HELP
My colleague Ramin Jahanbegloo has been recently jailed by the Iran regime. I followed Ramin's work for 20 years and run into him in international conferences. A less political person is hard to imagine. Ramin is a soft spoken philosopher, interested in rather abstract culture ideas. He could not hurt a fly.
When I saw him last in Spain, all he wanted to talk about is how great his new baby girl is. There is no sense of arguing with the Mullahs. But if you know anyone in Iran, or have contact with anyone or someone who has contacts - plead for Ramin's release. Whether or not public intellectuals should be jailed is a question for another day; this time - whatever is on their mind - the regime in Iran locked up the wrong person.
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As President Ahmadinejad of Iran recently wrote to the President of the United States:
Unfortunately, it would appear that the Iranian authorities locked up exactly the type of person it would desire to lock up.
May 24, 2006 1:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
Meanwhile the US government is refusing to jail or extradite a number of anti-Cuban terrorists responsible for downing an airliner with Venezuelan citizens on it.
Interesting and opposite situation, no?
May 24, 2006 3:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
Noam Chomsky interviewed by Ramin Jahanbegloo
Some of his questions to Chomsky:
4- Question: During the past decades US foreign policy in the Middle East has consistently been devoted to gaining and maintaining hegemony. But it seems to me that the Bush administration has taken a more aggressive tone, giving a new ideological posture to US foreign policy. As if in the post-September 11 world order the world is to be run by the US for the US.
Answer: I think the policies are about the same, but there are some objective changes. Today the US military advantages are enormous, much more than they have been before. Up until the 1990s US was the biggest military force, but there was what they called "mutual deterrence". Actually with the existence of Soviet Union , one country deterred the other. Since 1990 there is no such thing as deterrence. And it showed right away. US would never dare put half a million troops in the deserts of Arabia if Soviet Union was still around. Because the Americans didn't know how the Soviet regime would react. Now, once they are gone they can do what ever they want. Since then there has been no deterrent and the US military spending is just out of sight. In fact when you read about the militarization of space they are quite frank about it. Clinton's Space Command pointed out correctly by saying that : "In the past countries built navies to protect their commercial interests and now space is the new frontier so we go there to protect our commercial interests". But there is a difference. When Britain built a navy Germany could also build a navy that would counter the British navy. When the Americans move into space no other nation would be able to counter them because they have such an overwhelming power. Therefore the US will have what we call a "full spectrum dominance". And planners in Washington believe this. They believe that they have such an overwhelming military capacity that they can force anybody to do anything. This is another reason why they are so upset about September 11. It illustrated what they knew. I mean if you have read technical journals before September 11, it was well known that with contemporary technology it is possible for small groups to carry out violent activities that would be extremely destructive. In fact these technical journals pointed out that it would be very easy to assemble a nuclear weapon in a New York hotel room and blow up an area of New York. It's not beyond the capacity of some political groups. That was known, but September 11 dramatized it. And that is frightening, because it means that you may have an overwhelming predominance in power but it doesn't mean that you have the monopoly of violence. It's not like the 19th century where there was nothing that people of Congo could do to Belgium or the Indians could do to Britain. But now is different.
5- Question: Talking about the Middle East, how do you see the future of the Iranian-American relations? What could the citizens of the two countries do to ameliorate the relations between the two countries?
Answer: I think the citizens of both countries have a common interest in changing the harmful policies in their countries. Of course they deal with it as people always can, I mean by setting solidarity relations to the extent that it is possible. I think Americans and Iranians can create these relation networks through all kinds of communications such as science, culture, sports, intellectual visits, trade etc. Us policy is interesting in this case. I mean practically always foreign policy is a clear reflection of primary economic interests. But this is a case where they diverge. So if you took a look at the energy corporations in the US, most of them are in favor of reintegrating Iran into the dominant global system and have tried to do so. But the US government is walking them, which is quite unusual. Usually it mainly supports their interests in the region. I think you can imagine the reasons when you compare to other cases. There is a very important principle of statecraft which is called "establishing credibility". What that means is that everybody should be terrified of you. Mafia understands this concept very well. If you are a Mafia Don, it is not enough to have people do what you say; they have to be afraid of you. So if a storekeeper doesn't pay protection money you just don't go and get the money, you make an example of him so that everyone else understands. That's establishing credibility. If you look at the official reasons for bombing Serbia in 1999, it was to establish credibility. They call it "NATO credibility" but that means of course "US credibility". I mean that people should know that you are the boss or otherwise you get smashed. Now let us go to Iran. Iran tried in 1953 to take control of its own resources. That ended up with a coup d'etat. The Shah was a very loyal client of the US and the US loved him. There was a survey on the violations of human rights in Iran which was published by a journalist of the New York Times. Well, when you look at this report it mentions that from 1953 to 1979 the US government believed that there were no human rights violations in Iran. When Carter went to Iran in 1978 he told the Shah how impressed he was by the degree that the Iranians loved him. I mean Iran was just fine as long as it was doing what the US wanted. But in 1979 Iran broke the rules. It pulled out and turned independent and that has to be punished. Even if the reformists could succeed and wanted to re-integrate Iran back into the system they would probably be prevented from doing it. Because the US wants to make an example of Iran to show other people in the Middle East that they can't do these kind of things. You don't break ranks and disobey the orders of the master. That's credibility and I think a lot of policies are driven by that. It is hard to explain on other grounds. It's for example very counterproductive on the economic level.
May 24, 2006 3:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just read an interesting piece on Clinton's "Third Way" initiative.
Had some material in it about our author here which read as follows:
"Limiting privacy has been embraced by another philosophical guru of New Age political thought, George Washington University sociologist Amitai Etzioni. He heads the Communitarian Movement, an eclectic assortment of Third Way and global village aficionados.
Etzioni, who is greatly admired by Bill and Hillary Clinton, Blair, and Jack Straw, argues that people have nothing to worry about when it comes to government invasion of privacy and that governments must put limits
on privacy in the interests of “public safety.”
Therefore, the Communitarians support drunk driving checkpoints, intrusive security screening of airline passengers, and mandatory drug and alcohol testing
for certain professions. The Communitarians decry civil liberties groups as “radicals."
In his book, The Limits of Privacy, Etzioni argues that private companies are more of a threat to an individual’s privacy than government. However, the fact that the Third Way philosophy combines government and corporations into an unholy alliance of exploiters
presents the real threat to individualism and privacy. Add to that the Third Way’s argument that people must surrender all kinds of personal liberties to fight the so-called “Drug War” and “Terrorism War” for the common good smacks of Orwellian Newspeak at its worst. The
Communitarians and Third Wayers see privacy-intrusive technologies like biometrics and DNA testing as enabling mechanisms for their “brave new world.”"
Comments?
May 27, 2006 11:34 PM | Reply | Permalink