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Welcome to USAGOLD's "Gilded
Opinion" pages.
We invite you to browse our index
of outstanding gold-based commentary.
(Back to Holger Jensen Index)
INSIDE
FOREIGN AFFAIRS -- Index
Holger Jensen was International
Editor of the Denver Rocky Mountain News and Foreign Affairs
Columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service through which his
column is distrubuted to more than 400 media outlets in the U.S.
and Canada. In a career which has included jobs as a foreign
correspondent, magazine writer and newspaper editor, Mr. Jensen
has written 54 cover stories for Newsweek magazine covering 23
wars, revolutions and civil upheavals throughout the world.
hjens@aol.com
Statesman Arafat can't shed his guerrilla skin
Arafat, 73, was a terrorist for at least two decades before he assumed the mantle of statesman. He directed the Palestine Liberation Organization which, between 1968 and 1988, waged a worldwide campaign of terrorism in the misguided hope of destroying international support for Israel and creating sympathy for the Palestinian cause.
...He ran a corrupt and authoritarian regime that jailed political opponents, failed to provide adequate levels of government service and advanced the fortunes of PLO hacks, widely derided as the "Tunis Mafia," at the expense of more able Palestinian technocrats who had flocked to offer their services to the new administration.
April 18, 2002
Earlier column incorrectly attributed interview to Sharon
I made a grievous error in not verifying the authenticity of 20-year-old quotes attributed to Ariel Sharon that I used in my Saturday column on the Israeli leader. As it turns out they were made not by Sharon but another unnamed Israeli soldier who died 11 years ago. ...The Middle East is full of mythology. History is rewritten to promote the viewpoints of Israelis or Palestinians and both sides in the conflict suffer from selective recall when it suits their purpose. My job is to cut through mythology, not add to it. ...My apologies to all.
April 15, 2002
Only small fish caught in U.S.-Cuba trade net
Almost unnoticed in President Bush's war on terrorism is his parallel war on those who trade with Cuba. ....The case has caused a public outcry in Canada, where members of Parliament accuse the United States of trampling on Canadian sovereignty.
April 11, 2002
Sharon's defiance of Bush is clear -- so is the danger
The entire Islamic world is in an uproar over U.S. support for what Muslims see as a genocidal Israeli war against the Palestinians. Even Morocco's King Mohammed, who has not allowed an anti-American demonstration in two years, was forced to give in to a million marchers carrying signs reading "Sharon assassin. Bush his dog."
All the region's pro-American rulers feel universally threatened by their anti-American subjects. Unless Bush reins in Sharon, they warn, the "Bulldozer" will succeed where Osama bin Laden failed: forcing us into a war of civilizations against 1.2 billion Muslims.
April 9, 2002
Pro-Israeli bias stifles needed debate
Pro-Israel bias is so ingrained in our government, media and public consciousness that anyone who sympathizes with the Palestinians or tries to explain the Arab point of view is immediately labeled "anti-Israel." Some have been called "anti-Semitic." And Jews who dare to question are branded "self-haters."
Ironically, there is a far healthier debate on these issues in Israel than here. In Jerusalem, I asked an Israeli colleague, who writes pretty much what I write, whether he received hate mail. "Only from American Jews," he replied.
April 6, 2002
Israelis, Palestinians both have blood on their hands
It all boils down to that age-old question of who is a terrorist and who is a freedom fighter. Some of today's nations were, in fact, born of terrorism and some terrorists of yore are now respected statesmen and Nobelists.
Terrorism freed the southern Irish Republic from British rule and has forced Britain to relax its hold on Northern Ireland. Much of colonial Africa and parts of Asia were liberated by terrorist wars. Israel had its terrorists and the Palestinians, too.
April 4, 2002
Bush's muddled approach to Mideast does nothing
Never has President Bush seemed more impotent -- or muddled -- than he does as the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians moves from mayhem to madness.
While other world leaders demand that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon halt his military offensive in Palestinian cities, Bush demands that Yasser Arafat "stop the violence" -- even while Israeli troops are shooting his policemen.
April 2, 2002
Arab summit remarkable in its scope
...the Arab states pledge to "consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended in the context of a comprehensive peace" if Israel gives up the occupied territories for a Palestinian state. But they still demand complete withdrawal -- meaning not only the Palestinian-inhabited West Bank and Gaza Strip but also Syria's Golan Heights -- and East Jerusalem for a Palestinian capital.
Saudi Arabia's foreign minister, Prince Saud al-Faisal, pointed out in an interview with CNN, this is the first time Israel has been offered a chance where "all the neighborhood would recognize its right to exist. If that doesn't provide security for Israel, I assure you that the muzzle of a gun is not going to provide that security." But it will take U.S. pressure to force the necessary Israeli concessions.
March 30, 2002
Sharon's demands made Arab summit futile effort
[The Saudi proposal] promises "normal relations and security for Israel in exchange for full withdrawal from all occupied Arab territories, recognition of an independent Palestinian state with al-Quds al-Shareef (East Jerusalem) as its capital and the return of refugees."
Bush -- enthusiastically in favor of the proposal because it comes from an Arab ruler and offers Israel something the Arabs, collectively, have never offered before -- urged them to "seize the moment" and approve it.
But Sharon has not seized the moment. He argues that Israel cannot give up all the occupied territories without endangering its security. He has made it quite clear that he will never give up the eastern part of Israel's "eternal and undivided capital." And no Israeli leader would ever agree to a return of Palestinian refugees who would outnumber Jews and spell demographic suicide for the Jewish state.
March 28, 2002
Bush's promises to Latins may be tough to deliver
Bush was the first U.S. president since John F. Kennedy to put Latin America at the top of his foreign-policy agenda. Underpinning this was his pledge to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas, a single market stretching from Alaska to Argentina, by 2005.
Seeking to reassure his Latin American hosts, Bush reaffirmed his commitment to free trade and an immigration accord that would give undocumented Mexicans guest worker status in the United States.
Bush has been attacked for slapping up to 30 percent tariffs on imported steel. Critics say it will do little to help the ailing but politically influential U.S. steel industry, while doing a lot to improve the chances of Rust Belt Republicans in upcoming congressional elections.[...] The move outraged U.S. trade partners and prompted Brazil, Japan, the European Union and Australia to file complaints with the World Trade Organization.
March 26, 2002
Human rights abuses spawn much finger-pointing
"Governments around the world are cynically using the banner of anti-terrorism to justify crackdowns on internal opposition, and other countries are happy to turn a blind eye to the brutality of their allies in the anti-terror cause."
March 23, 2002
World leaders heap scorn on Zimbabwe vote results
The Commonwealth task force that recommended the suspension [of Zimbabwe] was made up of Australian Prime Minister John Howard, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa and President Olusegun Obasanjo of Nigeria.
Howard, the leader of the troika, is unimportant to Mugabe, who considers him a lackey of Britain. Australia is routinely dismissed by Zimbabwe's official press as a "British dominion" and thus part of the "Western conspiracy" that seeks to restore colonial rule in Zimbabwe, according to Mugabe's carefully spun mythology. Obasanjo's betrayal stung even more because Mugabe idolized him. In an interview with a Lagos newspaper last year, he praised the Nigerian leader as his "master," saying: "You are the one who taught us how to fight the white man." Now the master, in Mugabe's view, has rallied behind the white man against an African brother.
March 21, 2002
Bush's rattling of nukes could reignite arms race
"I will not wait on events while dangers gather," said Bush. "I will not stand by as peril draws closer. The United States will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most dangerous weapons." This eagerness to strike first, maybe with nukes, is what everyone is all lathered up about.
The grimmest warning of all came from Richard Butler, former Australian ambassador to the United Nations and former head of the U.N. commission to disarm Iraq. In Melbourne's The Age newspaper he wrote:
"If the U.S. now cedes the moral ground previously staked out in the policy of nuclear deterrence -- the hallmark of which is no first use of nuclear weapons -- it will fulfill the terrorists' and the outlaws' most demonic picture of the U.S. as a state that preaches probity and restraint to others but reserves complete freedom of action to itself, including the use of nuclear weapons. Were this to occur, the previous doctrine of deterrence, mutual assured destruction, would be replaced by unilateral assured destruction American-style. The response would be a runaway nuclear arms race."
March 19, 2002
Sharon borrows a tactic from a most unlikely source -- Arafat
Talk peace, make war. Sharon ... launched the largest combat operation in the occupied territories since their capture in the Six-Day War of 1967.
As the daily death toll soared into the double digits, a group of 500 Israeli academics and peace activists sent United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan an urgent letter asking for the deployment of U.N. peacekeepers. "We believe that without a decisive, immediate and impartial international intervention," it said, "there is a palpable danger of massacres of hundreds of innocent people."
Annan did, in fact, castigate both sides. He urged Israel to "end the illegal occupation" and "stop bombing civilian areas, the assassinations, unnecessary use of lethal force, demolitions and the daily humiliation of ordinary Palestinians." And he told the Palestinians their "deliberate and indiscriminate targeting of civilians is morally repugnant."
March 16, 2002
Mugabe steals a nation while the world watches
A South African Web site has attracted thousands of players with a new game that allows them to fire Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe from a cannon into the International Court of Justice at the Hague. Called "Extradite Mugabe," the game was devised by university students on the assumption Mugabe would lose the just completed presidential election to Morgan Tsvangirai of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. Unfortunately, Mugabe didn't lose the election. He stole it.
March 14, 2002
Long-term effects of war against terrorism are still over horizon
In purely military terms, Operation Enduring Freedom is a resounding victory. [However,] Afghanistan itself is less stable now than before the war. There has been a revival of warlordism, banditry and opium production. The new pro-American government does not have full control of the country and many of the warlords responsible for the murderous chaos that helped bring the Taliban to power have resumed positions of authority.
Looking beyond Afghanistan, the war had a contagious effect on South Asia and the Middle East. India and Pakistan veered closer to hostilities over Kashmir and the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians intensified to the point where President Bush finally realized it could undermine his global coalition against terror. Hence, a return to more active U.S. diplomacy there.
March 12, 2002
Polls show despot loser if vote fair
Zimbabwe begins voting today in an election that almost everyone believes has been rigged to keep President Robert Mugabe in power. Rampant political violence and new election laws have made it nearly impossible for the vote to be free and fair, according to human rights groups and the few foreign observers allowed into the country.
Refugees fleeing hunger and political violence are braving crocodiles, barbed wire fences and South African army patrols in a desperate bid to escape across the southern border.
Seemingly unfazed by...[economic]...disaster, Mugabe says many of these problems have been "manufactured" by Britain and Zimbabwe's tiny white minority of 70,000. He accuses Tsvangirai and the MDC of being stooges of the whites, intent on returning the colonial era. Tsvangirai, a former union leader, responds with one simple question: "Why is a country that was once the bread basket of Africa now a basket case?"
March 9, 2002
JENSEN RETURNS -- photos
The language of violence
In a land torn by strife, words
pave the road that brings destruction to everyone's doorstep
This is the second of two articles summing up Holger Jensen's impressions of a recent visit to Israel and the occupied territories.
Three Palestinian teen-agers are killed by Israeli tank fire while walking home from a soccer game in Gaza. The bodies are returned to their parents labeled "Terrorist No. 1," "Terrorist No. 2" and "Terrorist No. 3."
At a subsequent investigation, the Israeli tank commander said he saw "suspicious movements" and fired before determining what they really were. The three teen-agers then became what Israeli military spokesmen call "superfluous deaths."
Both sides engage in a curious doublespeak to justify the excesses of a conflict that grows bloodier by the day. Palestinians, for their part, never use the word "terrorism" in describing attacks that kill innocent Israeli civilians. Suicide bombers are "martyrs" to be admired. Their blowing up of discotheques and pizza parlors are "operations" and the victims of those attacks are the "Zionist enemy."
While many Palestinians make a distinction between Israelis killed in Israel proper and those killed in the occupied territories, they make no distinction between settlers and soldiers. Both the latter are fair game. Photos
March 7, 2002
JENSEN RETURNS -- photos
One land -- two stories
Locked in a deadly struggle,
Palestinians, Israelis share at least one thing -- despair
This is the first of two articles summing up Holger Jensen's impressions of a recent visit to Israel and the occupied territories.
[I]nstead of the good life, Israelis live under the shadow of terrorism. Escalating bloodshed has sown despair in their society and fueled the worst recession in Israel's 53-year history. Tourism is dead, the value of the shekel keeps dropping and workers are being laid off by high-tech firms lining the highway from Tel Aviv to Haifa.
What makes young men -- and in two recent instances, women -- become human bombs? Despair, say the Palestinians. Despair that Israel will ever give them back their land. Despair at an occupation that the United Nations deems illegal but has allowed to last for 35 years. Despair at the hopelessness of a conflict that pits stone throwers, snipers and a few suicidal bombers against tanks, F-16s and Apaches.
We are besieged by the world's fourth-strongest army, they say. We are suffering state terrorism and collective punishment. Yet the world is so hung up on Israel's security, our insecurity means nothing.
Israelis echo that despair. We are a nation under siege, they say. Arab terrorists are killing our women and children in discos and pizza parlors. Our survival is at stake, so we have no choice but to fight back. Photos
March 6, 2002
JENSEN IN ISRAEL --
photos
HEBRON, West Bank -- After the 1994 massacre of Muslims at the tomb, it was suggested that the Israeli settlers be evacuated. But Israel's then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin refused, fearing that a right-wing backlash would topple his government. And though Israel transferred four-fifths of Hebron to the Palestinians as part of the Oslo peace process in 1997, the downtown area with its four Jewish enclaves remained under Israeli control.
Consequently, about 30,000 Palestinians still live under Israeli rule. They spent much of the past year under curfew while the settlers were allowed to move freely in the Israeli-controlled zone.
Israeli troops stationed here are charged with protecting both communities from each other. But the Palestinians say the army protects only settlers while doing nothing to protect them from settler rampages through the Arab market or settler land grabs on the outskirts of Hebron. Photos
February 18, 2002 -- (Updated
with photos Feb 21st)
JENSEN IN ISRAEL -- photo
Israeli attack wounds News photographer
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip -- The attack began Monday as I was interviewing Khalil Abu Shammala of the Al-Adameer human rights group in his Gaza office. Only three blocks away, laser-guided missiles fired by Israeli F-16 jets began slamming into a Palestinian security compound in the heart of downtown Gaza City.
One of those wounded was Rocky Mountain News photographer George Kochaniec Jr., hit in both hands and a leg.
More than 70 people were taken to Shifa Hospital after Monday's attack, including Kochaniec, who was treated for his wounds for several hours and later released. While doctors worked on Kochaniec's wounds, Dr. Hasanein Muaeh, director of emergency medicine beseeched me to "tell America that American bombs have wounded an American."
What about all the Palestinian wounded, I ask. "No one cares when Palestinians are wounded," he said. "Maybe they will care if an American is hurt."
February 12, 2002
JENSEN IN ISRAEL --
photos
A drumbeat for peace
Group of 'internationals' confront
Israeli forces over the occupation of West Bank, Gaza Strip
RAMALLA, West Bank -- His name is Daniel, he's 19 years old and he wants to be a chef. "I like to cook," he confides. Instead he's manning a machine gun atop an Israeli armored personnel carrier parked outside Yasser Arafat's headquarters. "I don't want to be here," he says, "but our presence prevents terrorism."
Not far away, a small group of "internationals" has gathered to protest the occupation. A Japanese monk beats a drum as other volunteers from the United States, Britain, Ireland, Canada, Italy and Israel set off hand-in-hand with Palestinian children to deliver messages of peace to the soldiers. With flags of the various nations raised overhead, the marchers carry signs and the children paper airplanes saying: "Soldiers think! Don't serve a brutal occupation that expels, starves, humiliates and dominates an entire people." Photos
February 8, 2002
JENSEN IN ISRAEL --
photos
An unequal confrontation
Young Arafat backers challenge
tanks with rocks in weekly rite
RAMALLA, West Bank -- It starts slowly, almost lazily, in the hot afternoon sun. A few small boys, no more than 8 or 9 years old, appear with slingshots and begin hurling stones at two Israeli tanks and an armored personnel carrier parked several hundred yards away. Most of the stones can't even reach the vehicles.
The Israelis respond with a few desultory tear gas canisters and rubber bullets. One boy is hit, not badly, and carted off by a waiting ambulance. But there is almost a carnival atmosphere. A peddler with a pushcart arrives to sell loaves of freshly baked bread. A man walks by with his two small daughters, one on each hand, unconcerned by the tear gas grenades exploding behind him. Photos
February 4, 2002
JENSEN IN ISRAEL --
photos
Infringements leave Palestinians feeling they're under siege
BEIT JALA, West Bank -- Two days ago, we traveled to get the settlers' side of the story. Now we are on the Palestinian side, and the story is different. ..."You Americans are always worried about Israel's security, but what about our security?" a Palestinian accountant asked. "I'm a teacher, not a terrorist. Who is protecting me from Israeli aggression?"
...Professor Jad Isaac says the only way to protect the Palestinian populace is with international observers. And the only way to protect Israel from Palestinian terrorists is to end its occupation of Palestinian land and pull out its settlers. "The only reason Israel objects to 'internationalizing' the conflict," he said, "is that it does not want the rest of the world to see how it robs us of our land, our water and our dignity. What we have here is far worse than apartheid South Africa. It is colonization under the guise of security. And it's being done with the help of your American tax dollars. If you didn't give Israel your weapons, your aid and your vetoes in the U.N. Security Council, Israel would never be able to get away with it."
International observers have been recommended by numerous foreign envoys and formally requested three times by the Palestinians before the U.N. Security Council. But they have never been accepted by Israel because it believes the United Nations is biased in favor of the Palestinians. Washington supports Israel's contention that observers can only be deployed with the agreement of both sides. Photos
February 2, 2002
JENSEN IN ISRAEL --
photos
Price of settlement: strife and pain
Israelis face daily trials in
hard land
GUSH ETZION, West Bank -- "Before the intifada, Jews and Arabs lived side-by-side peacefully," said Goldstein. "We still have good relations with some of them. But we have to be careful about being too friendly now because that would make them 'collaborators' and victims of their own extremists."
[W]hat Sharon calls "terrorism" ... they call "legitimate resistance" to an occupying power. While the Palestinian community is itself divided on what constitutes a legitimate target -- some oppose attacking civilians in Israel proper but consider Jewish settlers and soldiers fair game -- many believe that all Israelis should be made to feel as vulnerable as Palestinians who have been subjected to Israeli airstrikes and tank incursions. Photos
January 30, 2002
In Mideast struggle, both sides lose more than they gain
Old and young, mostly non-combatants, keep dying in a conflict that began as a stone-throwing intifada, or uprising, by Palestinians resisting Israeli occupation and now, 16 months later, has turned into a senseless war of attrition. ... The Palestinians began with stones, moved on to guns and mortars, then suicide bombers eager to die as long as they kill Jews. They have killed more than 240 so far. ... The Israelis began with rubber bullets, moved on to tanks and rocket-firing Apache helicopters, then finally F-16 jets. They have killed more than 800 Palestinians so far. ... Each assassination, of course, elicits bloody reprisals, yet neither side has anything to show for this deadly tit-for-tat.
January 19, 2002
U.S. won't evade fallout by waging 'proxy wars'
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has confirmed that the next phase of President Bush's war on terrorism will not be fought as openly -- at least by American forces -- as it was in Afghanistan. ... In the Philippines, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo politely refused Bush's offer of American troops to help rid her country of the Abu Sayyaf terrorist group. But she eagerly accepted a C-130 military transport plane, helicopter gunships, a Navy patrol boat, armored personnel carriers and 30,000 M-16 rifles.
Showered with U.S. military assistance, trade subsidies and pledges of private-sector investment, a beaming Arroyo described her November visit to Washington as "$4 billion and counting."
January 8, 2002
Africa suffers still from non-retiring despots
Robert Mugabe, the only president Zimbabwe has ever had in its 21 years of independence... has done everything he can to cow his opponents but faces a strong electoral challenge in March from Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change... its support has grown because of Mugabe's misrule. Inflation is 100 percent and rising, interest rates are above 70 percent and unemployment is estimated at 60 to 80 percent. Investor confidence in Zimbabwe is nil and foreign aid has dried up because of Mugabe's seizure of white-owned farms to resettle landless blacks. What he calls "land reform" has caused severe shortfalls in food production and export crops. Crippled by a lack of fuel and foreign exchange, Zimbabwe now faces famine.
January 5, 2002
Euro launch, 59 conflicts, huge debt default greet '02
The world enters the New Year with history's largest currency changeover, the biggest debt default, an open-ended war on terrorism and at least 58 other unresolved conflicts of varying intensity.
Today's euro launch brings 15 billion new bank notes and 52 billion coins into circulation in 12 European nations. Their total value: 646 billion euros, or $568 billion. ... Three members of the 15-nation European Union -- Britain, Sweden and Denmark -- opted out of the euro. But it will enter their borders through tourism and trade, increasing pressure on them to join...along with non-EU member Switzerland.
Argentina's $132 billion debt default was the largest the world had ever seen. It sparked bloody riots, toppled two governments in 10 days and sent shock waves throughout Latin America. ... Optimists say Argentina could rebound as quickly as Russia did after its 1998 default. Pessimists predict a messy devaluation, a return to hyperinflation and spiraling poverty, sparking further unrest and violence.
January 1, 2002
Has Bush really moderated his unilateral view of the world?
Sept. 11, it is said, dramatically altered President Bush's foreign policy. Or did it?
Prior to the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, Bush had pursued a unilateral, even isolationist, course on the principle that the United States should act alone in what it saw as its own best interests. ... In hindsight, said Anatoli Lieven of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "the supposed commitment to multilateralism was purely tactical."
December 29, 2001
India, Pakistan conflict troublesome for America
Once again, India and Pakistan are edging toward a war... "We do not want war, but war is being thrust on us and we will have to face it," Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee told the youth wing of his Bharatiya Janata Party on Christmas Day. "Your armed forces are fully prepared and capable of defeating all challenges," Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf told his nation the same day.
Under pressure from Washington, the two tried to make peace in 1999, with Vajpayee paying a rare visit to the Pakistani city of Lahore. But negotiations collapsed when India accused Pakistani troops of invading the Kargil region of Kashmir, leading to three months of heavy fighting and airstrikes by both sides. CIA Director George Tenet told Congress they nearly came to nuclear blows.
India-Pakistan conflict not only one in South Asia
While the Indo-Pakistan standoff is certain to dominate the SAARC summit in Katmandu, it is by no means the only conflict in South Asia. Summit host Nepal is waging its own war against Maoist rebels who have been trying to overthrow the monarchy since 1996. About 2,200 people have died in the insurgency ... Nepal is now under a state of emergency.
December 27, 2001 and January
3, 2002
Israeli-Palestinian situation looks more and more like all-out war
After 15 months of intifada, some senior Israeli security officials concede there is no military solution to a conflict that creates more Palestinian terrorists than it eliminates. ...[G]iven the lack of political compromise -- and Israel's refusal to accept international peacekeepers -- the two sides are approaching all-out war. In the words of United Nations envoy Terje Roed-Larsen, they're "as close as they've ever been to a full military confrontation."
Palestinians endure life in a giant prison
Christmas is not joyous in the Holy Land. ... There are more than 150 military checkpoints in the West Bank. All entry and exit routes, even footpaths and dirt roads, are manned by security forces and closed to most Palestinian travelers. Many towns and villages are completely sealed off and under 24-hour or dusk-to-dawn curfews. ... While the world sings "Peace on Earth," the Palestinians in Bethlehem are not allowed to go to work, school or hospitals. There may be a "little star of Bethlehem" somewhere above them, but also Apache helicopters.
December 25, 2001
Rebuilding Afghanistan more daunting than war
"The Afghan people paid a great price for this decade of neglect and abuse," said U.S. special envoy James Dobbins. "On Sept. 11, the United States and the rest of the international community also paid a great price. We have an enlightened self-interest in helping Afghanistan."
But peacekeeping and postwar reconstruction may prove to be more daunting than the military campaign. ...Estimates of what it will take to rebuild the country range from $20 billion to $56 billion.
December 20, 2001
Arab world blames 'infidel' for its own shortcomings
While the rest of the world is becoming more democratic and free, Islamic countries -- particularly the Arab Middle East -- are becoming more oppressive. That's the depressing conclusion of a new study by Freedom House ... "Since the early 1970s, when the third major historical wave of democratization began," says the report, "the Islamic world and in particular its Arabic core have seen little significant evidence of improvement in political openness, respect for human rights and transparency. Indeed, the democracy gap between the Islamic world and the rest of the world is dramatic." The freedom gap is worse.
December 18, 2001
Bush administration dilemma: Dealing with Arafat now that Israel refuses to
Washington and the 15-nation European Union have both advised Sharon that it would be a mistake to deport Arafat or dismantle his Palestinian Authority. For all his faults, they regard him as the only Palestinian leader capable of making peace with Israel and fear his removal would bring chaos to the occupied territories.
December 15, 2001
Pressure mounting to go after Saddam
Last week, 10 leading lawmakers sent Bush a letter saying: "As we work to clean up Afghanistan, it is imperative that we plan to eliminate the threat from Iraq. This December will mark three years since United Nations inspectors last visited Iraq. There is no doubt that since that time, Saddam Hussein has reinvigorated his weapons programs. Reports indicate that biological, chemical and nuclear programs continue apace and may be back to pre-Gulf War levels. We believe we must directly confront Saddam, sooner rather than later."
However, Vince Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief, believes it would be "a huge mistake" to go after Saddam. Those calling for his head, he said, want to finish what the Gulf War left unfinished, but have no idea of the cost -- an invasion involving thousands of U.S. ground troops that could become "a bloody mess" while alienating much of the world and undermining U.S. efforts to fight terrorism elsewhere.
December 13, 2001
U.S. envoy to Mideast fed up with stalling
By branding his Palestinian Authority a "terror-supporting entity" until it stops the bombers, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has placed the onus of protecting Israel's security squarely on the shoulders of the Palestinian leader.
But Palestinians, who believe they are waging a legitimate struggle against Israeli occupation, ask why the occupied should be held responsible for the security of the occupier. An even better question would be why Sharon expects Arafat to do something he could not do himself.
December 11, 2001
Sharon, Arafat dueling possibly for one last time
Both 73, Ariel Sharon and Yasser Arafat have been adversaries for decades, ever since one was a soldier in the young state of Israel and the other a guerrilla leader of the Palestinians it left homeless. Both call each other "terrorist" and both are accused of war crimes.
Sharon accuses Arafat of directing the intifada, calling him a "thug" and a "terrorist." Arafat protests that he cannot control the suicide bombers of Hamas and Islamic Jihad -- even his authority over Fatah and other Palestinian security organs has become questionable -- while maintaining that Israel invites terrorism by continuing its occupation of Palestinian land and engaging in "state terrorism" against the Palestinian people. Whoever is right, the death toll is nearing 1,000, with Palestinian casualties outnumbering Israeli 3-to-1.
Wherever Arafat jumps, ice is dangerously thin
Arafat was roundly condemned by many Palestinians for becoming "Israel's policeman," but got away with it because he was then engaged in serious peace talks that promised Palestinian statehood. Now the peace process is dead, Arafat's popularity is waning and he has no political gains to convince the Palestinians that a cease-fire is justified. Gazans are already protesting his latest arrests with signs saying: "The fighters are behind the walls of the Authority's prison while the collaborators with the Israelis are free." So, is Arafat leading the intifada as Israel charges or is he the "collaborator" reviled in Gaza?
December 5, 2001
Book offers Bush primer on cooling Islamic rage
Ever since Sept. 11, analysts have been saying that the war on terrorism can only be won if it is accompanied by major changes in U.S. foreign policy, especially as it pertains to the Middle East. The Center for Strategic and International Studies is the first to make specific recommendations. They include doubling foreign aid, more even-handed peacemaking in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, pressing for political change in Egypt and Saudi Arabia and reconciling with Iran.
November 29, 2001
Jensen Answers: What is the Palestinians' mission?
Palestinian leaders, most notably Yasser Arafat and the PLO, did resign themselves to Israel's existence as the only alternative to endless war. That's why they signed the Oslo accords. In its early days, when he still hoped it would lead to a fair and just settlement, Arafat was quite merciless in arresting those opposed to peace including hundreds of Muslim militants belonging to Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Several died of torture in his jails. ...However, continued Palestinian terrorism by those opposed to peace undermined Israeli confidence; continued Jewish settlement building undermined Palestinian confidence and by the time Prime Minister Ehud Barak made his offer neither side trusted the other. Barak did offer the Palestinians more than any other Israeli leader but several Israeli officials have since conceded that it was not nearly as "generous" as depicted at the time.
November 9, 2001
Propaganda war escalates along with military action
CNN, a staple source of news in many parts of the world, is so worried about sounding unpatriotic it risks becoming a propaganda platform for Washington spinmasters, thus losing its credibility.... Patriotism is not incompatible with good war reporting. No responsible journalist would ever divulge a military secret that jeopardized the lives of U.S. soldiers. But it is not unpatriotic to report the truth. The surest way to lose support for a war, as our leaders learned in Vietnam, is to lie about it to the American people.
November 8, 2001
U.S., China agree on business ideas
When President Bush stopped calling China a "strategic competitor" and made it a "partner," he had more than terrorism on his mind. Sino-American trade now totals $120 billion a year, making the two countries interdependent. With the world sliding into recession and China likely to be least affected, it offers a cushion for U.S. business and a prospect of earlier recovery...
November 6, 2001
In a changing world, a new way to wage war
That means divesting ourselves of old-fashioned "legacy forces" and adopting "new concepts of war-fighting, new capabilities and new ways of organizing our forces" to face the dual challenge of liquidating terrorist networks and preparing for future threats.
Jensen answers: Why can't the United Nations send a peacekeeping force to make Israel and the Palestinians quit fighting?
November 5, 2001
September 11 attacks changed Bush policies
So what has Bush done to win friends and influence people abroad? One of his first actions was to fast-track the payment of past dues to the United Nations, stalled for years by disagreement over the amount owed and congressional hooks linking repayment to domestic political footballs such as abortion. Bush is not only paying off $1.67 billion worth of arrears by the end of the year, he is pushing for the world body to take over "nation-building" in Afghanistan once the U.S. military campaign is over.
Jensen answers: What sanctions are against Iraq?
November 1, 2001
Cause for optimism in Afghan campaign
There have been some dramatic foreign policy realignments at home and abroad, and one can safely say that bin Laden has achieved none of his purported goals. In the words of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, "Out of the shadow of this evil should emerge lasting good."
Bin Laden's greatest mistake, perhaps, was in creating an alliance that no collection of religious zealots or Muslim states can hope to defeat. ..."He may or may not yet prove able to foment a Muslim uprising of great breadth but, by inadvertence, he seems to have made a far more potent alliance nearly inevitable. Only a strategic blunder even greater than his own will prevent the United States, China and Russia from joining now in common cause to protect the order and security of which they uniquely are guarantors."
October 30, 2001
Political Problems Loom Large, Dicey in America's Hard War on Terrorism
The House of Saud and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak -- both of whom have had to contend with Islamic terrorists long before those terrorists turned their sights on Americans -- have to walk a delicate line between being unpopular in Washington or with their own disaffected subjects.
October 25, 2001
Holger Jensen
hjens@aol.com
Copyright © 2001 The E.W. Scripps Co. All Rights Reserved.
Holger Jensen was International Editor of the Denver Rocky Mountain News and Foreign Affairs Columnist for the Scripps Howard News Service. He has written 54 cover stories for Newsweek magazine and his "Foreign Affairs" column is distributed by the Scripps Howard News Service to more than 400 media outlets in the United States and Canada. In a career which has included jobs as a foreign correspondent, magazine writer and newspaper editor, Mr. Jensen has covered 23 wars, revolutions and civil upheavals throughout the world.
Reprinted by USAGOLD with permission of Mr. Jensen. No further reproduction without permission.
While we find Mr. Jensen's columns particularly informative with respect to foreign affairs, his opinions do not necessarily represent those of Centennial Precious Metals, USAGOLD, its management and clientele.
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