Steve Hutcheson

Let me see if I have this straight. Masood Qaim who recently wrote in the Guardian (I’ve Changed my Mind about the West published 30 Dec 2009) about the failure of the west to take its reconstruction activities in Afghanistan seriously, who grew up the son of a General with power, position and was part of the privileged elite in socialist Afghanistan, losing it all on departure of the Russians. He is unhappy and grumbles that the Americans or the west have not reinstated his life to that which it once was and have not bought back the development in a manner that would suit him.  As a journalist Masood and judging from his complaint, sees himself as part of the intellectual mass of Afghanistan that believes and challenges the west should be doing more to reinstate his county to its former self.

Frankly, Masood represents about one percent of Afghanistan as it stands. Afghans voted and it was Karzai whom for better or worse the apparent majority Afghans felt represents their plight best of all.  

There are substantial issues for Afghanistan to face up to, least of all the rampant corruption amongst the government, the abuse of power by the warlords and the ongoing philosophical battle that represents the fundamental policy of the Taliban versus the liberation espoused by a more humane western sense of human rights. Biting the hands that primarily feeds them is the last thing Afghans need to be doing if they are to move anywhere in the direction of change and development.

In a Facebook thread on this article posted by Nushin Arbabzadah, another Guradian journalist, I have challenge Masood to address the question of how change would come about to Afghanistan if the west was to abruptly withhold all aid and intervention in the processes that are taking place. How will Afghans solve some if not all of the seemingly intractable problems his country faces?

In another more inspiring article that I have read lately drawn by Nicholas D Kristof in the New York Times (His Gift Changes Lives published New York Times 16^th December 2009) Kristof writes about a Sudanese youth, Valentino Deng who at first escaped the rigors of the war in Sudan but on eventually achieving some sense of stability and security in the US, has returned to his country work on the development process himself, building a school where countless NGOs have failed. He is not carping about how that the west is not doing enough, he has moved on and is doing it himself, he sees himself as the lucky one and that it is up to him to actually bring about the change needed to his country.    

Masood, and he is not alone in this, need to take control of their own set of circumstances. If it cannot be achieved at the ballot box then it needs to be done irrespective of the government and the corruption that exists in the world as they know it. It is after all, only what he is presently expecting the west to do for him.  

I take umbrage at his dismissal of the work of foreign NGO’s where he labels them as the greatest source of corruption in Afghanistan. Far be it from me to defend the actions of all of them, I often disagree with the methods and programs they become engaged in, however having worked there and experienced firsthand where the problems lie, it is not the internationals per se, it is more often in the local staff who find an avenue to corrupt the processes, who take backhanders from contractors, who manipulate the flow of funds an any number of other ways of stripping the funds out of NGO programs. For the most part as a program manager, I saw my role and that of other international functionaries in part was to introduce systems and processes that perhaps would not eliminate the corruption but would at least bring it into a respectable level of say eighty percent delivered. Where international inexperience on the part of the program manager was evident is where the most rorting of the aid funding existed. Many believed much like Masood seems to believe that Afghans would not be the major protagonists in this failure to see full delivery of program funding to bring about major impact by its delivery. It is not an intentional process but one brought about by default and consequence of young idealists taking a lead in many programs.

There is a problem with much aid funding that is for sure. Programs are introduced that have no commercial basis, they are feel good projects that do little to alter the economic plight that is at the root of the complaint Masood has.  We build schools in remote locations and then cannot get any qualified teachers to attend them because of security or remoteness or simply a lack of teachers. More than three hundred schools in the eastern provinces are vacant because of this. We build and equip clinics when there is no qualified staff to man them for the same reasons.  We build roads to market and then do nothing about ensuring that there is in fact a market at the end of it. We do nothing to ensure that the 70% of rural poor who are landless have an opportunity to have greater aspiration than to simply be an itinerant farm laborer or part time Taliban as an alternative. We look at our individual programs as self important and fail to register them holistically with the overall development process needed for the county.

Simply put, Masood is wrong in his assessment. He would do well to take a leaf out of Valentino Deng’s book and consider his good fortune to be one of the lucky ones and take action to make the changes he wants for Afghanistan himself.

On the basis that there are some six billion people in the world, I am convinced that a fair number of them are what we would call “good people” who would make interesting reading if only someone bothered to take the time to ask them their story and write about it in an interesting way.

I am not talking about the sport stars or the actors and singers who succeed publicly and make lots of money doing it and then turn out to be prats in real life, I am not talking about the politicians or business leaders that are in fact doing it for themselves, I am talking about real people who do good things in life, who change peoples lives in some small way without asking for a reward or give up part of their lives to help their fellow man and not expect to reap any benefit beyond their due.

They do it because it needs to be done. The sort of people I am talking about would be be the characters behind Lawrence of Arabia or even Indiana Jones or even Dawn Dulhunty.

Behind it all however what they do is inspiration of another kind. Far too often we as a society are driven by the excesses of greed and corruption, we have it instilled in us daily that you can be bad, you can be corrupt and still you can be regarded as successful, whatever that means.

Recently a well known TV character in Melbourne Australia who had a massive following based on his hosting character on television and his later involvement in the art world, pleaded guilty to corrupt business practices that saw him being fined a huge amount of money in normal terms but possibly only a small percentage of whatever he made through that scam and being excluded from business for several years. How many people were affected by his greed is unknown or what effect it had on their lives is inconsequential but affected they were. It has been a couple of years perhaps but now his publicity machinery is driving him back into the public sphere again and I have to ask why? Why are we allowing it? What has he done to make amends for the pain and suffering he has caused? Surely there are enough people around with good vibrations that we can idolize?

It goes on of course. There are any number of people in the news this week who are there because they are bad or they entertain us with their excesses as opposed to being good people doing good things and making life an adventure as it should be.

So much for my high horse. Initially this column started out as a political commentary on stuff that six million other writers are commenting on so I have decided to forgo that and perhaps concentrate on finding good stories about good people in the world and bringing them to the fore where they should be and to work on new projects where good things can be done. I must say I was driven to change focus when I read about this kid who gained notoriety on trashing his parents house with a party then appeared on a national TV program and was paid some $80,000 by the program to do so. Maybe I am getting old but I just find it difficult to reconcile that this is what it being promoted as the present value system of Australia. It is a big world out there and it is my conviction that there are many more interesting people out there than that.

What this exercise will be is stories about people as I said who make life an adventure and contribute to the well being of other people either as individuals or collectively in the same way that Indiana Jones could save the good people from pending disaster. If I can achieve it, it will not be a simple chronology of events but a discovery of the hardships and sense of adventure that is part of their achievements. That kids can read and become intoxicated by their exciting if not difficult lives. As I write, there is plenty of that happening in the world right now what with the cyclone in Burma and the earthquake in China. As I see it, no one knows who are the men and women who will go to these disasters, no one knows the men and women of the fire service or the regional hospital systems, no one knows the men and women who protect Australia’s shores and numerous other endeavors that change peoples lives on a daily basis. It these people that should be the inspiration for the future generations of Australians.

You can be the judge. Please nominate someone for inclusion.

p.s. My bet is you do not know who Dawn Dulhunty is. Well you should. She is An Australian humanitarian who has worked with her husband Paul for their church group in places like Nepal and India and Kosova and a dozen other places around the world, riding elephants to work, putting peoples lives back together for thirty years. She is an Australian version of Mother Teresa, without all the hype. She inspires me and I will write about her if she lets me.

American politics and the outcome of the campaign for the US Presidency is still any ones guess for the moment however the three front runners who are the primary contenders, are McCain as the Republican candidate and either Clinton or Obama for the Democratic candidate. The next few days will establish which of these last two carry the bulk of voting delegates and receive the final nomination but it would seem that Obama has gained sufficient impetus to carry the day.

In the meantime there is an interesting survey being conducted by a major Israeli English language daily where a media panel has been monitoring the various candidates with the express purpose of establishing which would be better for Israel. The acknowledgment being that Israel relies heavily on the US for financial and military support in addition to its current unfettered political support in the Middle East conflict.

All of the candidates with the exception of Texan Ron Paul who has not been included in the survey err on the positive side of the scale. Of the front runners however, Obama is the least attractive for the Israelis only registering a figure that is near neutral with a score of 5.2 while both Clinton and McCain are registering around 7.5 on a scale of 1 to 10.

Maintaining the status quo is obviously important to the Israelis in their present escalation of hostilities with the Palestinian militants in Gaza and simultaneously in either reaching consensus or inserting a protracted delay of the peace process that is presently being undertaken as a consequence of the Annapolis conference.

The peace process should be simple however the terms of peace for both sides remain some distance apart as elements of the demands by the Palestinians continue to be intractable to the Israelis.

A shift in the political climate support for the present Israeli regime and their stonewalling may have significant import in the final outcome however. To date Obama has been cautious with his words however he publicly maintains support for the Israeli government’s position and has so far divorced himself from any separation from the status quo for obvious reasons.

The Jewish vote in America is less than 2% however the political influence they have over the electoral process and the US government is far more significant than that small sector of the community represents. Through the efforts of AIPAC and other Jewish lobby groups there is no US politician currently prepared to speak out against Israel or the special relationship that exists between the two countries. As a number of American politicians have found out, to do so is tantamount to political suicide.

So is Obama the voice of reason that the world and particularly the Arab world needs and is that why the Israeli panelists have rated him less favorably in measuring their own interests?

In his words, Obama argues that US politics has become so partisan and gummed up by money and influence that they are unable to solve the world’s problems that demand solutions.

Quoting from his campaign website he states “I am in this race to tell the corporate lobbyists that their days of setting the agenda in Washington are over. I have done more than any other candidate in this race to take on lobbyists — and won. They have not funded my campaign, they will not get a job in my White House, and they will not drown out the voices of the American people when I am president.” It is fair warning to the lobbyists and that would include AIPAC that their days of undue influence on the American political system will draw to a close.

In relation to Israel his platform is still more of the same although there are subtle caveats. Obama has stated that he supports a secure Israel that is capable of defending itself, and that the foreign assistance provided by America will be maintained and that a strong relationship between the two countries will continue to exist.

But Obama also supports the continuation and acceleration of the peace talks and is prepared to add emphasis to the US relationship with Israel to make that happen. In a recent Q&A with the Washington Post he stated. “The Annapolis conference was a worthy, but late, effort, and already the follow-up has been lacking. As president, I will commit myself personally, and I will assign high-caliber diplomats, to be engaged with both sides on an ongoing basis — encouraging communication, helping them develop and implement solutions, holding them accountable to their commitments by carefully monitoring and reporting on their implementation. I will also demand greater support for this process from the Arab world.”

So what does this mean for Israel and why have the panelists been so cautious in their assessment and finally why does the Arab world have much to gain by his presidency? Firstly it is apparent that he will neuter the capacity of the Israel lobby through his office to address the inordinate influence that as one lobby group that it exerts over the system of government controlling the very things that they use to apply leverage, the financial backing of candidates. Secondly, it is his intention to be more proactive and to press home the peace process until an equitable resolution for a settlement between the two parties is reached.

How his policy alters once he is in office remains to be seen however for the moment there is a positive sign for the Arab world that he is committed to a bringing forward a peaceful resolution to the Middle East crisis, that he will remove the friction that the US war on terror has created in Iraq, he will add emphasis to pursuing the leaders of the terrorist organizations and that he will enter into dialogs with those presently considered rogue states with all the changes within the US government processes necessary to do that.

The war in Iraq is mired in controversy, a discombobulating pool of mixed messages, falsehoods and fanciful posturing. Earlier pronouncements as to the reasons for being there in Iraq uttered prior to the invasion now after some years, an enormous cost and an unacceptable casualty rate, have been proven erroneous and in many cases in fact, downright false. The discussion no longer looks at these facts, for the most part been swept under the carpet as historically insignificant, but now concentrates on how best to extricate the military from the scene and leave a lasting peace between the existing factions. A new agenda has surfaced that is constantly being massaged and repositioned.

Compounding this dilemma is the continuation of positive spin being applied by the government and the military on how well the various current actions are going, how much improved the war is going, how successful the various strategies are working, how beneficial it all is for the long term security of the region yet when it is all pealed away, much of what if said is still false, fulfilling an MBA mantra of constant positive affirmation as a panacea to ward off failure as failure in itself is considered unacceptable.

But are the government and the military living in a fantasy world, do they seriously believe that the solution will evolve out of a constant barrage of military might and positive determination on behalf of those that are directing it.

By comparison, one needs to look at the neighbour and again put things into a perspective, stripping away the rhetoric and looking at the logicality of the complex situations and in the end, asking if the powers to be really do have answers to these enormous problems.

Israel and the Palestinians have been warring for more than sixty years and still, even though Israel maintains the upper hand militarily, financially and with its strong US allegiances, it is no closer to a reaching an equitable solution with the Palestinians and their Arab backers now than it was in 1948.

In Iran, the US has imposed sanctions and sought its allies in the region as well as internationally to support them yet still Iran continues on its own quest, greatly inconvenienced but largely unimpeded in cementing its agenda and its position as a regional leader. The US President went to all his major allies of the region and continued to spread the message of moral superiority over the Iranians yet nothing could be further from the truth, a point noted almost universally by the Arab press while that news hardly causing a ripple in the western media where it promoted a sense of achievement.

The UAE, possible the most strongly aligned Gulf State to the US and heavily engaged in democratisation of its economy and political face has in 2007 Iran as its major trading partner, providing and consuming more than 50% of its national GDP as are all the other Gulf States so inextricably involved.

Each of the regional governments of the Gulf States listened to Bush yet retained one foot on the ground in acceptance of his words. They were not being elevated into another space and time frame as the reality of the proximity of their location and their deeper comprehension of the political and strategic issues at hand tempered the Bush almost naive attempt at persuasion.

The feeling of the Middle East and in particular the neighbours of Iran is that it has a place in their midst, it is a significant economy and strategic partner, it is of a similar faith and maintains a religious piety similar to their own, it is one that they will continue to deal with irrespective of the negative imputations delivered by the major international force and consumer.

Where the honesty appears to be failing is the rhetoric that proclaims Iran to be a threat to the Gulf and by extension, US security. The US administration would have the world believe that these States are as one with the US in its determination against Iran however gauging the response of the Gulf and Arabic papers following his excursion, Iran is not a threat to the Gulf nor to the world at large and conversely, on several fronts the Gulf and Arab nations are in advanced states of normalizing of their relationships, even that which is under the strongest US influence in the region, Iraq.

Major dilemmas also for the Bush administration are the constant unravelling of foreign policy for the region. In 2007, Alan Greenspan made a casual remark in his memoirs when he wrote “I am saddened that it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil.”

To avoid being drawn, Greenspan spent the following weeks extricating him self, making the point that this was not the professed reason however never really recanting his assertion that is was the true one. The perceived belief promoted by the administration and its supporting media is that this was not the reason, the doctrine of dishonesty continues in the administrations quest to justify the military incursion.

Over the past two years as the war has entered into a phase that is largely intractable, a more permanent legacy that America will leave on the region for time immemorial extending the divide between the sectarian groups and between Islam and the west for which there appears to be no viable solutions, and the truth being that there may not be one. Committed army Generals after General have come forward upon retiring to lament the politicisation of the process of war with Iraq and the falsehoods upon which the battles have and are being waged. Within the administration itself a number of senior advisors have also been engaged in litigation and prosecution that highlights their dishonesty to the American public. Some such as Richard Perle, one of the architects of the Project for a New American Century have withdrawn their earlier opinions upon which the war was waged arguing that the government once engaged in the process became dysfunctional.

Colin Powell, the most senior insider of the Bush administration left after being obligated to make a case at the UN that in hindsight he regards that episode as a “blot” on his career saying on Barbara Walters program “It will always be a part of my record. It was painful. It’s painful now”.

Where does that leave us? Now a new batch of Presidential hopefuls are pursuing the highest office of the land yet they too are obliged to continue in the wake of their predecessor, to support the dishonesty or at the very least, failing to address it as it should be as it too will weigh heavily on their administrations.

The questions that needs to be asked without the partisan rhetoric, without the flawed logic of the likes of the international hegemony proposed by the Project for the New America Century, without the need to appease influential foreign governments, is what is in fact best for America and why is in the mess it presently is in?

Unless honesty becomes a weapon in the arsenal being utilised by the US administration, unless the awful truths of why battles are being waged in distant countries that pose no serious threat to the security of the region or the west are revealed and addressed in consultation with the public, the house of cards build on lies will reverberate throughout the psych of America and throughout its various roles in the world for decades.

The Battle for Honesty must begin before we can go any further.

I can remember as a child having a vision about America that made me envious in a strange sort of way coming from a rural Australian background. It was a John Wayne, Doris Day image about all that was right with the world, the good guys always won and the bad guys were consigned to Boot Hill or prison. As I have grown older, I often wondered what has happened to me, and the world for that matter to change that image as much as it has been.

America no longer holds any appeal what so ever, in fact it is the opposite as I have come to peal away the outer Tinsel Town layer image and have been able to see what lies beneath it, the heart of those people to whom I once felt such fascination. The world we live in has contracted. Air travel, the internet and instantaneous news broadcasts have bought it so much closer. It is no longer the visual broadcast that would precede the movies on a Saturday night, now I can see riots in Kenya at the same time as it happens as I see a young movie personality being led away in Los Angeles to serve out a few days in jail.

What is the most disturbing is that the more I look, the harder it becomes to find that which was the heart of America, the moral giants of the likes John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart once portrayed. It is no longer the Magnificent Seven coming to the defence of a peasant village to fighting against an evil oppressor. It is now one criminal gang in Oceans Eleven stealing millions from another criminal gambler who have become the heroes.

The same can be said for the international moral credibility of the US. Too often of recent the US has been seen as the aggressor in what is sees as its moral rectitude. A sign that it too has lost sight of what it was and fails completely to see what it has now become. It is no longer Audie Murphy fighting a heroes battle against a known and international enemy, it is the Murderous Bride from Kill Bill, seeking bloody vengeance for a personal wrong committed against her, an eye for an eye rather than seeking what we all know as legal and moral justice.

In its purpose of seeking to retain its significant power, it’s bully power if you will, it has engaged international sycophants to support its campaign yet they too have tired of being drawn into needless wars for the sake of preserving US hegemony and are gradually leaving it to go alone. Even those that it argues it has saved from oppression would go back to the way things were before the US came to their rescue, the real purpose becoming more and more evident that it was not in their favour all along but that of the US alone.

Over the past decade America has become increasingly a pariah in the international community if not the political arenas, a liability in friendship rather than an asset. An increasing number of Americans travel as faux-Canadians to avoid these conflicts. Listening to their politicians as they campaign for the Presidency, they are in disarray. Everyone on both sides is playing a different tune to their nearest rivals. Some support the wars other don’t. For the average voter, the options are too wide apart to reach any discernable conclusion such that they are left with petty issues such as tears and personal slights that affect the voting patterns.

The one quandary that I have with America is the homage paid to Israel over all other players in the Middle East Crisis. Israel is not the oppressed nation as say Kosovo or Iraq was, but it is the oppressor with people under its stewardship. Israel receives the endorsement and almost one third of all US foreign aid mostly to enable it to continue being the oppressor. It has dominated the lives of the Palestinians mercilessly so much so that young Israelis consistently regard them now as non-human. The power that Israel politicians have over the psych of average Americans is awe-inspiring. Two US academics, Steven Walt and John Mearsheimer wrote a paper on the influence that the Israeli lobby has over the American Congress, a paper that appears objective as I read it, yet as they argue, the lobby has caused them to be isolated in the US community for bringing this issue forward.

As an outsider, and when I discuss it with other outsiders or non-Americans, all we can do is wonder what it is that small nation has over the Americans that has caused them to lose all ability to be fair, the fight for what is the moral right rather than supporting one that has total domination over another oppressed people.

I have worked for some years in these current hotspots and can only reflect on the desire for the average citizen in Kosovo or Afghanistan, and that is to have peace, long lasting and sustainable peace. It would be a peace where they can raise their kids and build their fortunes and perhaps even aspire to be like Americans. In the short term however, while America continues to force its hand over their national sovereignty for its own will rather than theirs they no longer even dream about what could be theirs is solely a purpose to survive and watch their country slip further into a quagmire?

The dream I have now is that America should rediscover itself and remove its own blinkers on its failings. It is no longer reasonable to say world opinion does not matter. World opinion does matter and it is an inherent cause of the continued violence and distrust that we have become. The world requires a leader once more, a moral giant, not a nation that oppresses others nor supports oppression and can no longer distinguish the difference.

H. L. Mencken wrote passionately about life and society in America one hundred years ago yet he may as well have been writing about events and the people of the United States today as his words still in many respects retain their import. Citing from his reference in Wikipedia,

It is no coincidence he regarded Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to be the finest work of American literature; much of that book details episodes of gullible and ignorant people being swindled by Confidence Men like the (deliberately) pathetic “Duke” and “Dauphin” roustabouts with whom Huck and Jim travel down the Mississippi River. These scam-artists swindle country “boobs” (as Mencken referred to them); by posing as enlightened speakers on temperance (to obtain the funds to get roaring drunk), pious “saved” men seeking funds for far off evangelistic missions (to pirates on the high seas, no less), and learned doctors of phrenology (who can barely spell). The book can be read as a story of America’s hilarious dark side, a place where democracy, as defined by Mencken, is “… the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.”

The pressure on American society to subscribe to the threat of terrorism has conducted the world into an open schism between societies, one that harks back to the time of the Crusaders, the need to lead these people out of their religious oppression and into whatever salvations that the American ideal can offer them. For the most part however and largely unseen by the people of the US, Islamic communities are content with their belief and perhaps with some modifications, also with the processes of life that it entails. It is not so much a clash of religions but a clash of cultures, defining the differences what it is about good and evil, a lack of understanding of the others acceptances or dismissals in the way we live our life and they live theirs.

The American psych has been captured in part by the politically inspired media and molded into a compliant morass, the daily denigration of liberal thought and sentiment and the corresponding glorification of all that is conservative promoted as the new gospel. Objectivity on the part of editors and writers has been destroyed by a well founded but misused sense of nationalism and super-patriotism and a strong desire to not be castigated as un-American at a time of war or conflict, to limit the questioning of policy and the principals that lead to them and to fail their own impartiality first and more importantly to fail their readers at large by a lack of honesty and transparency in their writing.

Issues of historical significance are quashed under the false mantles of racism or treason yet allow the conservative impressions of those issues to be further imprinted into the minds of the public, a daily feast of “Soma”, as was applied to the population in George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty Four” without question. The spirit of the intent of the “freedom of speech” enshrined in the US constitution is impinged daily by the conservative writers and the political and judicial processes of taking the legal understanding further along the road towards its neutralization.

In contemporary politics, the issues regarding the Middle East, Israel, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran fail to render sufficient questioning of the wisdom of the rhetoric espoused by the politicians. Their message is giving full credibility for its truthfulness with a clear lack of commitment by journalists to delve behind the words, the expose what underlies their meaning and the policies that are driving them, a clear lack of incredulousness and sense of gullibility that Mencken described satirically of those writers and readers in the nineteen twenties.

Americans, as does the world at large, have to redefine their national intellect, to move away from the supermarket variety of news and information and seek out that which defines the spirit of their forefathers who proposed their constitution and embellished it with the freedoms of liberalism. For its part, the media needs to reevaluate its role in American society, is it to be the foil of the jingoistic or is it to be the promoter of all those values of liberty, freedom that are so prominent in the minds yet lost in the intellect.

The ability of the public to speak freely within the confines of the internet has the capacity to change thought if the individual message can surface through the barrage of competing views. It still requires the mainstream media however to correct its lack of independence and freely provide a cross section of opinion and public debate that is worthy of the mantle of “free press”.

The world waits on the prospect of the present debacle of the Middle East crisis being extended into Iran. The public rhetoric is convinced daily of America’s invincibility and military might yet fails to acknowledge that its public policy may well be flawed, as Mencken said, it is America’s hilarious dark side, and that it may well be igniting a catastrophe across a cultural divide that it is unable to quell for decades to come.