January 2005 Archives

Today of course is the day iraq votes. Much of what we'd say here has been written elsewhere: that large-scale violence continues in iraq; that voter intimidation will happen in some areas; that major parties have called for a boycott of the election. Is violence-torn, occupied iraq ready for elections?

Update: early reports say iraqi turnout is higher than expected: The London Times, the New York Times. Let's hope this is accurate, it would certainly be a positive development.

Update 3/8/05: Slate has an overview of conservative blogger coverage of an iraqi poll showing optimism for the future. We certainly hope the future is bright too, but the bloggerrati trumpeting the new poll are the same ones that continued insisting on iraqi weapons of mass destruction long after all reasonable people knew they didn't exist. While we here at Nonviolence.org could chime in with daily reports of happy or miserable iraqis and blustering commentary based on ideological slant, the lasting impact of the elections won't be decided by mouse-clutching reporters or bloggers but by the iraqi people themselves.

Apparently the U.S. is pressuring Qatar to sell the Al Jazeera TV network The best line in the New York Times article:

Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and other Bush administration officials have complained heatedly to Qatari leaders that Al Jazeera's broadcasts have been inflammatory, misleading and occasionally false, especially on iraq.

So I suppose Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice and Powell have never given out misleading or occasionally false information about iraq?

Al Jazeera is watched by 30 million to 50 million viewers. It's coverage has been inflammatory and I'm not going to defend that, but it's the most important media source in the Middle East and should not be shut down by American pressure. Qatar is only considering selling it, but potential buyers for the financially-strapped network are few. And the Cheney team wouldn't be involved if they weren't interested in making it's content more U.S. friendly.

This fall Zachary Moon and I put together a workshop proposal for the 2005 Gathering, which has been approved: Strangers to the Covenant is the title and here's the short description:

This is for young Friends who want to break into the power of Quakerism: it's the stuff you didn't get in First Day School. We'll connect with historical Quakers whose powerful ministry came in their teens and twenties and we'll look at how Friends wove God, covenants and gospel order together to build a movement that rocked the world. We'll mine Quaker history to reclaim the power of our tradition, to explore the living power of the testimonies and our witness in the world.

I've been emailing back and forth with a friend who's considering starting a blog [update: as she has, The Good Raised Up]. She's thinking of approaching a couple of Friends to act as elders "so as not to outrun my Guide."

Interesting short post from Kwakersaur about the different ways Friends have related to God circa 1660, 1950 and today. A snippet

[The first generation of Friends'] language lacked the me-an-Jesus kind of spirituality that marks the 1955 minutes and characterizes a lot of Christian spirituality of today. For early Quakers -- and I suspect early Christians -- it was not so much Jesus as a friendly affable fellow who loved us in a warm and comfy positive-strokes-I'm-OK-You're-OK kinda way.

Over at the New Yorker, Seymour Hersh is reporting that forces in the Bush Administration are looking at war with Iran now.

"This is a war against terrorism, and iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone," the former high-level intelligence official told me. "Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign."

Preparations include new war plans and fairly open hints by the Vice President that Israel start the Iran War by attacking its weapons productions facilities.

Hersh also reports that the Pentagon is now doing the secret "special ops" operations that used to be performed by the CIA. This isn't just a change in uniform: after the CIA was caught trying to overthrow governments and assasinating world leaders, the agency was put under congressional oversight. The Pentagon doesn't have that oversight. Followup in today's New York Times:

Among the C.I.A.'s concerns, former intelligence officials have said, are that an expanded Pentagon role in intelligence-gathering could, by design or effect, escape the strict Congressional oversight imposed by law on such operations when they are carried out by intelligence agencies.

This isn't a war on terrorism (neither iraq or Iran have conducted terrorist operations against the United States). This is a war against Muslim nations that threaten to have too much power.

I'll be away from the blog till mid-month. The three of us are off to... Disneyworld. No, seriously we are. I grew up as a Disney agnostic but Julie's always been a fan and this is one of those compromises of love. I went with her a few years ago and I have to admit I was pleasantly surprised. I'm sure I'll be back with more stories. The real story is the one that has caused us to move up this vacation up ten months, but you'll all have to wait for that tale.

Please note that no new comments will go up on pages until my return--I'm afraid comment spam is so bad that I can't have anything go up without review.

When you’ve acknowledge the Power, what does faith become? It becomes a testimony to the world. The Quaker way breaks through both the religious and activist narrow-mindedness of our day. We’re not talking about faith without action and we’re not talking about action without faith. Either one without the other is sacrilege. Combine the two and you have something real, something powerful.