By Eduardo Baudet

During his presidency Hugo Chávez talked about so many things for such a long time that he managed to become the centre of both the political and personal life of Venezuela. Becoming ubiquitous was his greatest success.

In 1998, when the Venezuelan poor needed someone to help them, Chávez rose as their savior. That year he defeated the established parties in a landslide electoral victory. He remembered the poor after they had been long forgotten by the interchange of power between the traditional parties; their lives neglected by the capitalist oligarchy. These were words that Chávez never stopped repeating.

He shouted them to the world in the his speech at the United Nations – where he called George W. Bush the devil- and continues to do so, even after his passing, through the insults delivered by Maduro. He retold them to the poor on a daily basis and again in cadenas, in his Aló Presidente, and in each and every electoral campaign since he won the Presidential Election of December 1998.

Continue reading “The General Will or the Will of the Colonel?” »

If, as is sometimes said, the life of Hugo Chavez has been like a Hollywood film, then his is a character so hammy that only John Williams could provide the score. Raised in a mud hut by his sainted grandmother Rosa Inés and bourn into power by a movement which idolises a 200-year deceased revolutionary – Chavez’ presidency of Venezuela was at various times inspirational and farcical; moving and intractable; bathetic without, one should concede, ever descending into the pathetic. For the equal millions who idolised and despised him, both at home and abroad, there was an undeniable consensus that his was an epochal moment. Now, after losing his life to an unspecified cancer, the question of the legacy and sustainability of the ‘Bolivarian Revolution’ becomes one of immediate importance.

In more ways than the usual, Chavez’ life and works strike one as being like a long preparation for his own death; for the moment when he would depart the mortal realm to join a transcendent pantheon of populist heroes, including, of course, his own idol: Simón Bolivar. For his most loyal constituents, the teeming poor in the barrios and villages of Venezuela, Chavez  ruled with a Christ-like aura; as a politician who traversed the slum lanes shunned by his predecessors, he arrived as an opponent of the ‘oligarchy’ that had ruled the country since its return to democracy in the late 1950s. In spite – or because of – his frequent electoral victories, he is conversely execrated by the beneficiaries of the old order, by those who considered him an autocrat in the old cast, and by an international league headed up by the United States. A redeemer of the majority at home and a spokesman for tyrant allies abroad, he was from various aspects too imperfect a hero and not heartless enough a villain to fully annex the caricatures that had been drafted for him. Whilst one should ask what will become of Venezuela after Chavez, equally salient is the question: what would Chavez have been without Venezuela? Continue reading “Somewhere beyond the barricade: the Chavez era closes” »

By Alexander George

Bobby Rush has the accolade of being the only person to have defeated Barack Obama in an election. Obama challenged the Illinois congressman in a Democratic primary for his Chicago seat in 2000 and lost by a 30 point margin. Rush can probably carve out a lucrative niche as an after dinner speaker telling audiences how he managed to do what Hillary Clinton, John McCain and now Mitt Romney could not.

If 2008 was a change election, 2012 has been a status quo contest. Beforehand, there was a Democratic White House, Democratic Senate and Republican House which resulted in policy paralysis in Washington. Voters have again returned a Democratic White House, Democratic Senate and Republican House with the fear of further policy paralysis. That Obama was able to win a comfortable electoral college victory – though the popular vote was much tighter – in tough economic conditions as an incumbent is testament to the skill of his campaign strategists (and the failings of his opponent). However, to make the most of his second term, he needs to summon up the same persuasion with Republican lawmakers as he did with 51 percent of the electorate. Continue reading “Obama is an iconic president. Can he become a great one?” »

By Alexander George

Lyndon Johnson was wrong. After signing the Civil Rights Act in 1964, he turned to an aide and said ‘we have lost the South for a generation.’ It has been longer than that. Almost 50 years after Johnson’s remark, the Democratic Party – once the master of Dixie – has still not recovered in that region. Jimmy Carter’s victory in 1976 has been the only presidential election since Johnson’s 1964 landslide in which the Democrats carried the majority of those eleven states which formed the Confederacy during the American Civil War. Currently, the Democrats only have 6 senators out of a possible 22 and 37 congressmen out of a possible 105 from the region. Arkansas is the only southern state where the Democrats control the state legislature and the governor’s mansion.

Barack Obama will probably be re-elected next month, but neither he nor his party will perform strongly in the South. Florida and Virginia are the only historically Confederate states he has a good chance of carrying, the former of which being an atypical Southern state thanks to the influx of people from the Northeast and Latin America in recent decades. Obama himself will not mind where and how an electoral college victory gets constructed. There is a school of thought which argues that the Democrats should forget about the South (Tom Schaller, the political scientist, has been a leading exponent of this) and concentrate on performing strongly in other parts of the country. Continue reading “How Democrats can win again in the South” »

As you stroll through a tube station, be it in London or New York, what kind of adverts do you expect to see?

The last time I was in London, I remember seeing the air brushed Ralph Lauren family, their Hollywood smiles raining down on me from the posters plastered across the walls.

What you wouldn’t expect to see, is the following:

In any war between the civilised man and the savage,

support the civilised man.

Support Israel.

Defeat Jihad.

Last Monday, an advert containing these very words graced the walls of 10 New York train stations. Continue reading “The Civilised Man Vs The Savage Man” »

1) Chinese govt ships in disputed island waters: Japan

Chinese government ships were back in waters around Japanese-controlled islands Tuesday, the coastguard said, a week after they last left and days after heated exchanges at the UN General Assembly. The four maritime surveillance ships entered the waters shortly after 12:30 pm (0330 GMT), Japan’s coastguard said in a statement, adding that it was telling the ships to leave the area. “Patrol ships from our agency have been telling them to sail outside of our territorial waters.

There has not been any response” from the Chinese ships, the agency said. Two other Chinese officialvessels were sailing near the island chain, but not in what Japan claims as its territorial waters, the coastguard also reported in a separate statement. It was the first time in about a week that Chinese ships had entered the waters, and came after a lull in a fearsome diplomatic spat over the sovereignty of the islands known as Senkaku in Japan and Diaoyu in China. Official Chinese vessels repeatedly sailed into the archipelago’s waters until last week, defying warnings from Japan’s well-equipped coastguard. And last week Chinese and Japanese diplomats at the United Nations in New York traded insults, with China’s Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi accusing Japan of theft. The islands lie in rich fishing grounds and on key shipping lanes.

seabed in the area is also believed to harbour mineral reserves. Japan’s deputy UN ambassador Kazuo Kodama retorted that the islands were legally Japanese territory and said “an assertion that Japan took the islands from China cannot logically stand”. Historical grievances stemming from Japan’s wartime expansionism also complicate the argument, as does a claim of ownership by Taiwan. That claim was pressed last Tuesday when dozens of fishing boats were escorted into island waters by the Taiwanese coastguard, sparking water cannon exchanges with Japanese coastguard vessels.

The decades-old dispute came to the fore earlier this year when the China-baiting governor of Tokyo, Shintaro Ishihara, announced he wanted to buy the island chain from its private Japanese landowner. Nationalists from both sides staged island landings before Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda stepped in to outbid Ishihara, who had amassed well over a billion yen ($12.8 million) in public donations towards the cost. The government completed its purchase of three of the five islands in the chain — it already owned one and leases the fifth — on September 11. Observers said Noda’s move to nationalise the islands had been an attempt to hose down an issue that looked set to become an international problem. But Beijing reacted furiously and unleashed diplomatic vitriol on Tokyo, while tens of thousands of protesters poured onto streets in cities across China.

https://news.google.co.uk/news/rtc?pz=1&cf=all&ned=uk&topic=w&ncl=dN1SaC2EqJJ3oaMJUpHUT1gaoE1eM

2) Bahrain court upholds jail terms on protesting medics

Bahrain’s highest court on Monday upheld jail terms issued against nine medics convicted for their role in last year’s pro-democracy uprising, state news agency BNA reported, a decision that could further fuel unrest in the Gulf Arab state. The controversial case has drawn international criticism of the U.S.-allied Gulf Arab kingdom, which has been in turmoil since the protests led by its Shi’ite Muslim majority were crushed by the Sunni rulers.

Bahrain, home base for the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, accuses regional Shi’ite power Iran of encouraging the unrest and has promised a tough response to violent protests as talks with the opposition have stalled. BNA quoted Attorney General Abdul-Rahman al-Sayed as saying that Bahrain’s Court of Cassation rejected all appeals presented by the defendants and confirmed the previous rulings of prison terms ranging between one month to five years. In June, the appeals court sentenced Ali al-Ekry, former senior surgeon at the Salmaniya hospital in Manama, to five years in jail and gave eight others prison sentences ranging from one month to three years. It also acquitted nine others.

Two medics previously sentenced to 15 years each did not appeal and they are believed to be in hiding or to have left the country. The doctors were released last year after an outcry over allegations of torture during detention. Ekry, a senior orthopaedic surgeon at Salmaniya who was convicted, among other charges, of inciting hatred and calling for the overthrow of Bahrain’s rulers, said Monday’s ruling might be politically motivated “We did not get a fair trial…We think we are a card being used by the regime to negotiate with the opposition,” he told Reuters by telephone from Manama.

Mohammed al-Maskati, head of the Bahrain Youth Society for Human Rights, said Monday’s verdict was final with no recourse for further appeal but there might be still a chance for a pardon by the king. The medics’ case highlights the schism in Bahraini society over the protest movement and political reform. The doctors and nurses, who are all Shi’ites, say they were victimised for treating protesters and helping bring world attention to deaths caused by security forces. Washington and rights groups have criticised the June ruling, with Amnesty International saying it was a “dark day for justice”.

https://news.google.co.uk/news/rtc?pz=1&cf=all&ned=uk&topic=w&ncl=dS4xdZTeYLYUMdM-eozcbay6yaXjM

3) White House confirms cyber-attack on ‘unclassified’ system

The White House has confirmed it was the target of a cyber-attack but says the breach hit an unclassified network. An unnamed administration official told US media that there was no indication any data had been removed.

The conservative Washington Free Beacon reported on Sunday that hackers linked to the Chinese government had breached the White House Military Office. The White House would not say if the attack originated in China, describing it as a “spear-phishing” attempt. “Spear-phishing” typically works by sending fake e-mails that look like legitimate correspondence, but which link to a malicious website or file attachment.

“These types of attacks are not infrequent and we have mitigation measures in place,” the official, who was not authorised to speak on the record, told the Associated Press and other US media. Cyber-attacks from Chinese-linked hackers have been an increasing concern among US government offices, including the Pentagon, the head of intelligence for US cyber defence told Reuters last week. “Their level of effort against the Department of Defense is constant,” Rear Admiral Samuel Cox said.

In 2011, Google blamed computer hackers in China for a phishing effort against Gmail accounts of several hundred people, including senior US government officials and military personnel. That November, senior US intelligence officials for the first time publicly accused China of systematically stealing American high-tech data for its own gain.

https://news.google.co.uk/news/rtc?pz=1&cf=all&ned=uk&topic=w&ncl=dXT5YEa5rHve1MMfvmFLh96wK4kgM

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney’s gaffe-prone campaign has hit yet another verbal snag, as covertly recorded footage of the candidate’s speech to a Republican fundraiser has been leaked on to the internet. In the speech,, Romneny dismisses 47% of Americans in the following way:

(c) James Currie

‘All right, there are 47 per cent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it. That that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax.’

It is this slighting of a large chunk of the American electorate that is getting all the headlines, but arguably some of Romney’s other comments are actually more interesting in terms of giving clues as to both the candidate’s state of mind and how he sees the future of this election. Continue reading “Romney shambles on” »

The slaughter in Syria may have been all but pushed out of the news cycle in order to allow newsreaders and their guests to delineate exactly what legal options the Duchess of Cambridge has before her, and to flesh out the precise legal and moral distinctions between the photos of the Duchess and those of her brother-in-law a couple of weeks ago, but at least the disgraceful scenes of violence, murder and desecration across the Middle East, North Africa and beyond are still deemed to merit a decent amount of coverage.

(c) Lawrence Jackson

No doubt the masochism of the Western media will soon kick in, and we will be treated to loose talk of exactly how America can be held responsible for just about anything if you apply enough casuistry; but before it does, there are a few fundamental points to be raised in response to this episode. Continue reading “Hysteria goes viral: impressions on the crossing of red lines” »

Guest post by Sarah Miller

There seem to be two main lenses through which to view the anti-American riots that have swept the Arab world since Tuesday September 11. The first sees them as primarily political, and explains them as an expression of widely held anger in the Muslim world against the United States. The second approach, meanwhile, emphasizes emotion and religion instead of politics, and explains them as a narrower reaction to the insulting portrayal of Mohammed in the “Innocence of Muslims” video.

Protests in Bahrain

The United States has long been disliked and mistrusted in the Middle East, a sentiment that has increased in intensity since the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan were added to the US’ long-term support for brutal and unpopular tyrannical regimes in the region.Its policies during the Arab Spring, most obviously in Libya, may have made a positive contribution to improving its reputation, but could hardly have undone the effects of decades of policies to the contrary.

Furthermore, its support for the people against despots in Egypt, Tunisia, and Libya has been paralleled by a lack of similar support elsewhere, notably in Bahrain and Syria. Continue reading “Prying Eye: Different takes on the anti-Islam film riots” »

Guest Post by Sarah Miller

When the ethics of humanitarian intervention[1] are debated, the focus is usually on the target state. This article aims to investigate the morality of such intervention with the lens focussed instead on the would-be intervening state or states. The moral quandary arises when the duty of a statesman to protect his citizens is incompatible with his duty to humanity.

(c) US Army

The widely conceived purpose of the sovereign state is to protect the individuals within its borders both from each other and from foreign aggressors.When a state engages its military in action abroad, it generally does so with the expectation that it will suffer casualties.

If vital national interests are at stake, and servicemen and -women die in order to protect their country from what is perceived to be a threat to its security or its way of life, such death is generally accepted as necessary for the greater good.

When citizens perish abroad in a war that is not considered to be of vital national interest, however, moral outrage grows at home. It is widely deemed deeply immoral for the government to send young men and women to die for only a peripheral national interest. Continue reading “Interventionism vs. isolationism: the central ethical dilemma in international affairs” »