Belinda Cooper: Revealing secrets

Citizenship & IdentityPolarizing Political Economy

Belinda Cooper[This article was cross-posted on the Huffington Post.]

Nineteen years ago, nearly three months after the fall of the Berlin Wall, East German dissidents called for a peaceful demonstration against the continued existence of the Stasi, the feared East German secret police. On January 15, 1990, I found myself in front of Stasi headquarters in East Berlin translating the demonstrators’ slogans for an American photographer. Suddenly, without warning, the looming metal gates of the forbidding edifice swung open and stunned protesters poured into the building. Some opened bottles of imported orange juice in the Stasi kitchens, while others spray-painted the walls and vented their anger on furniture and equipment.

This unplanned and now legendary “storming of the Stasi” came to mark the symbolic end of an institution whose fate had already been sealed politically. In the ensuing months, East Germans would dismantle the secret police apparatus once and for all, laying bare the full scope of repression exercised by an intelligence service subject to no external control. As a new administration takes over now in the United States, we might take to heart the lessons learned, in this process of dealing with the Stasi’s legacy, about the crucial role of openness and oversight in democratic societies.

East German activists soon discovered that the Stasi had kept literally miles of reports on ordinary people. I was one of them. As an American living in West Berlin, I had befriended dissident environmentalists in the eastern half of the city and helped them publicize the sorry state of their country’s air and water—an activity prohibited under the communist dictatorship. This made me an object of interest.

Jonathan Power: Palestine and the War of Civilizations

EconomyPolarizing Political EconomyRisk & Security

Just what Barack Obama needs as he prepares to be the forty-fourth president of the United States: another Israeli/Palestinian war re-inflaming passions all over the Arab and Muslim world. Will that middle name of his count for something in this intense firefight?

Well, possibly—but only if he moves fast to change the long-time American emphasis on supporting, by both word and deed, the Israeli side at the Palestinian’s expense. It is as simple—and as complicated—as that. After the Bush years, during which the “clash of civilizations” became the de facto interpretation of American, and to some extent European, policy in the region, the West quickly needs to de-escalate its fixation with what it often interprets as the rabid policies of the Islamic world. The focus instead should be on restoring a sense of humility in dealing with the world-wide Muslim civilization, albeit one with its share of bad apples.

Comparison, even in the time of Al Qaeda, does not work in Christendom’s favor. The West should not overlook its near-takeover by the Nazis, whose attempt to eliminate the Jews was launched from a country that was in many ways the fulcrum of modern Christianity. It would be a mistake to forget the inroads that atheistic Marxism made in Europe; or the everyday crime rates in Western nations that far, far exceed those in Muslim countries, especially in the Middle East.

Jonathan Power: The Triangle Of Madness

Citizenship & IdentityElections & InstitutionsPolarizing Political Economy

“Those whom the gods destroy they first make mad.”
– Euripides

There is a madness about the triangular relationship between India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. They all have resented and often hated each other; made alliances against each other; worked together when it was opportune; supported or, at least, turned too much of a blind eye to terrorists in each other’s countries; and became profoundly angry if terrorism was unleashed against them.

These cleavages have their roots in the Great Game, the nineteenth century British-Russian struggle for supremacy in Afghanistan and central Asia.

But ever since the Red Army invaded Afghanistan in 1979 and was finally defeated by the Taliban (aided by American, Saudi Arabian, and Indian arms and training), the intensity of the regional rivalry has been ratcheted up and extended to frightening proportions, worsened by America’s decision to wage war in Central Asia. It is no longer just a Great Game. It has become a Great Madness. One hostile act impacts on another and then the two together create a third, then three together create a fourth…and so on.

It has long been known that the Pakistan-based terrorists who have struggled to liberate Kashmir from India’s grip have close connections with the Taliban. There is also little doubt that those Pakistani terrorists whose primary interest is a free Kashmir aim to wound India’s growing political and diplomatic interests in Afghanistan. India, in turn, has aimed to encircle Pakistan in order to have a counter against Islamabad’s Kashmir ambitions.

Charles G. Cogan: “Change” and Air-Conditioning in Afghanistan

Citizenship & IdentityElections & InstitutionsPolarizing Political Economy

Several new developments have taken place since I wrote my retrospective article on Afghanistan a few weeks ago, an article that has just appeared in the 25th anniversary issue of World Policy Journal.

Firstly, the world financial crisis has worsened precipitously, which could impel a new American administration to break the cycle of expeditionary wars in Muslim countries in the Middle East.

Secondly, both the Pakistani Army in Pakistan and the American forces from Afghanistan have become more aggressive toward the Taliban and Al Qaeda, while at the same time offers of negotiation have been extended, mainly through the intermediary of the Saudis, to those who are considered the less extremist among the Taliban.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, a new cast of characters has arrived on the scene, principally: President-elect Barack Obama; and Gen. David Petraeus, the new head of the Central Command, whose writ stretches from Egypt and the Horn of Africa to the Indian subcontinent, including Pakistan and Afghanistan. Petraeus has already been to Pakistan to confer with the civilian and military leadership there.

Putting more troops into Afghanistan, as Mr. Obama recommended during the election campaign, would seem to be counterintuitive to history. The more Western troops that are introduced amidst the fiercely nationalistic Pashtuns and other Afghans seems likely to generate more resentment and more resistance. Meantime, civilian casualties continue to mount, both by American Predator drone attacks into Pakistan’s tribal areas and by Allied bombings and ground attacks in Afghanistan, provoking the legendary spirit of vengeance in that part of the world.

The Russian example in the twentieth century and the British example in the nineteenth century are there for all to see. Both were driven out of the country ignominiously. Afghans dislike intensely armed foreigners, especially Westerners, operating with impunity in their own country. Why turn our eyes away from this fact of history?