Category: International

Greece, as we know, is on the brink of bankruptcy. To prevent that, it’s initially getting a $140-billion package of rescue loans from the International Monetary Fund and the European Union.

The trade-off : harsh austerity measures. The knee-jerk response: massive street demonstrations and riots that have already left three dead. The reality: Greeks have long been living beyond their means. It’s as much a part of their culture as tragedy and comedy. They resent losing the right to retire at 55 with 100 per cent of pay and to cheat on their taxes with impunity. They’re also miffed big time that they will have to pay a lot more for cigarettes and alcohol. Tough.

It all came due in a global economy that impacts all of us.

Recently it was reported that “South Park” producers were under death threats from Muslim extremists for having taken satiric liberties in references to the Prophet Muhammad. The threats included a gruesome, graphic reminder of how Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh was brutally murdered.

Upon reading this account, anyone else think this? Let’s see: Danish cartoons, a Dutch documentary, American animation. All took shots — societal and (more notably) sacrilegious — at Islam and the Prophet. And all provoked the ultimate response: a death sentence. One, indeed, has been carried out.

But why is it that we still don’t hear about comparable outrage in the Muslim “street”?  As in irate crowds, menacing invective and, yes, physical threats — against those who continue to defame Islam by maiming and killing the innocent in the name of jihad?

Surely sectarian satire isn’t a worst offense than murder, including suicide bombings and videotaped throat slashings.

Surely.

Another anniversary — the 95th — of the onset of the Turkish massacre of more than a million Armenians has come and gone. Turkey, perversely, still doesn’t acknowledge its utter complicity in the atrocity. The world has grown almost inured to its ongoing denial. But for the United States — and, ironically, Israel — to not officially recognize the Armenian genocide? Some things — and crimes against humanity makes every short list — should trump geopolitical and economic business as usual.

Where Danish cartoons left off, “South Park,” has brazenly chosen to proceed. And sacrilegious  humor — at the expense of the prophet Muhammad — apparently remains a capital offense.

This time a radical Muslim group has warned that SP producers could face the same gruesome fate as the murdered Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh. For an animated cartoon.

Every group, of course, has its radical elements. But where, we are again reminded, are the effigy-burnings and massive street demonstrations of outrage and, indeed, physical threats against those who continue to kill and maim the innocent in the name of jihad?

Surely sectarian satire isn’t a worst offense than murder, including suicide bombings and videotaped throat slashings.

Surely.

Last week, Angelo Sodano, the dean of cardinals in Rome, defended Pope Benedict XVI from charges that he did not do enough — or anything — about pedophile priests when he was a bishop in Germany and later as a cardinal heading the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. In addressing “petty gossip” criticizing the church, he told the official Vatican daily L’Osservatore Romano that it was not Jesus’ fault that Judas betrayed him and not a bishop’s fault if a priest shamed himself.

Let’s dispense with the self-serving syllogism. As far as we know, no one went to Jesus to say: “We have documentation that Judas is a traitor. Do you want to do anything about it?”

Last week Anatoly Dobrynin, 90, died. He was the Soviet Union’s ambassador to the United States through six presidencies — from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan. His death is worth serious American reflection. Even ironic nostalgia for the Cold War.

Dobrynin was much  more than a key Politburo operative and a geopolitical player back in the day. He was fluent in English and at ease amid the worldly trappings of free enterprise. He was a civil, urbane, empathetic communist and key intermediary when nuclear Armageddon was hovering over the world like a Doomsday Damoclean sword. He knew his face-saving back channels. He helped pull his country and our country back from the ultimate brink.

What a time to have had an adversary we could reason with. We all wanted to live and would find a way out together. Would that we had that in common today with our most implacable enemies.     

 I still have Dobrynin’s 1995 memoir, “In Confidence,” on my bookshelf. I re-read some of the chapter on Jimmy Carter and was reminded that Carter — not, say, Richard Nixon — was Dobrynin’s least favorite president. He was frequently put-off by Carter’s “moralizing” tone.

His take on Ronald Reagan has a hauntingly contemporary feel:

            “Reagan was endowed with natural instinct, flair and optimism…He presented his own image skillfully, and it appealed to millions…He skillfully manipulated public opinion by means of strong illustrative catchwords which oversimplified complex questions and therefore flew straight over the heads of the professionals into the hearts and minds of the millions, for good or ill. Not infrequently he was accused of trying to apply a primitive approach which made him reluctant to examine questions properly and conscientiously. These accusations were largely justified.”

He summed up by emphasizing how much Russians and Americans have in common. And that one  size doesn’t fit all, whether in the structure of the marketplace or in the implementation of power-to-the-people government. It still resonates.

“But just like the market, there are many different understandings of what it (democracy) really is,” wrote Dobrynin. “Even in America this has always been the case, as Abraham Lincoln said in Baltimore in 1864: ‘We all speak in favor of democracy, but when we use the word we do not always mean the same thing.'”

Some things never change.

• Thanks, 51^st state. It’s beyond effrontery that Israel would choose Vice President Joe Biden’s fence-mending visit to unveil plans for new housing in East Jerusalem. Everyone knows the ultimate genesis of the Arab-Israeli/American animus is the Palestinian quagmire. It’s a long shot that the U.S., deeply invested in a two-state scenario, can be perceived as an honest Mid East broker with influence and leverage to both sides. But it’s a no-shot with unilateral, unconscionable acts such as the diplomatic smack-down of Biden. Then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu preposterously adds additional insult saying he was unaware of the timing. If so, what else is “Bibi” out of the loop on? Israel’s nuclear program?
• Admiral Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, has formally distanced himself from the “(Colin) Powell Doctrine,” one that advocated “overwhelming force.” Mullen favors the use of measured and precise strikes in “adapting appropriately to the most relevant threats to our national security.” Makes eminent sense. But here’s hoping he doesn’t discard Powell’s take on the Mid East and the reason why he, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs and later as Secretary of State, still favored stopping short of Baghdad during the Persian Gulf War. He didn’t want the U.S. to be perceived, he presciently noted, as the “occupier of Muslim land.”
• Let’s put that recent Iraqi parliamentary election in context. The turnout was approximately 62 per cent. That’s higher than any turnout for a U.S. presidential election since 1960. It’s also more than 10 times higher than that recent special election in state House District 58.
• Change we can believe in? The U.S. and China have their issues. China’s under-valued currency and foot-dragging on Iranian sanctions among them. But we’re still selling weapons to Taiwan? The State Department’s rationale: the U.S. is obligated to provide the island defensive weapons under the 1979 Taiwan Relations Act. Oh.
• It’s tough enough having to deal with the Iranians and North Koreans about, well, anything, but what the U.S. State Department surely doesn’t need are reckless and self-absorbed Americans trespassing across some of the world’s most sensitive, problematic borders. Such as that American missionary who crossed a frozen river into North Korea and the three American hikers who ventured into Iran. The predictable upshot: they immediately became grist for the diplomatic leverage mill – and helped renegade governments score domestic propaganda points. Let’s just say that behind close doors, the State Department language probably isn’t very diplomatic. Nor should it be.
• Yemeni irony. The poverty-stricken country of Yemen is now rife with calls for secession from previously independent South Yemen. Southern Movement leaders speak of systematic discrimination, land expropriation and job expulsion by the North. They say they want independence and democracy and accuse the North of using jihadists as proxy warriors. They also say they are nostalgic for the 128-year British occupation of South Yemen. The Brits left in 1967. Imagine, nostalgia for the Empire! So much for the connotation of imperialism in 2010 Southern Yemen: the rule of law and a degree of prosperity have never mattered more.
• Change of fortune? Corruption, riots and sectarian slaughters have been wreaking havoc in Nigeria, Africa’s most populous country. Moreover, President Umaru Yar’Adua has been incapacitated, and his status is uncertain and politically confusing. The Nigerian Acting President? The ironically-named, former Vice President Goodluck Jonathan.

*As seen on the photo blog (“Boring Home Utopics,” www.vocescubanas.com) by Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, this was scrawled on a Havana truck: “Viva la Ilusion.” (“Long Live the Illusion.”)

*Those looking for democratic forums in Cuba should look no farther than the country’s parks, reports a recent Reuters piece. That’s where you will find countless examples of “La Esquina Caliente” – or “The Hot Corner.” It’s where Cuba’s passionate, open-air baseball debates occur. Reuters labeled them “the most democratic spaces in Cuba.”

Item: About a thousand demonstrators, mostly students, recently marched from Kabul University to the Parliament building to burn an effigy of President Barack Obama and yell anti-U.S. epithets. The reason: Rumors that American troops might have desecrated a Koran.

Non-item: Still no major public demonstrations in Afghanistan, Iraq or Pakistan against those who behead, strap on suicide jackets to kill innocents, detonate car bombs in markets crowded with women and children, and burn alive the occupants of a U.N. guesthouse.

Early next month (Nov. 9) will mark the 20^th anniversary of the crumbling of the Berlin Wall.  East Germany, East Berlin, the Potsdam Agreement and the Soviet orbit were effectively sledge-hammered into history. The dramatic, emotional, Cold War-shattering event will be well chronicled in the media.

Personally, it will transport me back in time. Back to when that wall, barely a decade old, was fulfilling its odious task of keeping freedom-craving people in. Nobody ever escaped from West to East.

It was an appropriately cold, blustery night in 1972, and I was doing a journalistic drive-by at Checkpoint Charlie, the best known border crossing between what was then East and West Berlin. Truth be known, I would have done it for free, on my own, even if the late, lamented Philadelphia Bulletin wasn’t paying me by the inch. The memories now come cascading back.

There was that grim, little guardhouse, plopped down in the middle of Friedrichstrasse. Perhaps the only thing iconic that ever looked like a back yard Wally Watt shed. And Friedrichstrasse itself, which was then dominated by drab storefronts, abandoned apartments, empty lots and a modest museum dedicated to those who had died fleeing from East Berlin.

I vividly recall visiting with Checkpoint Charlied G.I.s, who were glad to talk to another American – and yet leery about who I might really be. Spies were a given.

After about 20 minutes of both somber and animated conversation, one of the soldiers said: “How ‘bout that Super Bowl? Were you surprised to see Miami beat Dallas?”

“Actually, I’m surprised you said that,” I answered. “Dallas won,” I replied.

“I know,” responded the G.I. through a nominal smile. “Just checkin’.”

Checkpoint Charlie checkin’.

Later the subject of Willy Brandt, the former mayor of West Berlin, Nobel Peace Prize winner and then chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, came up. I thought it was cool, ironic – and refreshingly egalitarian – that in such a sobering context the man in charge was not on some authoritarian pedestal, but often referred to as “Schnapps Willy.” It was said endearingly – not derisively.

You could bet that nobody referred – at least in public – to East German leader Erich Honecker in such a delightfully irreverent fashion. And if anybody had earned the right to some serious tippling, I figured, it was Brandt. I said as much.

After much agreement and some salty slapstick, a soldier said: “I noticed that you referred to Brandt as ‘Villy.’”

Well, that’s how it’s pronounced,” I said.

“But most Americans wouldn’t say ‘Villy,’” he countered.

“Well, I guess I’m not most Americans,” I explained, which probably sounded more smart-ass scribe than Stasi spy. “You know, when in Rome…”

Not that it needs underscoring, but visiting an Allied checkpoint in Berlin back then was an immersion in Cold War reality on a number of levels. In the age of dueling super powers, this was the world’s most infamous tripwire. This was where American and Soviet tanks faced off against each other in 1961. Where emotional demonstrations were routine and escape attempts sometimes ended brutally and tragically.

So it was no surprise that nothing was to be taken for granted – including a lone journalist, purportedly American, showing up at Checkpoint Charlie in the winter of the free world’s geopolitical discontent.

Contemporary Charlie

But that was then. Recently I returned. Familiar points of reference, different points of view.

The once dour Friedrichstrasse still attracts. But the farther north you now go – past a cheesy, Checkpoint Charlie replica – the more gentrified and glitzy it becomes. A Westin Grand Hotel, Galeries Lafayette, a Bugatti dealer. What was once a ghost town artery now teams with conspicuous consumption brand names – Rolex, Patek Philippe, Hermes, Escada, Gucci – plus fancy restaurants and numerous software firms. Surely, this is not what Honecker had in mind.

Not far is the reconstructed Reichstag complex, the Brandenburg Gate, the (notably accessible) U.S. embassy and a President John F. Kennedy museum. Construction cranes are ubiquitous – as are blue, above-ground water pipes.

The immediate Checkpoint Charlie area, however, has had no such dramatic makeover. It went from barren and grim to commercial and nondescript. An Underground station, an eclectic mix of businesses, the most prominent of which cater to tourists, plus a produce market, a (Kamps) pastry shop, a storefront museum, an (outdoor) pictorial chronology of the Cold War and some vendors hawking, of all things, Soviet-era memorabilia.

But back to that Checkpoint Charlie replica. In front was a pile of sandbags, an American flag, and a local in an American G.I. uniform. There was also a kettle where those wanting a photo with the Berlin poseur could deposit one Euro for a personalized picture featuring ersatz, back-dropped history. 

Call it entrepreneurial. Or better than Photoshop. But it seemed, well, sacrilegious.

It was also geopolitically unique. In the context of Iraq and Afghanistan and the ongoing hit our international reputation continues to take, it was gratifying to be privy to a circumstance where the U.S. was still seen as a force for good in a foreign land. The Berlin Airlift and JFK’s common cause with the besieged residents of West Berlin could have happened, seemingly, yesterday. It harkened back to a time and place when fighting for “freedom” and “democracy” wasn’t synonymous with realpolitik and wasn’t glib government-speak for ill-considered foreign-policy ventures — from Saigon to Kabul. It was — and was seen as — doing the right thing for the right reason.

Indeed, at Checkpoint Charlie, Americans are still the good guys.

German Guilt

Also on graphic display is frank documentation of how Germany has come to moral grips with – and self-understanding of – its Nazi past. Numerous museums and memorials around Berlin are dedicated to the reign of terror, the extermination policy and the memory of Holocaust victims. Ample evidence underscores a level of civilian awareness and complicity at odds with self-serving, if not self-deluding, “final solution” denials.

Among the most moving — and haunting — artifacts were those housed at the Memorial To The Murdered Jews of Europe, not far from the Brandenburg Gate and the Tiergarten. One room contained diary entries and letters. One in particular left me emotionally limp. It still does. It reads:

“Dear Father! I am saying goodbye to you before I die. We would so love to live, but they won’t let us and we will die. I am so scared of this death, because the small children are thrown alive into the pit. Goodbye forever. I kiss you tenderly.” Your J. 31, July ‘42.