An Egyptian man brandishing signs reading "No...Mubarak" participates in a protest rally against President Hosni Mubarak in Cairo, March 14. (AFP Photo)

The Bush administration is crowing about what it claims is “a wave of democracy and freedom“ sweeping the Middle East. And it’s all thanks to the invasion of Iraq, insists the White House, offering the umpteenth new rationale for going to war.
Just look: Iraq held an election of sorts under U.S. “guidance.“ Egypt’s long-time ruler, Gen. Hosni Mubarak, says he will allow multi-party elections. Tunisia and Saudi Arabia recently held elections. Lebanon, rent by pro- and anti-Syrian protests, may soon hold new elections.
All this does look like the dawn of Arab democracy--to those who don’t know much about the region. Up close, the picture is less rosy.
Ironically, the man most responsible for pushing the Arab world towards political change is not George W. Bush, but his nemesis, Osama bin Laden.
For over a decade, bin Laden has agitated for the overthrow of the corrupt, despotic Arab regimes supported by the U.S., and their replacement by a traditional Islamic democratic consensus.
As bin Laden’s anti-American insurgency gathers strength and resonates among the restive Arab masses, the Bush administration has urged the frightened kings and generals running Washington’s client Arab regimes to make a show of democratic reforms to head off popular uprisings.
Most of these reforms are pure sham. Washington stage-managed Iraq’s vote to empower Shia and Kurdish yes-men who will pretend to rule while the U.S. continues to run Iraq and pump its oil. Mubarak, the U.S.-backed military ruler of Egypt, is apparently grooming his son to take over under cover of rigged “open, multi-party“ elections.
In October, Tunisia’s U.S.-backed military dictator won “re-election“ by a Soviet-style 94.5%. Saudi Arabia’s recent vote was an empty exercise.
The Arab world desperately needs democracy, rule of law, free speech and honest government. Ironically, even Israel’s Arabs, though second-class citizens, enjoy more human and political rights than in many Arab states.
But most Arabs see Bush’s “freedom“ crusade as a cynical campaign to tighten U.S. control of the Mideast by ditching old-fashioned generals and monarchs for more modern, democratic-looking civilian regimes that still do Washington’s bidding.
The Arab world’s only truly free election was held in 1991 by Algeria’s U.S.- and French-supported military regime. Islamic parties won a landslide. The military annulled the vote and jailed Islamist leaders--backed by Washington and Paris.
It’s likely any honest votes held in feudal Jordan, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, or military-run Egypt, Libya, and Syria, would produce similar results.
Most Arab states lack political legitimacy. Soldiers and ferocious secret police keep their repressive regimes in power. Once U.S. support for these oligarchies wavers, as is happening now, opposition swells up.
After Washington began voicing doubts in 1979 about the old U.S. ally, the Shah of Iran, revolution ensued. The same process is now under way in Saudi Arabia.
The Bush administration is right. Arabs need democracy. But it is behaving like a bull in the Mideast china shop and is following contradictory policies. Bush wants more popular, less dictatorial regimes, but only those catering to U.S. strategic interests.
All this ham-handed U.S. political engineering may produce a dangerous muddle or even provoke collapse of pro-U.S. despots and their replacement by anti-U.S. revolutionary forces.
If Bush really wants real Mideast democracy, he should begin with Egypt, which contains a third of all Arabs, and is essentially a U.S. protectorate. End its military dictatorship, allow real political parties, a free press, and honest elections. Do not allow Egypt to get away with more sham elections. Set a sterling example for the democracy-deficient Muslim world.
CANOE.CA

Traders signal with their hands and yell for attention in the oil futures pit March 7 at the New York Mercantile Exchange. (AFP File Photo)

Last week the price of benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil came within pennies of its nominal record of $55.67 per barrel. The recent oil-price run-up has ignited concerns that the trend could take some steam out of America’s robust economy, which has grown by more than 8.5 percent during the past two years. There were also fears that the recent WTI price spike, which reflected an increase of more than 20 percent from one month earlier and more than 50 percent from a year ago, could jeopardize last year’s solid expansion of the global economy.
Neither fear is likely to turn into reality.
But the concern is understandable, given that nine out of the last 10 recessions in the United States have been preceded by a sharp increase in the price of petroleum. Yet there are several reasons why an oil price in the range of $55 to $60 per barrel will be unlikely to derail the U.S. economy in the foreseeable future.
First, while the current oil price is in the neighborhood of its nominal record, previous recession-inducing oil prices, when adjusted for inflation, were considerably higher than today’s price. For example, real (i.e., inflation-adjusted) oil prices approached $90 per barrel (measured in 2005 dollars) during the early 1980s.
Second, during the 1970s and early 1980s, when the world economy was hammered by oil price and supply shocks, the U.S. economy was far more dependent on oil than it is today. During 1981, for example, when the nominal composite oil price (a weighted blend of domestic and imported prices) averaged more than $35 per barrel and U.S. petroleum demand averaged 17.1 million barrels per day, the oil sector accounted for 7.9 percent of U.S. gross domestic product (GDP). This year, assuming an average oil price of $55 per barrel and U.S. daily demand of 21 million barrels, the oil sector would account for 3.4 percent of GDP.
The third reason why the U.S. economy will likely grow by more than 3 percent this year in the face of $55 oil is because fiscal and monetary policies remain very stimulative. The exorbitant budget deficit speaks for itself. And even if an oil-induced spike in inflation causes the Fed to raise interest rates faster than it has since last June, real interest rates are likely to remain very low--particularly for this stage in the business cycle--for the balance of the year and beyond.
While China’s economy shows little sign of cooling from the near double-digit growth rates it has enjoyed in recent years, Japan and the eurozone are another matter altogether. With its economy having declined during each of the three previous quarters, Japan has re-entered yet another recession. Germany, once the engine of the European economy, has suffered two recessions since 2001 and appears to be teetering on the verge of another. The best that can be said is that Japan and the eurozone economies are not exacerbating the world’s increasing demand for oil. And while both Japan and the eurozone complain that their currencies have increased by more than 20 percent and more than 33 percent, respectively, against the dollar since early 2002, the flip-side benefit is that their stronger currencies have significantly mitigated the soaring, dollar-denominated price of oil.
If current supply, demand and price conditions in the world oil market remain unchanged for the balance of the year, both the U.S. and the world economies should continue to advance at an acceptable pace.
WASHINGTONTIMES.COM

Recent warning by the United Nations’ main drug-monitoring watchdog that Afghanistan is in danger of becoming a narcotics-driven state should hardly come as a surprise.
More than three years since the United States began its “war on terror“ as well as its campaign to militarily support a pro-U.S. regime in Kabul, the economy of this war-battered Central Asian country remains in tatters, providing ample opportunity for those in the narcotics business to use their massive profits to buy off individuals in a range of positions.
From Afghan security officials and the police to small-time farmers and daily wage laborers, it’s not difficult to find people who are tempted to join a gang of drug traffickers.
The United Nations’ International Narcotics Control Board estimates Afghanistan’s opium production reached 4,000 tons in 2004, a fivefold jump from 2003.
Unlike the present regime, the Taliban regime managed to slash the country’s production of opium, from which heroin is produced, while it was in power. It’s not surprising that the Taliban had more success; it was deeply committed to eliminating narcotics production and it wielded authority over the country.
Although Karzai is the elected president of Afghanistan, he is viewed by many as merely the ruler of Kabul since large parts of Afghanistan remain out of his control. The fact that the flow of narcotics is increasing despite the presence of troops from the U.S. and other Western countries reveals the ineffective nature of the Kabul regime and its principal backers.
Karzai cannot reduce drug trafficking unless he also launches a campaign to rebuild the country’s economy and provide jobs for its impoverished people. Clearly, Washington’s failure to follow its military campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq with economic rehabilitation is undermining its nation-building efforts.
After the Taliban regime fell, many Afghans returned home to start new lives, hoping for prosperity and stability after more than two decades of conflict. These people may have injected new enthusiasm in the country, but the scale of the reconstruction challenge is so large that anything short of a modern-day equivalent of the Marshall Plan--which America deployed after World War II to rebuild Europe--is bound to fail.
Many drug barons will continue to rely on their illicit trade for the simple reason that their financial gains are far greater than anything they could ever expect to earn in a legitimate occupation. But many in the lower echelons of the narcotics trade--those forced to join due to poverty--would be willing to begin fresh lives in a legitimate line of work if such an opportunity arose.
Kabul and Washington should focus assistance efforts on those who are willing to give up the drug trade. This must be done in tandem with a campaign utilizing force to disrupt the flow of narcotics from Afghanistan.
In addition, combating the flow of narcotics to international markets will be a futile venture unless the demand for narcotics in Western consumers is reduced. Western countries should re-examine their policies in this area.
Countries that avoid tough punishments for drug traffickers must consider the fallout of such a policy choice. The issue of drug trafficking confronts the world today as never before.
Countries that are target destinations for traffickers need to consider the risks of being lax with those involved in an immensely dangerous activity, whose eventual fallout is none other than the decay and destruction of parts of modern-day societies.
JAPANTIMES.CO.JP

China insists that its anti-secession law does not threaten war, but rather will help achieve peaceful reunification with Taiwan.
It is hardly surprising that Taiwan itself is sceptical about this Orwellian-sounding claim. The 10-article text, rubber-stamped by the national people’s congress in Beijing Monday, in fact mandates the use of force--“non-peaceful means and other necessary measures“--if the island formally declares statehood. In the context of a China which is increasingly assertive in East Asia, this sounds alarming.
China watchers say there is a danger of overinterpretation: Beijing’s hope, they argue, is that the new law will deter Taiwan’s president, Chen Shui-bian, from pushing for independence during his second and final term, which ends in 2008.
The approach of Mr Chen’s Democratic Progressive party reflects long-term changes: as long as the Kuomintang, founded by Chiang Kai-shek, ruled the island, they claimed to be the true government of China, usurped by the communists in 1949.
But Taiwan’s diplomatic derecognition has been followed by a native Taiwanese nationalism which increasingly sees the island’s 23 million people as having a separate destiny from the mainland. Even so, elections last December failed to produce a majority for even symbolic moves towards independence. The main reason for this caution is the close economic link with the People’s Republic. Indeed, despite the new law--long-heralded and pushed by hardliners in the Chinese military--recent moves, such as direct civilian flights, suggest a thaw in the relationship between Beijing and Taipei.
Nervousness, still, is understandable, and is not confined to Taiwan. Last month Japan, worried by Chinese sabre-rattling, agreed with the US that the Taiwan Strait issue was now a “mutual security concern“. Washington fears that controversial plans to lift the EU’s arms embargo on China, imposed after the Tiananmen massacre in 1989, will allow Beijing to get advanced command and control technologies that will challenge US military dominance in the strait.
Conflict may be a remote possibility. But what is worrying is the way this decision bespeaks an undemocratic and repressive cast of mind--evident on Tibet, human rights and Hong Kong, as well as the human suffering caused by the country’s extraordinary economic growth. Yet again, China--boasting of its “striving for peace diligently“--seems to be trampling over the legitimate sensitivities of others who do not want the law to be laid down in Beijing.
GUARDIAN.CO.UK

Yigal Amir, the murderer of prime minister Yitzhak Rabin, was arrested, interrogated, tried and convicted of murder. Now they’re telling us that he hasn’t been granted the rights that other murderers receive. That is not accurate. Moreover, the judicial system is part of a broader system of law enforcement, which definitely distinguishes between crimes, and by so doing also defines criminals of one type differently from criminals of another type. Are the police and the state prosecutor really as strict about the murder of Arabs as they are about the murder of Jews, during the stage of detention (or release) of the suspect, or in taking testimony (with torture or without), in the filing of indictments for murder (or for manslaughter, or in closing files for lack of evidence) and, the main thing: in the decision as to which court to send the person accused of murder--to the military court, where the evidentiary laws are a joke, or to a regular court?
Let’s say this openly: In all these places, the system (police, State Prosecutor’s Office, the Prison Services) is accustomed to clearly discriminating between Jews and Arabs. The settlers who murdered Palestinians are the best examples.
In all these places, the judicial system becomes a part of a discriminatory system. For example, the court cannot oppose a decision of the State Prosecutor’s Office to have a settler stand trial for the killing of a Palestinian child, rather than for murder. From the point of view of the court, all the criminal prisoners are criminal; from the point of view of the Prison Services, there are “security“ prisoners and “criminal“ prisoners.
The fate of the “security prisoners,“ even if they are not murderers, is harsh and bitter. The court’s use of a special Shin Bet security forces report on the issue of the danger underlying Yigal Amir’s conjugal visits was not grotesque. Amir was treated like most of the Palestinian prisoners.
When people say that the occupation corrupts, they also mean the way in which the judicial system, which is ostensibly above the creeping apartheid, falls into it. Moreover, the judicial system rarely makes its voice heard in areas that the legislator has not touched. That was the case for many years during which Palestinian detainees were tortured.
Until the establishment of the Landau Committee in the mid-1980s, when the “method“ was exposed, the courts’ authority was dominated by the state’s silent acquiescence to the lawlessness. How many thousands of years of imprisonment were imposed by means of the system of torture during the 1970s and the first half of the 1980s? Nobody has done the arithmetic. How many “security prisoners“ are serving sentences today in the prisons, in the courts authority system, without the rights given to criminal prisoners? How many “security prisoners“ are serving sentences after being tried in a dubious judicial proceeding (a military court)? How many of the 5,000 Prison Services “security prisoners“ have committed crimes as severe as that of Amir--i.e., homicide? How many of them get to go out on leave? Not one. How many of them receive family visits? For years, “security prisoners“ from the territories have not seen their children, their wives, their fathers or their mothers. Never mind “conjugal visits.“
What is defined as “security“ is in effect a declaration of types of Guantanamos in the areas of institutions and regulations.
HAARETZ.COM