Barack Obama is no Michael Dukakis or Jimmy Carter

By Richard K. Barry 

I have been thinking about the "bump" that President Obama received in his popularity numbers after it was reported that Osama bin Laden had been killed. I know some people don't think that we should even talk about the impact of such things on political popularity. They are wrong. Politics is, in great part, about how the public judges the actions of its leaders. We determine our support for them based on the things they do or even choose not to do and we consider every nuance of their behaviour in these decision making processes as we make our judgements. I'm not sure I see how it can be any other way.

I did think, in perhaps what is a somewhat roundabout way, that one of the reasons Obama benefited from the decision to order the mission is that it helped to address the concern that some people have that Obama is a bit too cool, a bit too emotionally detached from events around him. We have heard the "no drama Obama" thing and may have thought it was mostly a good thing that our president was in such control of his emotions. Some, however, might have been thinking that a bit more drama would be okay too, that it would be alright if our president showed that he was emotionally engaged and, let's call it what it is, pretty cold-blooded if the need arose, tough enough to get the job done.

Then I thought of Michael Dukakis in the 1988 presidential debate with George H.W. Bush when Dukakis was asked if he would support the death penalty for someone who, hypothetically speaking, had raped and murdered his wife. His answer, which even he later regretted, helped to ensure that he would not win the presidency (his polling numbers actually dipped significantly after the debate). Rather than say that he would be out of his mind with anger and at least at first wish revenge, he immediately struck a professorial pose. Rather than react in any real way at all he launched immediately into his set speech about opposing capital punishment. No show of emotion. No proof that a human being resided therein. The question was obviously completely unfair. It was a set up, but it may have ended his campaign.

As for Obama, having the courage to send those Navy SEALS into that compound knowing that a failed mission would have been disastrous not just for the country but perhaps also for his own political career took some balls. In a political sense, a failed mission would have paired him with Jimmy Carter forever as a "failed president," not that we are supposed to think of things in such terms.

Anyway, something about the whole constellation of events that ended in the death of bin Laden showed Obama in an emotionally accessible way that had not previously been evident to a lot of people and it has perhaps made some of those people trust him a bit more. People can be funny that way. Ask Michael Dukakis.

For the sake of history, here is the clip of Dukakis dropping the ball:

(Cross-posted to Lippmann's Ghost.)

The 1988 Massacre in Iran

By non sequitur

Here's an important article about a horrendous massacre of Iranian dissidents in 1988. As the author points out, it meets all the requirements to be formally classified as a crime against humanity, but is still almost entirely unknown outside of Iranian dissident circles. The author, Kaveh Sharooz, has done a lot of the important and original research into this massacre, and published some of his findings in the Harvard Human Rights Journal. The article contains a link to that piece.

Here's a brief account of the massacre, from the article (because of the length of the quote, I'm not going to use the usual quoting mechanism here).

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In late 1987 and early 1988, prison officials began the unusual process of interrogating political prisoners again and separating them according to their party affiliations, religiosity, and length of sentence. In Tehran, this meant that some prisoners were moved between Evin and Gohar-Dasht prisons. This preliminary segregation of prisoners strongly indicates that there were pre-existing plans for mass killings. Furthermore, the filtering process belies the notion that the 1988 executions were in response to armed attacks on Iranian territory.

At the end of July 1988, shortly after Iran had accepted a cease-fire in the war with Iraq, and days after its military had soundly repelled an attack by the Mojahedin-e Khalq on Iran's western border, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini gave two unprecedented secret orders(2) to begin the re-trial of all political prisoners across the country and to execute those who remained steadfast in their opposition to the Islamic regime. To give effect to Khomeini’s order, a commission was assembled -- called the "Death Commission" by the prisoners -- consisting of a representative from the Judiciary, the office of the Prosecutor, and the Ministry of Intelligence. In Tehran's Death Commission, those government agencies were represented by Jaafar Nayyeri, Morteza Eshraghi and Mostafa Pourmohammadi respectively, although others also played a role. The task of the Death Commission was to determine whether a prisoner was a Mohareb ("Combatant against God") or Mortad ("Apostate") -- and to execute both groups. In the case of most Mojahedin prisoners, that determination was often made after only a single question about their party affiliation. Those who said "Mojahedin" rather than the derogatory "Monafeqin" ("Hypocrite") were sent to be hanged. In the case of various leftist prisoners, the Death Commission asked about religious belief and willingness to cooperate with the authorities. Sample questions included: "are you a Muslim?", "do you pray?", and "are you willing to clear minefields for the military of the Islamic Republic?" If a plurality of judges felt that the prisoner was a Mohareb or Mortad, the prisoner was sent to hang immediately.

Several thousand political prisoners were killed in a matter of two months. Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri estimates that the number killed was somewhere between 2,800 and 3,800. Others believe the number is higher. Even those who survived the questioning of the Death Commission did not always fare well. Some could not bear the emotional pain of what they had witnessed, or the physical pain of the regular floggings they received, and simply committed suicide. The prison guards are said to have encouraged that decision.

To add insult to injury, the Iranian government did not inform the victims' families about the re-trials until the executions had been carried out and the bodies had been buried in mass graves. Once informed, the families were not told of their loved ones' burial spots and were ordered not to erect any monument or hold any ceremony. When asked about the killings by the Western press, representatives of the Iranian government -- Abdollah Nouri, Ali Khamene'i, and Hashemi Rafsanjani -- flatly denied them. The Iranian government continues to deny the 1988 elimination of opposition prisoners.

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As mentioned at the outset, the murder campaign of that summer is a crime without parallel in Iran's tumultuous modern history. In fact, the executions have all the elements required by international law to be labeled as crimes against humanity: The murders were widespread and systematic, they were directed at a civilian population, and, as made clear by Ayatollah Montazeri in his memoirs, they were a policy preconceived at the highest ranks of the Iranian government. The sheer magnitude of the 1988 massacre makes it too large to ignore, even after twenty years.

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(Please read the whole thing, including the proposals for action.)

With friends like these...

By Edward Copeland

The Bush family and their foreign policy teams sure have a history of not fulfilling promises to their allies, especially in the Middle East.

While Bush I was right in not toppling Saddam at the time, since all of his advisers, including that model of Dick Cheney, agreed the chaos that would ensue wasn't worth the cost of additional American lives, they also encouraged the Iraqi people to rise up against Saddam on their own. As the Shiites in the south moved to do just that, Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf let Saddam go ahead and crush them, in no small part leading to the resentment we face there now.

Now, another friendly Iraqi has been placed in a quandary that the U.S. seems either unwilling or unable to prevent. As reported exclusively by NBC News, former Iraqi Defense Minister Sultan Hashim Ahmed, who now awaits execution by an Iraqi court, actually was working as a double agent for the U.S. Hashim worked with a CIA task force following the first Gulf War, feeding them information about Saddam and helping them to try to encourage his overthrow.

On top of that, Hashim was introduced to the CIA by Iraq's current president, Jalal Talabani, and who will be charged with the task of signing Hashim's death warrant for war crimes. Talabani wants nothing to do with it.

It seems something went wrong during this invasion. Hashim ended up as one of the players on the U.S. deck of cards and was forced into hiding, where he was promised by none other than Gen. David Petraeus that:

... I offer you a simple, yet honorable alternative to life on the run from Coalition Forces in order to avoid capture, imprisonment, and loss of honor and dignity befitting a General Officer. I officially request your surrender to me. In turn, I will accept this from you in person. You have my word that you will be treated with the utmost dignity and respect, and that you will not be physically or mentally mistreated while under my custody."

Hashim did surrender to Petraeus, under the assumption that he would received immunity for charges that loomed over his head related to Saddam's attacks on the Kurds. Soon after, the U.S. military handed Hashim over to the Iraqi court that sentenced him to death.

Talabani, himself a Kurd, is now in a, to say the least, awkward position, given the task to carry out a death sentence of a former friend and ally in the fight against Saddam on charges relating to the deaths of his own people.

I used to urge him to rebel against the government, and he used to cooperate," Talabani said last month. "So how can I now authorize his execution? I just can’t."

What will become of Hashim? It's difficult to say right now, but it is yet another example of the sheer incompetence with which this administration executed their war on Iraq.

Around the world: China, Russia, Zimbabwe, Germany, and Japan

By Michael J.W. Stickings

Another entry in our ongoing series -- some stories from around the world that might be of interest to you:

1) China: "China's Supreme Court has ordered judges to be more sparing in the imposition of the death penalty. An order on its website said execution should be reserved for 'an extremely small number of serious offenders'."

This is a very positive step in the right direction -- and I say that as an ardnet opponent of the death penalty and as a long-time critic of China on human and civil rights. One hopes that there is something to it, that it isn't some charade of justice to bolster the country's image as it develops into ever more of an economic superpower, seeking ever more international investment, and as it prepares to host next year's Olympic Games.

For more on China and the Olympics -- and on support for China from Bush and Spielberg, among other such complicit luminaries -- see Eric Reeves's important piece at TNR: "How... can the premier event in international sports be hosted by a nation complicit in the most heinous international crimes? The Chinese regime is guilty of perpetrating the ongoing destruction of Tibet, supporting the vicious Myanmar junta, engaging in gross domestic human rights abuses, and, perhaps worst of all, facilitating genocide in Darfur."

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2) Russia: Vladimir Putin, the country's autocratic president, is set to step down next year. But don't count him out just yet -- "Putin has said he expects to remain an influential figure in Russian politics after he steps down next March. Speaking to Western journalists and academics, he did not rule out standing for president again in 2012 or 2016."

At least he's not pulling a Chavez... yet.

Or... is he? Putin picked the relatively obscure Viktor Zubkov to be Russia's prime minister this week. Zubkov is, needless to say, Putin's man, and "Putin also gave a heavy hint that... Zubkov might emerge as a candidate to succeed him as president". Putin's caretaker president, perhaps, for '08 to '12, the puppet to Putin's puppeteer.

Vladimir the Terrible, who doesn't think much of dissent and opposition, will not give up power anytime soon.

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3) Zimbabwe: How bad are conditions in that tyrannized African country? "Pets are being slaughtered for meat in shortage-stricken Zimbabwe and record numbers of animals have been surrendered to shelters or abandoned by owners no longer able to feed them, animal welfare activists say. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals said it could not feed surrendered animals or find them new homes and was being forced to kill them and destroy the corpses."

Horrible. (For our previous posts on Zimbabwe, see here.)

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4) Germany: Troubling news from the former GDR -- "The eastern state of Saxony-Anhalt, which had the highest incidence of far-right attacks in Germany last year, has launched a parliamentary inquiry into the region's police force following accusations that it has failed to investigate racist assaults properly. The probe comes at a time of heightened public awareness of right-wing extremism in the east of Germany..."

Such right-wing extremism is never good, but German neo-Nazism, rightly or wrongly, seems particularly troubling, given that country's past. To its credit, though, it has a good record combatting neo-Nazism -- the West, that is, not so much the East, and now united Germany is contending with long-dormant extremism in the latter. At least the state government seems to be taking action.

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5) Japan: "After a 17-year hiatus between lunar missions, Japan launched an unmanned orbiter today that carries the hopes of a nation looking to claim its place as a serious space power."

We are only at the beginning of what will be a long and likely contentious battle to dominate space.

Well it's hard to imagine it's the times that have changed...

By jeffaclitus

Many of you may have seen this elsewhere, but I urge you to click here to send a fax to the Georgia State Board of Pardons & Paroles calling on them to commute the sentence of Troy Davis. From the Amnesty page:

Troy Davis was sentenced to death for the murder of Police Officer Mark Allen McPhail in Georgia. The case against him consisted entirely of witness testimony which contained inconsistencies even at the time of the trial. Since then, all but two of the state's nine non-police witnesses from the trial have recanted their testimony. Many of these witnesses have stated in sworn affidavits that they were pressured or coerced by police into testifying or signing statements against Troy Davis.

This will cost you nothing. The clemency board has until 3 pm tomorrow, four hours before Davis's scheduled execution, to commute the sentence. Please send the fax.