Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, March 2008, pages 67-68

Other People's Mail

Pakistans Hobbled Leaders

Compiled by Kate Hilmy and Delinda Hanley

To the International Herald Tribune, Jan. 7, 2008

As a Pakistani American who lived in Pakistan during Benazir Bhutto’s two terms, I was glad to see William Dalrymple write the truth about her two tenures as prime minister [see p. 15 of this issue]. The media’s view of Bhutto as a savior of democracy and secularism in Pakistan is highly distorted.

Democracy in Pakistan has never been allowed to flourish and as a result, the slow filtration process that weeds out corrupt autocrats like Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif has never run its course. The clock resets every time the military intervenes and the same personalities come back to power and the plundering starts again. President Pervez Musharraf isn’t the answer to Pakistan’s ills, but neither was Bhutto and definitely not her husband or their 19-year-old son.

A Western educated woman prime minister of a Muslim country might look good on TV in Washington or London, but in rural Pakistan where time has stood still due to the iron fisted rule of feudal leaders like Bhutto, no development has taken place since Pakistan’s inception. While Bhutto, her siblings, and her children were educated in the West, education is practically nonexistent in her home constituency. While she talked about free media and freedom of speech, the fact is that the media was liberated (though muzzled again) under the military’s watch—not hers.

While Bhutto’s death was tragic she was no angel or savior. The self-proclaimed Pakistan experts popping up everywhere in the media need to do some homework before declaring her Pakistan’s last hope.

Omar Daud, Chicago, IL

The Hope of America

To the International Herald Tribune, Jan. 17, 2008

Your editorial “Looking for an America we can recognize again” (Jan. 12) speaks volumes about the letdown many feel as a result of the actions of the Bush administration. Today’s America is not the country I began calling home in the 1970s, where I lived liberty, justice and the pursuit of happiness. These were not slogans for me, they were tangible and real. The dreams America allowed me to realize would not have been possible in the country of my birth.

Respect is the word that best describes my American experience. The United States respected my individuality and my freedom, whether in choosing the next president, practicing my religion, achieving economic success, or being treated equally in the eyes of the law. The joy of the day I became an American citizen has been matched by very few other events in my life.

In 2000, after some 20 years in America, a career move took me to the Gulf. I spent hours preaching to colleagues and friends about the virtues of life in America. People admired America and were fascinated by the Americans’ enthusiastic and energetic way of life. There was a sense of admiration and respect for Americans. The fact the United States led the liberation of Kuwait in the early 1990s had cemented a sense of endearment and loyalty.

Then Sept. 11 happened. The anger and resentment toward the criminals who committed those horrific acts were unmistaken. People were unanimous in condemning the shocking crimes.

Alas, the wasteful depletion of such good will is still puzzling. America lost what made it special and dear to so many. This is the failure that hurts most.

But hope is on the horizon. America and what it stands for will be back, a bright light of hope for people everywhere. The coming elections are proof that the American idea is alive and well.

Mohsen Moustafa, Doha, Qatar

Destroyed: The CIA Torture Tapes

To The New York Times, Dec. 11, 2007

You don’t need to have worked as an FBI agent for 24 years as I did to know that shredding the evidence is always a clue.

What’s the common thread underlying the CIA’s destruction of videotaped harsh interrogations in the midst of ongoing legal inquiries; President Bush’s last-minute commutation of Scooter Libby’s prison sentence; the millions of White House e-mail records missing in violation of the Presidential Records Act; and the administration’s current push to give immunity to the telecommunication companies suspected of engaging in illegal eavesdropping and surveillance of Americans?

Clearly, the only way the Bush gang can protect itself now from accountability is to suppress the truth. To do so, officials must destroy hard evidence and, at the same time, protect and immunize those who followed their illegal orders.

Their contempt for the rule of law cannot get much worse. They learned from Nixon’s Watergate, and they’re trying not to leave any Oval Office tapes around.

Coleen Rowley, Apple Valley, MN

A Monumental Photo

To the Los Angeles Times, Jan. 18, 2008

Re: “His final homecoming,” Jan. 16. The Times is to be commended for printing on Page 1 a photograph that should be named picture of the year and displayed all over America. It is a picture of a wife and a mother greeting the casket of a soldier who died in the Iraq war. The postures of the women show just what we are getting in return for all that we are giving in Iraq.

Joe Gleason, Woodland Hills, CA

Iraq Policy

To the Chicago Tribune, Jan. 12, 2008

A letter writer insists that “we can’t just leave Iraq in a rush.” Why not? We entered in one.

Ethan Sudman, Gurnee, IL

Diplomacy Worked

To the San Francisco Chronicle, Dec. 12, 2007

Columnist Debra J. Saunders presents a false dichotomy in her claim that it had to be either “a war in Iraq” or “a U.N. resolution” that led to Iran’s stopping its nuclear weapons program. It was neither; it was sustained diplomatic pressure from the European nations, which the Bush administration refused to get involved in and which they tried to discourage.

Her suggestion that our invasion of Iraq led Libya to drop its WMD program is equally specious. Libya had been in negotiations with the U.S. and the U.K. since 1998, and was putting the final touches on its agreement to give up on WMDs by the time we invaded Iraq. This was documented—the direct evidence Saunders is overlooking—four years ago by Flynt Leverett, the man who led Bush’s negotiating team.

The fundamental difference between the pro-war and the anti-war camps on Iran and Iraq is that the pro-war camp sees war as the solution to all problems, with diplomacy only getting in the way. The anti-war camp recognizes war as the tool of last resort, to be used reluctantly and only after all other means have failed.

Dan Kohanski, San Francisco, CA

Make the Enemy a Friend

To The Christian Science Monitor, Dec. 28, 2007

In response to David Schenker’s Dec. 17 Opinion piece, “Libya doesn’t deserve the red carpet,” Mr. Schenker asks, “Why restore relations?” One answer is: One way to get rid of an enemy is to make a friend.

Dan Ziskind, Longboat Key, FL

The Truth About Iran

To The New York Times, Jan. 16, 2008

President Bush continues to beat a dead horse in his attempts to persuade the Arab world to take a hostile stance against Iran.

The Arab states of the Gulf region are deeply tied to Iran by historical ethnic and economic ties.

The United Arab Emirates alone are the repository for hundreds of millions of dollars (and euros) of Iranian investment.

Powerful bilingual trading families span the Gulf, with members in both Iran and Arab states. The idea that a little jawboning by a United States president could change centuries-old patterns is patently absurd.

The United States would do well to first understand the culture of the regions in which it hopes to hold sway, and then work with the existing cultural patterns, rather than trying to turn nations against those with whom they have longstanding interdependent relations.

William O. Beeman, Minneapolis, MN

Mideast Trip Won’t Bring Peace

To The Baltimore Sun, Jan. 10, 2008

The editorial “Substance, not smiles “(Jan. 7) is correct when it states that President George W. Bush’s Middle East visit needs to be more than just a photo-op if there is to be any chance for an Israeli-Palestinian future peace settlement.

Unfortunately, there are several indicators that the president’s trip will be a wasted one. First, Bush is obsessed with Iran, to the point that Iran is all he thinks or talks about. Even after the recent National Intelligence Estimate reported that Iran ended its nuclear weapons program in 2003, he still threatens hostile military action against Iran. Second, Bush refuses to pressure Israel into making peace and he is unable to understand that Israel’s brutal occupation of the Palestinians is the root cause of the violence in the region. Instead of promising Israel another $30 billion in U.S. aid, as he recently did, he should have held back this money until a firm peace settlement was in place.

Finally, Bush is also not smart enough to realize that Israel and their pro-Israel, neoconservative supporters have been taking advantage of him for his entire presidency, causing him to always put the interests and security of Israel first, and America last. Israel doesn’t want peace and President Bush always does what Israel wants and demands.

Ray Gordon, Baltimore, MD

Life in Bethlehem

To the Kansas City Star, Dec. 27, 2007

I want to thank The Star for its story describing the current state of Bethlehem as a prison (“Reality mars tradition; Altered manger scenes reflect the isolation of the city of Jesus’ birth”).

The average Palestinian lives on less than $900 a year, while Israelis enjoy an income close the average Kansan, approaching $25,000.

This fundamental injustice, labeled apartheid by former President Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu and other knowledgeable world leaders, is destroying the Holy Land.

The land confiscation—otherwise known as ethnic cleansing—continues, and roughly one-fifth of the current Knesset supports the removal of all Israeli Arabs from Israel proper.

None of our Republican or Democratic presidential candidates have the courage to stand for justice against the racism of the “region’s only democracy.”

The vision of malnourished children traumatized by the violence of war and occupation in Palestine, and across the cradle of civilization, will crowd out any sugar plums this holiday for members of all faiths with the courage to look at the real Bethlehem.

Greg Fallon, Topeka, KS

Who Is to Blame for Bethlehem’s Miserable Christmas?

To the London Times, Dec. 17, 2007

Michael Gove writes about the danger posed to Christians and their tradition by Islamism. In the West Bank village of Walaja, near Bethlehem, last August I watched as Israeli soldiers cleared an area where their wall was to be. I saw soldiers destroy a small Madonna and a cross on a Christian shrine there. They later bulldozed the entire shrine, but they made the effort to deface it first.

Being Jewish and having lived in Israel, I’ve learned how important trees are in Judaism. There is a New Year holiday especially for trees, in which I have participated in planting hundreds. But over the past five years I have seen the Israeli military destroy more trees on Palestinian land then I ever saw planted in Israel. If the politics allow no room even for Jewish tradition, how much less will be given to others? Divide and conquer seems to be part of the Israeli practice, but if they continue to divide Jews from our beliefs, then we will also conquer ourselves.

Larry Zweig, Fürth, Germany

A Question of Morality

To the Toronto Globe and Mail, Dec. 24, 2007

Letter writer Mindy Alter (Christmas in Bethlehem, Dec. 22) must be kidding when she says the Jewish people are “one of the planet’s most endangered species.” Ratcheting up the rhetoric, she seems to align all Jews with Israel’s acts of brutality at checkpoints, murderous disregard for non-combatants, ongoing expansion of illegal West Bank settlements and unconscionable imprisonment of Palestinians in Gaza. I care deeply about Israel’s ever-eroding morality, and I reject Ms. Alter’s trivialization. She may be surprised at how many Jews agree with me.

Bernard Katz, Toronto, Canada