Mexican law enforcement officials. (as the NYT reports this aft.)  This new border security initiative follows $700 million Congress had already committed to the region to support Mexican law enforcement and judicial capacity, helicopters and a surveillance aircraft to the Mexican military, and inspection technology.

On March 25, Obama committed to adding security teams that combine local, state and federal officers; 16 new DEA positions at the border; 100 officials from the ATF; and possibly the National Guard.  

 Few question the severity of the violence in northerm Mexico with some 6,500 deaths caused by warring drug cartels. According to DHS Secry Napolitano, “Mexico right now has issues of violence that are a different degree and level than we’ve seen before.” And as Mark Koumans, Deputy Assistant Secretary for International Affairs testified before Congress earlier this month,  “The sustained levels of violence that we observe in Mexican border cities like Tijuana, Ciudad Juarez, and Nogales threaten private citizens, tourists, workers, and businesses alike The approximately 6,000 drug-related murders in Mexico last year were more than twice the previous record…” 

 The problem, however, here has to do with the unintended consequences of a policy that picks up where the abject failed policies of Bush left off. Obama has not only inherited SBInet, the border wall, US-VISIT biometrics, smart passports and drivers licenses and counter-intelligence schemes that were hatched during the years of post 9/11 shock.  Looks like he is about to  give them new life.  

 

What Obama’s Inaugural told me about His Immigration Policy

With all his rhetorical might, Barack Obama in his Inaugural Address endeavored to pull the country back into the realm of the rule of law.  Although this sisyphusian task will require a great deal more work than rhetoric, this is where it starts and already perhaps this indicates a reverse of course. It certainly feels good to see the new president playing to his strength and using his force of his words to serve notice on the planet that the false choice between security and liberty is over and the constitution has returned.

As for our common defense, we reject as false the choice between our safety and our ideals.  Our Founding Fathers, faced with perils we can scarcely imagine, drafted a charter to assure the rule of law and the rights of man, a charter expanded by the blood of generations.  Those ideals still light the world, and we will not give them up for expedience’s sake.  And so to all other peoples and governments who are watching today, from the grandest capitals to the small village where my father was born:  know that America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman, and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and that we are ready to lead once more.

 Similarly, Obama also served notice that

Recall that earlier generations faced down fascism and communism not just with missiles and tanks, but with sturdy alliances and enduring convictions. They understood that our power alone cannot protect us, not does it entitle us to do as we please.  Instead they knew that our power grows through its prudent use; our security emanates from the justness of our cause, the force of our example, the tempering qualities of humility and restraint.

Such is his attack on the sovereignist approach to power that is derisive of the rule of law. Obama reminds us that such power is doomed because it is discordant with the “justness of our cause, the force of our example.” Obama here is referring to the integrity of our institutions in their treatment of individuals when integrity is measured against the American character which is recognizes is rooted in the immigrant and slave experience.

Obama also reclaimed the immigrant basis for its own identity, appealing to the small town in Congo where his father was born.  The ideal for Obama is to be found in the immigrant experience.

His use of the immigrant experience in this speech is anathama to the immigrant control system that has been developed over the past eight years.   Put simply, Obama entered office with a strong commitment to end the injustices experienced under the Bush Administration.

It seems clear that an Obama Administration will use much different tropes when framing the immigrant.  than the ones the country has been forced to endure under Bush.  The question I have is whether this is enough of a commitment to actually reverse course, given the inordinant amount of government resources already exhausted on immigration control.  Keep in mind his address bore no refere3nce to immigration reform; it spoke of cleaning up other messes in concrete terms but his references to immigration were vague and abstract.  America’s greatness lies in its immigrant past; its character built on the backs of immigrants and slaves.  But will his appreciation of immigration translater into concrete policies that reverse the Bush abuses of power?   It remains to be seen if the President’s attack on sovereign approaches to power will translate into concrete efforts to extend constitutional law into the immigration field. 

Barack and the Georgia 300

Barack picked up Joe this morning in Wilmington Delaware aboard the Georgia 300, the last car attached to the Amtrack run from Phila. to D.C.  I wanted to drag Steph and the kids up to Wilmington, but we would have stood in the freezing cold for several hours.  

We stayed in Newark and made it a neighborhood deal, five minutes from home. Along with several hundred fellow Newarkians, we stood outside for about 1/2 hour. Olivia’s toes froze, mine hurt and Julian’s fingers were freezing.   Steph didn’t complain. I didn’t want this moment in history to result in frostbite, and it didn’t, of course.

What we captured instead was a fleeting moment in history, about 10 seconds worth.  We were hoping for a slow roll through Biden’s alma mater town, but to no avail.  With Olivia dancing her feet to stay warm, we huddled along with a woman who told me she remembered standing at the same tracks (she thought) during the bobby kennedy funeral procession. she was eleven and still remembered it clearly, she said.

Well, I hope Olivia remembers something about this moment. Little brother Julian won’t, but that doesn’t matter. He had a good day.  Afterwards he got to go to an arcade and play skee-ball and then with his sister had pancakes with lots of syrup.  He’s happy.

For me, it’s a moment that i wanted to connect to the avalanche of events we are going to experience during the next several years. It’s a grounding moment for me. I caught a glimpse of Joe and Barack. Okay. it’s real. Let’s go.

 

Obama/Biden passing thru Newark DE on way to D.C.