Dictatorships and double standards - Tough on Fiji, soft on Iran

By Stephen F. Hayes of The Weekly Standard

ON NOVEMBER 4, protesters gathered outside the gates of the US embassy in Tehran to mark the 30th anniversary of the hostage-taking. There were the usual government-backed "Death to America" protests--celebrating the then-young revolutionaries and their enduring fanaticism.

But there were other protests, too. Nearly six months after the fixed Iranian election brought hundreds of thousands of green-clad Iranian democrats to the streets, a few thousand brave souls gathered to challenge the corrupt Iranian regime. The crowd was smaller than in May, but their hopes were no less audacious. They had organised secretly to stage a protest to tell anyone who would listen that their democratic aspirations had not been snuffed out and that, despite the indifference of world leaders and the violence of the mullahs, they would persevere.

"Death to the Dictator," they shouted in Farsi, words that could get them killed. And in what the Associated Press described as "a new and startling appeal", the protesters spoke directly to the US President: "Obama, Obama," they chanted. "You are either with them or with us."

At least four foreign journalists were detained during the protests, and members of government-backed militias appeared in riot gear beating protesters with heavy clubs and arresting others.

Back at the State Department, spokesman Ian Kelly prepared to open his daily briefing with an unusually harsh condemnation. The United States "deplores" the "unprecedented" actions of an unelected leadership that "have undermined any opportunity for progress toward reengagement and constructive dialogue".

Fiji the target
These would have been the strongest words issued by the Obama administration about the Iranian protests if they had been about the Iranian regime. But they were actually about Fiji. Kelly said absolutely nothing about Iran.
What he was deploring was a decision by "Fiji's de facto government to expel New Zealand's acting head of mission as well as Australia's high commissioner." That last act, according to Kelly, was "unprecedented in that Australia now holds the chairmanship of the Pacific Islands Forum," so "the United States calls for the restoration of Fiji's independent judiciary and the rights to free speech and assembly that are essential to the country's return to democracy."

The burst of toughness left the reporters in the room perplexed.

REPORTER: Exactly what's the U.S. connection there? The government of Fiji expels diplomats from Australia and New Zealand, and you care because--

KELLY: We care because we care about the restoration of democracy in Fiji. Last April, they--the president abolished the constitution--

REPORTER: Yeah.

KELLY: and dismissed all judges and constitutional appointees and imposed emergency rule.

REPORTER: Yeah, that happened. But the operative word being there last when? Operative words? Last--

KELLY: April.

REPORTER: April, okay. And so--

KELLY: I mean, we have an interest in democracy returning to Fiji.

REPORTER: Well, I understand. But what does the expulsion of the diplomats from Australia and New Zealand have to do with the restoration of democracy?

KELLY: It was--we consider it be an unjust act to expel them out of the country.

It's encouraging that the Obama administration can get tough with someone--or someone other than Israel, Wall Street CEOs, and Dick Cheney--even if it's with a nation that boasts the population of Rhode Island and a GDP of $3.5 billion, less than Americans spend annually on cat food. But the Obama administration had no substantive response to the Tehran violence or the silenced protesters' message.

Earlier in the week both President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had expressed hope that the Iranian regime would reverse three decades of antagonism and rejoin the community of civilized nations. Clinton, speaking to reporters in Morocco, particularly wished that Iran would accept an offer from the IAEA to ship some of its low-enriched uranium to Russia to show that Iran "does wish to cooperate with the international community and fulfill their international responsibilities".

The White House then sent out a statement commemorating the 30th anniversary of the takeover. It began, delicately, in the passive voice. "Thirty years ago today, the American embassy in Tehran was seized." (It was apparently too provocative to say by whom.)

Courageous hostages
The 444 days that began on November 4, 1979, deeply affected the lives of courageous Americans who were unjustly held hostage, and we owe these Americans and their families our gratitude for their extraordinary service and sacrifice. This event helped set the United States and Iran on a path of sustained suspicion, mistrust, and confrontation. I have made it clear that the United States of America wants to move beyond this past, and seeks a relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran based upon mutual interests and mutual respect.

There are other reasons for the suspicion, mistrust, and confrontation, of course. Iran killed hundreds of US Marines in a terrorist attack in Beirut in 1983. Iran sponsored and trained the terrorists who killed 19 American soldiers at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in 1996. Iran harbored senior al Qaeda leaders in the months after September 11, 2001. It is training, arming, and funding the terrorists fighting US soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq. And last week Iran was caught red-handed delivering weapons--hundreds of tons of arms--to terrorists.

Mutual respect?

And there are brand new reasons for suspicion, mistrust, and confrontation. In late September, the world learned that Iran had constructed a secret uranium enrichment facility at Qom. In announcing the breach, Obama noted: "This is not the first time that Iran has concealed information about its nuclear program." Yet he went on to affirm his commitment "to serious, meaningful engagement with Iran to address the nuclear issue" through the international community.

Then, late Thursday came a bombshell report in the Guardian: The International Atomic Energy Agency has evidence that the Iranian regime had been working on an advanced design for a nuclear warhead. If perfected, the "two-point implosion" device would allow the Iranians to build smaller bombs with higher yields, which are easier to load and deliver by missile. If Iran's nuclear program were peaceful, as the Iranian government has repeatedly proclaimed (and virtually no one believes), there would be no reason for this kind of work.

The US intelligence community has had this information for weeks, according to several officials. The Senate Select Intelligence Committee was briefed on October 22 and the House Permanent Select Intelligence Committee on October 29. The new information strongly suggests that Iran did not suspend its entire nuclear weapons program in 2003 as the 2007 National Intelligence Estimate on Iran claims.

End to mistrust
So on two separate occasions in the past two months, Obama publicly called for an end to the "mistrust" between Iran and the United States even as he was privately being presented with fresh intelligence showing that Iran has been lying about its nuclear weapons program and its intentions.

Obama's passivity is beginning to frustrate even members of his own party. Last week, the Senate Banking Committee unanimously passed a measure that would give the president more authority to impose harsh sanctions on Iran's importing of gasoline and other refined petroleum products. "It is clear that an overwhelming bipartisan majority in both houses of Congress now supports the imposition of tough new sanctions on the government of Iran," said Senators Evan Bayh, Joe Lieberman, and Jon Kyl in a joint statement. The legislation has 76 cosponsors in the Senate, including 38 Democrats. But the White House has not endorsed the measure.

The French are growing impatient, too. A month ago, French president Nicolas Sarkozy chastised Obama for his dithering on Iran. Then last week, in an interview with the New York Times, Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner accused the Obama administration of avoiding the hard decisions on Iran. "Our American friends ask us to wait until the end of the year," he said. "It's not us." Kouchner told the Times that the White House wants to give Iran an opportunity for more negotiations. "We're waiting for talks, but where are the talks?"

There is only so much toughness to go around. And the Obama administration prefers to focus on the growing global threat from Frank Bainimarama, Fijian strongman.

Stephen F. Hayes is a senior writer at The Weekly Standard. This article has been republished from the Vol 15, Issue 9, edition on November 16.

Obama, a Huli warrior and the image nincompoop

By Alfredo P Hernadez

IT SIMPLY took a nincompoop to ignite the ire of many Papua New Guineans here in Port Moresby - and those living in the US, the Pacific and elsewhere across the globe. Although only those Papua New Guineans residing in the US are directly affected by the raging healthcare issues that of late have divided the American people, their global compatriots feel that their cultural pride, and as a nation rich in colorful culture, have been unfairly dragged into the US healthcare brouhaha. To them, the whole affair involving a controversial picture of US President Barack Obama has now boiled down into a simple issue of racism that insults Papua New Guineans and hurts the nation’s pride.

Over the past three weeks, their anger has been bouncing back and forth across the cyberspace through emails exchanged among overseas Papua New Guineans. The unflattering and tasteless image of Obama’s was first flashed on news television some three weeks ago during coverage of a protest-rally against the president’s healthcare scheme. The Obama-Huli wigman’s image was one of the posters that have been used by Americans protesting the Obama healthcare scheme. I did not understand it for a while why such an image of Papua New Guinean motif was used to drumbeat their protest.

Obama’s face was superimposed on an image of a PNG Huli wigman in full traditional regalia. When I first saw it, I immediately recognised it as one of PNG. The Huli wigman is a tribal warrior from PNG’s Highlands. However, just before I could consider it as something to be proud of, having considered PNG as my second home, it dawned on me that there was something sinister in superimposing the US president’s facial image on one of PNG’s popular cultural icons.

'Witch doctor'
The whole image carried the label “Witch Doctor”!, apparently to drive a point that the Obama administration’s attempt to overhaul the American healthcare system “would make the quality of medical care worse” as claimed by the program’s detractors. In many tales that I had read about witch doctors, their “patients” usually got worse instead of being healed. This may be the reason why such similarity was drawn: Obama the village witch doctor and the American people his patients whose health is fast deteriorating.

But one thing that was totally wrong here is that Obama, in the PNG Highlands’ warrior image, has been labeled as an African witch doctor, his being of African descent. And this is an insult, as far as the Papua New Guinean people are concerned. And so the “racist’ slant has become very pronounced. Wrote David Ketepa from Detroit, Michigan:

Many Papua New Guineans living in the US and around the world are angered by the picture which was used by an opponent of President Obama’s healthcare plan … the picture depicts a warrior from the Highlands who is in his traditional attire.

Another said on his blog, which was also circulated through email:

This is totally absurd and whoever did it needs to apologise to the People of Papua New Guinea for insulting us… this is our culture and we love it!” one said on his blog, which was also circulated through email.

Another said:

To the ignorant, idiot racist who distributed this picture, this is not an African witch doctor’s dress like you claim.

One knowledgeable Papua New Guinean explained to me there’s no such thing as a witch doctor in PNG as the anti-Obama protest posters would want the American people to believe.

Sorcerers abound
Well, we have sorcerers who abound in almost all tribes across PNG. But witch doctors? I really doubt it.

The unfortunate picture came about due to the sheer ignorance of the artist who concocted the image. He never realised that the person in the original picture is a Papua New Guinean tribesman and not a witch doctor which is common in Africa. The Obama’s tribal warrior’s attire clearly showed the Huli wigman seated outside a round house, holding a stone while the otherhand rested on his right side. His feathered wig clearly showed a stuffed bird of paradise in the middle and on both ends. Through his nose is a cassowary (a flightless bird) bone.

This colourful ensemble makes up the Huli wigman’s traditional attire which he wears as he goes about his business in the village. This is also his wear when fighting a tribal war. Although I had not seen a Huli wigman in the natural setting at the village, I saw many of them at a cultural show held in Sogere, which is located outside Port Moresby.

In his blog on July 23, American Zachary Roth wrote:

The election of our first black president has brought with it a strange proliferation of online racism among conservatives.

And we’ve got the latest example.

Tea Party ploy
Roth said that on July 19, Dr David McKalip forwarded to fellow members of the Google list service affiliated with the Tea Party movement the image of President Obama in the Huli wigman attire, with a note saying, "Funny stuff.”

Roth revealed that Dr McKalip is not just some random winger. He’s a Florida neurosurgeon, who serves as a member of the American Medical Association’s House of Delegates.

According to Roth, Dr McKalip is an

energetic conservative opponent of healthcare reform and founded the anti-reform group Doctors For Patient Freedom.

Last month, he (McKalip) joined the GOP congressmen Tom Price and Phil Gingrey, among others, for a virtual town hall to warn about the coming “government takeover of medicine”. And in a recent anti-reform op-ed published in the St Petersburg Times, Dr Mckalip wrote that: “Congress wants to create a larger, government-funded program for healthcare and more bureaucracy that ration care and impose cookbook medicine.”

Asked about the email in a brief interview with TPMmuckraker, Dr McKalip said he believes that by depicting the president as an African witch doctor, the “artist” who created the image “was expressing concerns that the healthcare proposals (by Obama) would make the quality of medical care in our country worse”.

However, Dr McKalip denied knowing who created the composite picture.

Livid phone call'
A blogger at Daily Kos reported about his getting a statement from the American Medical Association (AMA), which reads:

Delegates to the American Medical Association are selected through their individual state and specialty societies, and their individual views and actions do not, in any way, represent the official view of the AMA. We condemn any actions or comments that are racist, discriminatory or unprofessional.

The same blogger has also reported that he got a call from the director of corporate communications at Bayfront Medical Center in St Pete and she was livid about what Dr McKalip has done. The doctor works in the hospital.

The blogger said the director had disclosed that the issue was being “handled internally”. Although Dr McKalip works at Bayfront, he does not speak for the hospital. Dr McKalip has now apologised. But not before blaming "liberal activists" for touting the email he circulated.

President Obama’s infamous image has now taken on a new significance. And casting aside the intention of the ignorant artist of labeling him as an African witchdoctor, Obama actually assumes the posture of a PNG Highlands “warrior”. This is because the Huli wigman is a tribal warrior.

Barrier in Congress
Obama is gradually emerging as a one-man warrior fighting a great odd in his bid to push his healthcare reform agenda.

Those who oppose him – in Congress and in protest-rally grounds – are in great number and it seems he will not get his healthcare scheme through the barrier in Congress this year with the support of the Republicans in Congress - his staunch enemy. This means that should it be passed, it would be through the workings of the Democrats in Congress, his built-in allies in this hard-to-sell initiative.

Michael Hiltzik, writing in latimes.com, advised the president “to get mean already”. The article is titled “It’s time for Obama to take off the kid gloves”. Hiltzik wrote that “it’s worth remembering that effective health insurance reform has five major elements: mandating individual health coverage, requiring issuance to all applicants, outlawing exclusions for preexisting conditions, regulating premium and fees, and providing subsidies for low-income buyers … all are overwhelmingly supported by Americans, and all are in the Democratic proposals.

“We’ve already seen that Obama knows how to talk sense … can he play hardball too?” Hiltzik asks.

In his September 9 healthcare speech, the president seemed to signal a new hard line, when he threatened to “call out” anyone who misrepresented his plan. He’s spoiling for a big showdown and he wants victory soon.

Could this mean that Obama, who reincarnated himself as Huli wigman of PNG’s Highlands, is now ready for a warrior’s battle?

Thanks to Freddie, this article is republished from his Letters from Port Moresby blog. He is a senior journalist on The National, but these are his personal views.

Pacific Scoop on the Obama image controversy

Pilger on the 'change' myth of President Obama

A LINK in case you missed this gem from John Pilger (as Café Pacific did, being on leave in remote parts of the Pacific with non communications at the time) about propaganda, disinformation and the rise of Obama. Pilger was speaking at Socialism 2009 on US independence day last month and filmed by Paul Hubbard in San Francisco. Pilger says that in reality President Obama promises not change, but more of the same (a view long shared by Café Pacific) – and even embarking on a new war in Pakistan. Behind the illusion, says Pilger, Bush and Obama have much in common:

The clever young man who recently made it to the White House is a very fine hypnotist … partly because it is indeed extraordinary to see an African-American at the pinnacle of power in the land of slavery. However, this is the 21st century and race together with gender, and even class, can be very seductive tools of propaganda. For what is so often overlooked, I believe above all, is the class one serves.

George Bush’s inner circle was perhaps the most multiracial in presidential history. It was PC par excellence… It was also the most reactionary. Obama’s very presence in the White House appears to reaffirm the moral nation. He is a marketing dream… he is a brand that promises something special, something exciting, almost risqué, as if he might be radical, as if he might enact change. He makes people feel good, he is a post-modern man with no political baggage – and all that’s fake.

Timor campaigners blast Blair's Pacific role

TIMORESE human rights support campaigners are rightly upset at retired admiral Dennis Blair's nomination by the incoming Barak Obama administration as US Director of National Intelligence. They point to his appalling record over Timor-Leste's path to independence and as a Pacific point man in the so-called "war on terror".
A statement by the East Timor and Indonesia Action Network (ETAN) called on President-elect Obama to reconsider the nomination, and "make a break from past policies that have undermined human rights worldwide". John M. Miller, national coordinator of ETAN and a key monitor of Indonesia and Timorese media, says:

During his years as Pacific Commander, Blair downplayed human rights concerns. He actively worked to reinstate military assistance and deepen ties with Indonesia's military despite its ongoing rights violations in East Timor and consistent record of impunity.

The statement quoted Ed McWilliams, a senior US Embassy official in Jakarta at the time, as saying:

Admiral Blair undermined US policy in the months preceding the U.S.-supported and UN-sponsored referendum in East Timor in 1999. While senior State Department officials were pressing the Indonesian military to end the escalating violence and its support for militia intimidation of voters, Blair took a distinctly different line with his military counterparts.
As Pacific Commander, his influence could have caused the military to rein in its militias. Instead, his virtual silence on the issue in meetings with the Indonesian generals led them and their militias to escalate their attacks on the Timorese.
The extraordinarily brutal Indonesian retaliation against the East Timorese and the UN teams in East Timor following the Timorese vote for independence from Indonesia transpired in part because of Blair's failure to press US Government concerns in meetings with the Indonesian general.

Miller says: "Blair's actions in 1999 demonstrated the failure of engagement to temper the Indonesian military's behavior; his actions helped to reinforce impunity for senior Indonesian officials that continues to this day."
According to the ETAN statement, in April 1999 - just days after Indonesian security forces and their militia proxies carried out a brutal churchyard massacre - Blair delivered a message of 'business-as-usual' to Indonesian General Wiranto, then Commander of the Indonesian armed forces. Following East Timor's pro-independence vote, Blair sought the quickest possible restoration of military assistance, despite Indonesia's highly destructive exit from the territory.

• Background at ETAN
• Blair as point man in the Pacific 'war on terror'