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Sunday, May 11, 2008

[mukto-mona] Endeavour

 
Dhaka, Monday 12 May 2008 / 29 Baishakh 1415 / 6 Zamadiul Awal 1429  
 
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Endeavour

Sir,
Our whole concept of crime and corruption seems to have changed, if you look at the behaviour of our past ruling class. If murderers, rapists, smugglers, black marketers, listed criminals and people widely accused of being in possession of ill-gotten money and property could walk about freely both in and outside the corridors of power, as they indeed did over the last three decades or so, did we not get the impression that what we generally condemn as crime and corruption were not precisely so in the eyes of those in power? There is no denying that there was an unprecedented surge in crime and corruption in Bangladesh over the last sixteen years, especially during the rule of the immediate past BNP-Jamaat-e-Islami alliance government. Our country topped the list of the most corrupt countries in the world for four years in a row. Will the present caretaker government bow down before the dark forces of crime and corruption, or will it go ahead with its pro-democracy and pro-people reform package? This is the lakh taka question. People are always blaming their circumstances for what they are. I do not believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they cannot find them, make them.
 Please learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning and working.

Gopal Sengupta
Canada

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Re: [mukto-mona] Aparthib's Quantum Analogy

I had a weird experience in the Physics class of Dr. Mafizul Mannan about 42
years ago. The learned Professor equated mass-energy equation with the
kinetic energy equation and derived v as equal to square root of 2 times c.
The incident was good enough to ruin my mid day dozing in the class. I
sprang up and told him that particle velocity can not exceed that of light.
He wanted to know whose theory that was. I cited Einstein. He cooled off
and suggested to take his derivation as correct for then. Never again I
attended his lecture.
I had another such experience a few years ago when another retired Professor
of Physics insisted that the quantum numbers were discovered by Einstein.
There is an old adage which refrains one from entering into argument with
braggart fools.


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[mukto-mona] Whither China

An interesting piece(attached). Not that I agree with the formulation.
But it is time to shed illusion about China and India and about the
future of globalisation. Sadly enough, CPI(M) PB members like
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee loosely (and irresponsibly ) said at times
that it is time to walk along with globalisation

Beijing Embraces Classical Fascism
aei.org ^ | 1 May 08 | Michael A. Ledeen (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2012128/posts)
Posted on Wednesday, May 07, 2008 2:16:42 AM by Tailgunner Joe
In 2002, I speculated that China may be something we have never seen before: a mature fascist state. Recent events there, especially the mass rage in response to Western criticism, seem to confirm that theory. More significantly, over the intervening six years China's leaders have consolidated their hold on the organs of control--political, economic and cultural. Instead of gradually embracing pluralism as many expected, China's corporatist elite has become even more entrenched.
Even though they still call themselves communists, and the Communist Party rules the country, classical fascism should be the starting point for our efforts to understand the People's Republic. Imagine Italy 50 years after the fascist revolution. Mussolini would be dead and buried, the corporate state would be largely intact, the party would be firmly in control, and Italy would be governed by professional politicians, part of a corrupt elite, rather than the true believers who had marched on Rome. It would no longer be a system based on charisma, but would instead rest almost entirely on political repression, the leaders would be businesslike and cynical, not idealistic, and they would constantly invoke formulaic appeals to the grandeur of the "great Italian people," "endlessly summoned to emulate the greatness of its ancestors."
Substitute in the "great Chinese people" and it all sounds familiar. We are certainly not dealing with a Communist regime, either politically or economically, nor do Chinese leaders, even those who followed the radical reformer Deng Xiaoping, seem to be at all interested in treading the dangerous and uneven path from Stalinism to democracy. They know that Mikhail Gorbachev fell when he tried to control the economy while giving political freedom. They are attempting the opposite, keeping a firm grip on political power while permitting relatively free areas of economic enterprise. Their political methods are quite like those used by the European fascists 80 years ago.
Unlike traditional communist dictators--Mao, for example--who extirpated traditional culture and replaced it with a sterile Marxism-Leninism, the Chinese now enthusiastically, even compulsively, embrace the glories of China's long history. Their passionate reassertion of the greatness of past dynasties has both entranced and baffled Western observers, because it does not fit the model of an "evolving communist system."
Yet the fascist leaders of the 1920s and 1930s used exactly the same device. Mussolini rebuilt Rome to provide a dramatic visual reminder of ancient glories, and he used ancient history to justify the conquest of Libya and Ethiopia. Hitler's favorite architect built neoclassical buildings throughout the Third Reich, and his favorite operatic composer organized festivals to celebrate the country's mythic past.
Like their European predecessors, the Chinese claim a major role in the world because of their history and culture, not just on the basis of their current power, or scientific or cultural accomplishments. China even toys with some of the more bizarre notions of the earlier fascisms, such as the program to make the country self-sufficient in wheat production--the same quest for autarky that obsessed both Hitler and Mussolini.
To be sure, the world is much changed since the first half of the last century. It's much harder (and sometimes impossible) to go it alone. Passions for total independence from the outside world are tempered by the realities of today's global economy, and China's appetite for oil and other raw materials is properly legendary. But the Chinese, like the European fascists, are intensely xenophobic, and obviously worry that their people may turn against them if they learn too much about the rest of the world. They consequently work very hard to dominate the flow of information. Just ask Google, forced to cooperate with the censors in order to work in China.
Some scholars of contemporary China see the Beijing regime as very nervous, and perhaps even unstable, and they are encouraged in this belief when they see recent events such as the eruption of popular sentiment against the Tibetan monks' modest protests. That view is further reinforced by similar outcries against most any criticism of Chinese performance, from human rights to air pollution, and from preparations for the Olympic Games to the failure of Chinese quality control in food production and children's toys. The recent treatment of French retailer Carrefour at the hands of Chinese nationalists is a case in point. It has been publicly excoriated and shunned because France's President Nicolas Sarkozy dared to consider the possibility of boycotting the Olympics.
In all these cases, it is tempting to conclude that the regime is worried about its own survival, and, in order to rally nationalist passions, feels compelled to portray the country as a global victim. Perhaps they are right. The strongest evidence to support the theory of insecurity at the highest levels of Chinese society is the practice of the "princelings" (wealthy children of the ruling elites) to buy homes in places such as the United States, Canada and Australia. These are not luxury homes of the sort favored by wealthy businessman and officials from the oil-rich countries of the Middle East. Rather they are typically "normal" homes of the sort a potential émigré might want to have in reserve in case things went bad back home.
Moreover, there are reasons to believe that eruptions of nationalist passion do indeed worry the regime, and Chinese leaders have certainly tamped down such episodes in the past. In recent days, the regime has even reached out to the Dalai Lama himself in an apparent effort to calm the situation, after previously enouncing the "Dalai clique" as a dangerous form of separatism and even treason.
On the other hand, the cult of victimhood was always part of fascist culture. Just like Germany and Italy in the interwar period, China feels betrayed and humiliated, and seeks to avenge her many historic wounds. This is not necessarily a true sign of anxiety; it's an integral part of the sort of hypernationalism that has always been at the heart of all fascist movements and regimes. We cannot look into the souls of the Chinese tyrants, but I doubt that China is an intensely unstable system, riven by the democratic impulses of capitalism on the one hand, and the repressive practices of the regime on the other. This is a mature fascism, not a frenzied mass movement, and the current regime is not composed of revolutionary fanatics. Today's Chinese leaders are the heirs of two very different revolutions, Mao's and Deng's. The first was a failed communist experiment; the second is a fascist transformation whose future is up for grabs.
If the fascist model is correct, we should not be at all surprised by the recent rhetoric or mass demonstrations. Hitler's Germany and Mussolini's Italy were every bit as sensitive to any sign of foreign criticism as the Chinese today, both because victimhood is always part of the definition of such states, and because it's an essential technique of mass control. The violent denunciations of Westerners who criticize Chinese repression may not be a sign of internal anxiety or weakness. They may instead be a sign of strength, a demonstration of the regime's popularity. Remember that European fascism did not fall as the result of internal crisis--it took a bloody world war to bring it down. Fascism was so alarmingly popular neither Italians not Germans produced more than token resistance until the war began to be lost. It may well be that the mass condemnation of Western calls for greater political tolerance is in fact a sign of political success.
Since classical fascism had such a brief life span, it is hard to know whether or not a stable, durable fascist state is possible. Economically, the corporate state, of which the current Chinese system is a textbook example, may prove more flexible and adaptable than the rigid central planning that doomed communism in the Soviet Empire and elsewhere (although the travails of Japan, which also tried to combine capitalist enterprise with government guidance, show the kinds of problems China will likely face). Our brief experience with fascism makes it difficult to evaluate the possibilities of political evolution, and the People's Republic is full of secrets. But prudent strategists would do well to assume that the regime will be around for a while longer--perhaps a lot longer.
If it is a popular, fascist regime, should the world prepare for some difficult and dangerous confrontations with the People's Republic? Twentieth-century fascist states were very aggressive; Nazi Germany and fascist Italy were both expansionist nations. Is it not likely that China will similarly seek to enlarge its domain?
I believe the answer is "yes, but." Many Chinese leaders might like to see their sway extend throughout the region, and beyond. China's military is not so subtly preparing the capability to defeat U.S. forces in Asia in order to prevent intervention in any conflict on its periphery. No serious student of China doubts the enormous ambitions of both the leadership and the masses. But, unlike Hitler and Mussolini, the Chinese tyrants do not urgently need quick geographical expansion to demonstrate the glory of their country and the truth of their vision. For the moment, at least, success at home and global recognition of Chinese accomplishments seem to be enough. Since Chinese fascism is less ideological than its European predecessors, Chinese leaders are far more flexible than Hitler and Mussolini.
Nonetheless, the short history of classical fascism suggests that it is only a matter of time before China will pursue confrontation with the West. That is built into the dna of all such regimes. Sooner or later, Chinese leaders will feel compelled to demonstrate the superiority of their system, and even the most impressive per capita GDP will not do. Superiority means others have to bend their knees, and cater to the wishes of the dominant nation. Just as Mussolini saw the colonization of Africa and the invasion of Greece and the Balkans as necessary steps in the establishment of a new fascist empire, so the Chinese are likely to demand tribute from their neighbors--above all, the Chinese on the island nation of Taiwan, in order to add the recovery of lost territory to the regime's list of accomplishments. Even today, at a time when the regime is seeking praise, not tribute, in the run-up to the Olympic Games, there are bellicose overtones to official rhetoric.
How, then, should the democracies deal with China? The first step is to disabuse ourselves of the notion that wealth is the surest guarantor of peace. The West traded with the Soviet Union, and gave them credits as well, but it did not prevent the Kremlin from expanding into the Horn of Africa, or sponsoring terrorist groups in Europe and the Middle East. A wealthy China will not automatically be less inclined to go to war over Taiwan, or, for that matter, to wage or threaten war with Japan.
Indeed, the opposite may be true--the richer and stronger China becomes, the more they build up their military might, the more likely such wars may be. It follows that the West must prepare for war with China, hoping thereby to deter it. A great Roman once said that if you want peace, prepare for war. This is sound advice with regard to a fascist Chinese state that wants to play a global role.
Meanwhile, we should do what we can to convince the people of China that their long-term interests are best served by greater political freedom, no matter how annoying and chaotic that may sometimes be. I think we can trust the Chinese leaders on this one. Any regime as palpably concerned about the free flow of information, knows well that ideas about freedom might be very popular. Let's test that hypothesis, by talking directly to "the billion." In today's world, we can surely find ways to reach them.
If we do not take such steps, our risk will surely increase, and explosions of rage, manipulated or spontaneous, will recur. Eventually they will take the form of real actions.


To: Tailgunner Joe
We have seen this before.

To: Tailgunner Joe
No matter the character of the latest "great man" or "new ideology" or "recent revolution", China always decays into its natural state ~ a fascist state.
The few times they've broken out of that model for any significant periods of time were after they'd been conquered by foreigners good and proper.
Otherwise the Chinese people score well on tests and are resourceful. You just wouldn't care for them running your local government.
>>
"Nonetheless, the short history of classical fascism suggests that it is only a matter of time before China will pursue confrontation with the West. That is built into the dna of all such regimes. Sooner or later, Chinese leaders will feel compelled to demonstrate the superiority of their system, and even the most impressive per capita GDP will not do. Superiority means others have to bend their knees, and cater to the wishes of the dominant nation. Just as Mussolini saw the colonization of Africa and the invasion of Greece and the Balkans as necessary steps in the establishment of a new fascist empire, so the Chinese are likely to demand tribute from their neighbors—above all, the Chinese on the island nation of Taiwan, in order to add the recovery of lost territory to the regime's list of accomplishments. Even today, at a time when the regime is seeking praise, not tribute, in the run-up to the Olympic Games, there are bellicose overtones to official rhetoric."

To: Travis McGee
You sure wouldn't know it, watching U.S. leaders with so much brown on their noses. There's just not enough hours in the day to kiss Chinese ass.
The Western world should hang it's collective head, for what it has been a party to, AGAIN!!!!!!

To: muawiyah
Read an interesting book recently on the rise of modern science with a comparison between the West, Islam, and China.
China has always had high levels of technology, but never developed modern science on their own. Technology is using scientific principles, but science is understanding them. Thus they could have rockets without understanding jet propulsion.
Also, their ancestor worship has resulted in a culture where you aren't allowed to go out "on your own" until you've mastered copying those who have gone before you.


To: Travis McGee
Hasn't this be obvious from day one? Seriously, who didn't see this coming? If you and I can grasp it, why didn't our leaders?
The fact is, they did. They got their's along the way, and the nation be damned.
We're about ten to fifteen years away from our kids dying as a result of our building up the China war machine. And this time tens of millions of U.S. Citizens on U.S. soil stand to pay the price as well.
There is a contempt in my heart for those who are bringing this fate upon our nation.


To: VR-21
The danger time will come if and when the global economy tanks.
Then we shall see a Chinese Hitler, and all of those unsold ChinaMart boots will be on marching Chinese feet.


To: Travis McGee
I completely agree.
The similarties between China and 1930s Germany are numerous. And yet people don't seem to get it.
Austria, Poland, France... Tiawan, Borneo...
If you think about it, Hong Kong and Macao were but the first of such maneuvers. China thinks it's on a roll... and to be honest it is. We're sitting back thinking we are the manifest destiny leader for eternity, and we're about to get our lunch handed to us.


To: DoughtyOne
Toss a new factor into the old equation: 50 million or so "excess" males of soldier age, the unintended consequence of a generation of the "one child policy."
In China a man without a wife and heirs is a big problem, an unstable element, and not even honorable.
Fifty million of them, loose in the countryside???
Much better to send them overseas. If they win victories, great. If they die, fine. If they win victories and most of them die, better yet.
Send them to the fertile islands of Asia, with "Land and brides!" as their battle cry. The Russian far east? Forget it. It's gone.
In 100 years, I believe there will be more Chinese than Africans in Africa.


To: Travis McGee
Frankly Russia is little different. It's morphed into a fascist state under Putin. The biggest question in my mind is will these two fascist states (Russia and China) cooperate when the chips are down or will they be at odds with each other. That will make a huge difference in what actually happens.

Communism is international socialism.
Fascism is national socialism.
Remove communist ECONOMIC policy alone, and you have today's China.
It is the same old communist pig with a new shade of lipstick, and the west will be smeared with that lipstick because the west kissed the pig.
Joe, thanks for the warning 50 years ago, nobody listened.

To: Tailgunner Joe
My fear is that the Chinese will start looking at North America for additional living space.
The Germans used the same argument to justify invading Poland.
On August 22, 1939, a few days before the official start of World War II, Hitler authorized his commanders, with these infamous words, to kill "without pity or mercy, all men, women, and children of Polish descent or language. Only in this way can we obtain the living space [lebensraum] we need".
http://www.holocaustforgotten.com/poland.htm

To: Tailgunner Joe
I think the notion that China is communist is malformed. It's a merchantilist totalitarian state. Fascism may indeed describe it, but communism certainly does not.


Pray for the Chinesse Christians that are being repressed! God is the only hope for the Chinese People, and even their national survival in the long run!


To: Tailgunner Joe
well,the writter still just knows only a bit about China today.
Chinese government does censor the inflow of information,such internet ,ratio..etc.
But such a censorship doesn't work much .if a chinese really wants to look throught CNN,BBC,VOA,Youtube or Freerepublich here, his only obstacles is not the censorship from Chinese government,but english.
Chinese gvovenment seldom block the access of english websites.and even if the website is blocked by Chinese govenrment,using proxys is very easy.
So, you claim that Chinese government succeed in making Chinse people blind and deaf is just a bull shit by censorship.
in fact, the fury among Chinese broke out just after Chinese people really get tough with the ignorance and arrogance among wester medias and people themseves as I am doing or visiting foreign countries,instead of the ration far away from their life.
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http://www.mukto-mona.com/project/Roumari/freedom_fighters_union300306.htm

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[mukto-mona] Uri Avnery's Column : 1948

 
 

Uri Avnery is an Israeli activist, journalist, and former member of Israel's Knesset who founded Gush Shalom (Peace Bloc), one of Israel's most influential peace organizations.

Uri Avnery, tireless activist, legislator, and journalist, was born in Beckum, Germany, in 1923 and immigrated to Palestine at the age of ten with his family. Avnery was one of the first Israelis to establish contacts with PLO representatives. In 1993, together with his wife Rachel, he founded Gush Shalom (Peace Bloc), one of Israel's most influential peace organizations.

-------------------

"The atrocities I witnessed turned me into a convinced peace activist. The war taught me that there is a Palestinian people, and that we shall never achieve peace if a Palestinian state does not come into being side by side with our state. That this has not yet happened is one of the reasons why the 1948 war is still going on to this very day."

 

1948

In the 60 years that have passed since then, the events of the war have been buried under layer upon layer of Israeli and Palestinian, Jewish and Arab propaganda. A quasi-archeological excavation is needed in order to expose the bottom layer. Even the eye-witnesses who are still alive sometimes have problems distinguishing between what they actually saw and the myths that have twisted and falsified the events almost beyond recognition.

I am one of the eye-witnesses. In the last few days, on the occasion of the 60th anniversary, dozens of radio and television interviewers from all over the world have been asking me to describe what actually happened. Here are some of these questions and my answers to them. (If I repeat things I have already written about, I apologize.)

- How was this war different from others?

First of all, it was not one war but two, which followed one another without a break.

The first war was fought between the Jews and the Arabs in the country. It started on the morrow of the UN General Assembly resolution of November 29, 1947, which decreed the partition of Palestine between a Jewish and an Arab state. It lasted until the proclamation of the State of Israel on May 14, 1948. That day marked the start of the second war - the one between the State of Israel and the neighboring countries, which threw their armies into the battle.

This was not a war between two countries for a piece of land between them, like the wars between Germany and France over Alsace. Neither was it a fratricidal struggle, like the American Civil War, where both sides belonged to the same nation. I categorize it as an "ethnic war".

Such a war is fought out between two different peoples who live in the same country, each of which claims the whole country for itself. In such a war, the aim is not only to achieve a military victory, but also to take possession of as much of the country as possible without the population of the other side. That is what happened when Yugoslavia broke up and when, not by accident, the odious term "ethnic cleansing" was born.

- Was the war inevitable?

At the time, I hoped until the last moment that it could be avoided (about that, later.) In retrospect it is clear to me that it was already too late.

The Jewish side was determined to establish a state of its own. This was one of the fundamental aims of the Zionist movement, founded 50 years earlier, and was strengthened a hundredfold after the Holocaust, which had come to an end only two and a half years before.

The Arab side was determined to prevent the establishment of a Jewish state in the country which they (rightly) considered an Arab country. That's why the Arabs started the war.

- What did you, the Jews, think when you went to war?

When I enlisted at the beginning of the war, we were totally convinced that we were faced with the danger of annihilation and that we were defending ourselves, our families and the entire Hebrew community. The phrase "There Is No Alternative" was not just a slogan, but a deeply felt conviction. (When I say "we", I mean the community in general and the soldiers in particular.) I don't think that the Arab side was imbued with quite the same conviction. That was their undoing.

This explains why the Jewish community was totally mobilized from the first moment on. We had a unified leadership (even The Irgun and the Stern Group accepted its authority) and a unified military force, which rapidly assumed the character of a regular army.

Nothing like this happened on the Arab side. They had no unified leadership, and no unified Arab-Palestinian army, which meant they could not concentrate their forces at the crucial points. But we learned this only after the war.

- Did you think that you were the stronger side?

Not at all. At the time, the Jews constituted only a third of the population. The hundreds of Arab villages throughout the country dominated the main arteries that were crucial to our survival. We suffered heavy casualties in our efforts to open them, especially the road to Jerusalem. We honestly felt that we were "the few against the many".

Slowly, the balance of power shifted. Our army became more organized and learned from its experience, while the Arab side still depended on "faz'ah" - the one-time mobilization of local villagers equipped with their own old weapons. From April 1948 on, we started to receive large quantities of light weapons from Czechoslovakia, which were sent to us on Stalin's orders. In the middle of May, when the expected intervention of the Arab armies was approaching, we were already in possession of a contiguous territory.

- In other words, you drove the Arabs out?

This was not yet "ethnic cleansing" but a by-product of the war. Our side was preparing for the massive attack of the Arab armies and we could not possibly leave a large hostile population at our rear. This military necessity was, of course, intertwined with the more or less conscious desire to create a homogeneous Jewish territory.

In the course of the years, opponents of Israel have created a conspiracy myth about "Plan D", as if it had been the mother of ethnic cleansing. In reality that was a military plan for creating a contiguous territory under our control in preparation for the crucial confrontation with the Arab armies.

- Do you say that at this stage there was not yet a basic decision to drive all the Arabs out?

One has to remember the political situation: according to the UN resolution, the "Jewish state" was to include more than half of Palestine (as it existed in 1947 under the British Mandate). In this territory, more than 40% of the population was Arab. The Arab spokesmen argued that it was impossible to set up a Jewish state in which almost half the population was Arab and demanded the withdrawal of the partition resolution. The Jewish side, which stuck to the partition resolution, wanted to prove that it was possible. So there were some efforts (in Haifa, for example) to convince the Arabs not to leave their homes. But the reality of the war itself caused the mass exodus.

It must be understood that at no stage did the Arabs "flee the country". In general, things happened this way: in the course of the fighting, an Arab village came under heavy fire. Its inhabitants - men, women and children - fled, of course, to the next village. Then we fired on the next village, and they fled to the next one, and so forth, until the armistice came into force and suddenly there was a border (the Green Line) between them and their homes. The Deir Yassin massacre gave another powerful push to the flight.

Even the inhabitants of Jaffa did not leave the country - after all, Gaza, where they fled, is also a part of Palestine.

- In that case, when was the start of the "ethnic cleansing" you spoke about?

In the second half of the war, after the advance of the Arab armies was halted, a deliberate policy of expelling the Arabs became a war aim on its own.

For truth's sake, it must be remembered that this was not one-sided. Not many Arabs remained in the territories that were conquered by our side, but, also, no Jew remained in the territories that were conquered by the Arabs, such as the Etzion Bloc kibbutzim and the Jewish Quarter in the Old City of Jerusalem. The Jewish inhabitants were killed or expelled. The difference was quantitative: while the Jewish side conquered large stretches of land, the Arab side succeeded only in conquering small areas.

The real decision was taken after the war: not to allow the 750 thousand Arab refugees to return to their homes.

- What happened when the Arab armies entered the battle?

At the beginning, our situation looked desperate. The Arab armies were regular troops, well trained (mostly by the British), and equipped with heavy arms: warplanes, tanks and artillery, while we had only light weapons - rifles, machine guns, light mortars and some ineffective anti-tank weapons. Only in June did heavy arms start to reach us.

I myself took part in the unloading of the first fighter planes that reached us from Czechoslovakia. They had been produced for the German Wehrmacht. Over our heads "German" planes on our side (Messerschmitts) were fighting "British" planes flown by Egyptians (Spitfires) .

- Why did Stalin support the Jewish side?

On the eve of the UN resolution, the Soviet representative, Andrei Gromyko, gave a passionately Zionist speech. Stalin's immediate aim was to get the British out of Palestine, where they might otherwise allow the stationing of American missiles. A sometimes forgotten fact should be mentioned here: the Soviet Union was the first state to recognize Israel de jure, immediately after the declaration of independence. The US recognized Israel at the time only de facto.

Stalin did not turn his back on Israel till some years later, when Israel openly joined the American bloc. At that time, Stalin's anti-Semitic paranoia also became apparent. The policy-makers in Moscow were then of the opinion that the rising tide of Arab nationalism was a better bet.

- What did you personally feel during the war?

On the eve of the war, I still believed in a "Semitic" partnership of all the inhabitants of the country. One month before the outbreak of war I published the booklet "War or Peace in the Semitic Region", in which I propounded this idea. In retrospect it is clear to me that this was far too late.

When the war broke out, I immediately joined a combat brigade (Givati). In the last days before I was called up I managed - together with a group of friends - to publish another booklet, entitled "From Defense to War", in which I proposed conducting the war with a view to the nature of the subsequent peace. (I was much influenced by the British military commentator Basil Liddell Hart, who advocated such a course during World War II.)

My friends at the time tried very strongly to convince me not to enlist, so I could remain free for the much more important task of voicing my opinions throughout the war. I felt that that they were quite wrong - that the place of every decent and fit young man at such a time was in the combat units. How could I stay at home when thousands of my age-group were risking their lives day and night? And besides, who would ever listen to my voice again if at the crucial moment of our national existence I did not fulfill my duty?

At the beginning of the war I was a private soldier in the infantry and fought around the road to Jerusalem, and in the second half I served in the Samson's Foxes motorized commando unit on the Egyptian front. That allowed me to see the war from dozens of different vantage points.

Throughout the war I wrote up my experiences. My reports appeared in the newspapers at the time and were later collected in a book entitled "In the Fields of the Philistines, 1948" (which will soon appear in English). The military censors did not allow me to dwell on the negative sides, so immediately after the war I wrote a second book called "The Other Side of the Coin", disguised as a literary work, so I did not have to submit it to censorship. There I reported, inter alia, that we had received orders to kill every Arab who tried to return home.

- What did the war teach you?

The atrocities I witnessed turned me into a convinced peace activist. The war taught me that there is a Palestinian people, and that we shall never achieve peace if a Palestinian state does not come into being side by side with our state. That this has not yet happened is one of the reasons why the 1948 war is still going on to this very day.

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[mukto-mona] FW: Press Release

Press Release

Solo Painting Exhibition by Khurshid Alam Saleem in Shenyang

A solo painting exhibition by Khurshid Alam Saleem, a Bangladeshi artist based in New York was held from 04 – 08 May 2008 in Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning Province of China. The exhibition was held at the historic Forbidden City Palace Museum in Shenyang.

The Ambassador of Bangladesh to China Munshi Faiz Ahmad and Deputy Secretary General of Shenyang Municipal Government Zeng Bo jointly inaugurated the exhibition. Among others, Director of Shenyang International Cultural Exchange Centre Zhang Yi, Head of Shenyang Olympic Committee Wang Ting Rui and Foreign expert of China Radio International A. B. M. Salahuddin were also present. The grand opening ceremony was attended by a number of Government officials, cultural activists, teachers and students of different Universities in Shenyang.

The exhibition featured 34 works or art in oil colour in abstract expressionist mode. The exhibition was titled "Images of Nature" like all recent exhibitions by the artist.

Last year, another solo painting exhibition by Saleem was jointly organized by the Chinese Cultural Ministry and the Bangladesh Embassy in Beijing. Saleem is also expected to participate in the 3rd Beijing International Art Biennale in July 2008.


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[mukto-mona] Re: Bigganmanaska dhara dhormacchonno srote

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[mukto-mona] This political analysis on Hillary's failed campaign should not be missed

Dear Mukto-monas:
 
Please read this lengthy analysis of Hillary Clinton's moribund campaign to win the White House.  The write-up is one of the best analyses that I have seen thus far.  Take your time to read this one for it is too long.
 
Sincerely,
 
Jaffor Ullah
 
---------------
 

Clinton goes from inevitable nominee to on the ropes

By CALVIN WOODWARD and NANCY BENAC, Associated Press Writers

May 11, 2008

WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton began her presidential quest armed with talent, tenacity, fame, money, connections and a team that knew how to win.  Many people believed her victory in the Democratic nomination battle was a sure thing. Her ultimate failing may have been in believing it, too.

Clinton had one big problem out of the gate: 40 percent or more of Americans said they'd never vote for her. She was too polarizing. It's love her or hate her.

Clinton powered through that hurdle in state after state, showing grit that earned her the valuable political currency of being merely admired.

White men, blue-collar workers, socially conservative Democrats — however you slice the electorate, she brought many of those people to her side, over time, and took the edge off the Hillary haters.

Voters, whose No. 1 concern had been ending the Iraq war, started worrying more about the economy. That was a switch from his strength to hers.

Despite all that, her campaign is on the ropes. Clinton is fighting on for a prize few believe she can win anymore, barring some game-changing development.

Clinton's fortunes rose and fell like a fever chart: She was down in Iowa, up in New Hampshire, down in South Carolina. Then, after a roughly even finish with Barack Obama on Super Tuesday, she suffered a string of unanswered losses that, almost before Clinton noticed, put Obama so far ahead in the delegate hunt that all the big-state victories she piled up couldn't close the delegate gap.

Clinton once said she is the most famous person no one knows, meaning Americans don't really get her.

Sixteen months after she opened her campaign sitting on a couch in a cozy online video, it's questionable whether people ever discovered the authentic Clinton.

Is she the whiskey-downing pit bull of Indiana? The near-tears softy of New Hampshire?

The technocrat of health care reform or the populist who dismisses policy wonks as out-of-touch elitists?

"They know that I can make decisions," she said in New Hampshire, "but I also want them to know I'm a real person."

Even many of the New York senator's supporters thought she would say anything to win, or be anyone.

These are some of the paradoxes and missed opportunities that will be examined by the cottage industry sure to arise to explore the what-ifs of Clinton's campaign.

By now, it's common knowledge that she planned to wrap up the nomination in early February. It was a reasonable assumption in 2007 but there wasn't much of a Plan B when that didn't work out in 2008.

"Her inevitability was based on a concept that no one would have the gumption or the resources or drive to get in — anyone with serious chances," Dick Harpootlian, a former South Carolina Democratic chairman and Barack Obama supporter, said after her Super Tuesday strategy fell short.

"They had an inevitability strategy, which was sort of a political Maginot line. It was illusionary. You just went around it, and, you know, Barack Obama did that."

David Gergen, a senior adviser to a succession of presidents from both parties, thought she was not well served by her team, citing "elements of malpractice in this campaign."

Any failed campaign is a combination of what the fallen did wrong, what the victor did right and happenstance.

Did her loose cannon of a husband shoot a hole through their own hull?

Did Florida and Michigan help to blow it for her in their rogue rush to hold early primaries against party rules, a move that sidelined delegates from two big states open to her?

Questions like that go into the same file with Ralph Nader-2000. Pundits will chew them over without ever being able to prove the answer, just as no one knows for sure whether Nader's candidacy robbed Al Gore of the presidency.

Clinton was on a springtime roll until Tuesday, when she lost big in North Carolina and barely prevailed in Indiana. Obama has swallowed several worse days than that and cruised on.

It loomed so large for Clinton because she had fallen so far behind in the contests of winter. One of the striking features of the drawn-out Democratic race is that so much damage was done to her chances in such a short spell.

After Obama's big win in the leadoff Iowa caucuses, a reporter asked Clinton as she campaigned in New Hampshire whether she felt Obama was a phenomenon that she just couldn't overcome, no matter what she did.

Clinton didn't acknowledge it publicly at the time, but months later said privately that she often thought of that question and sometimes felt it had some truth.

By that thinking, the notion of inevitability had been turned on its head. Maybe he was the chosen one all along.

Then Obama's halo fell in some mud. She fiercely exploited his missteps, criticized him in ways sure to delight Republican ad writers in the fall and — lest anyone miss the alpha female point — downed some beer at a bar and chased it with a shot of the hard stuff.

She was still, by all appearances, in it to win it. Burp.

___

That's what she said at the start. "I'm in to win."

In embarking on a historic campaign to become the first female president, she faced the untested Obama and a field of well-regarded veterans who, for all their qualifications, did not make the pulse race.

"She's unstoppable," John Catsimatidis, a New York businessman and member of Clinton's finance team, said in February 2007. "She's got such a machine."

Even Obama seemed to believe in the Clinton juggernaut.

A big crowd draw even before he became a candidate, he cautioned people not to make too much of the excitement he was generating as a fabulous speaker on his own historic mission — to be the first black president.

"The novelty's going to wear off," he said.

On one Sunday in September, Clinton used the phrase "When I'm president" at least seven times on the talk shows.

"If this were a wedding, we'd be at the 'speak now or forever hold your peace' part," Steve McMahon, a former Howard Dean adviser, said of Clinton's position in October.

"It will be me," she said confidently in November.

Even before that, back when she was dismissing him as a policy lightweight who was "irresponsible and frankly naive" on foreign affairs," he was showing he was not to be taken lightly.

He raised almost as much money as Clinton in the first quarter of 2007, then surpassed her the next quarter. Both left the rest of the field far behind.

Finally came the Iowa caucuses, and a rude shock for Clinton.

She had campaigned hard in Iowa despite being advised to skip it because it was her "consistently weakest state." Clinton finished third behind Obama and John Edwards.

The political class, never shy about getting colossally ahead of things, did a head-snapping turnaround and suddenly wondered if she was all but finished.

You must be kidding, New Hampshire seemed to say in response.

"I found my own voice," Clinton said after her restorative New Hampshire win.

In her success were planted the roots of her falling out with black voters, who initially were drawn to her over the lesser-known Obama.

Snide remarks from surrogates drew oblique attention to his race. Then Bill Clinton weighed in, in New Hampshire and beyond, with anti-Obama rhetoric that quickly came to be seen as a sour dose of wedge politics.

Hillary Clinton lost South Carolina and the heated contest headed into an indecisive Super Tuesday, when she won nine states and a territory to his 13 states.

She had once figured it would all be over by midnight on the West coast, that night.

Instead she plunged into states where her campaign had not thoroughly prepared to compete. She revealed that she had loaned her campaign $5 million of her own money.

She lost 11 races in a row in three weeks, relinquishing a lead in the delegate count that she would not get back.

Well before that fateful string had played out, Clinton replaced campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle with longtime aide Maggie Williams. Later, strategist Mark Penn would be cut loose.

A kind of March madness seemed to infect both campaigns.

Clinton's made-up story of landing in Bosnia under sniper fire as first lady underscored questions about her veracity, as revelations about the fiery rhetoric of Obama's longtime pastor kicked up doubts about her rival's judgment.

The month opened with Clinton staging a comeback in the Ohio and Texas primaries, advancing her case that she was the one who could win the big, important states.

In what seemed like an eternal vacuum — or perhaps a vacuous eternity — before Pennsylvania on April 22, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright matter festered and Obama's already shaky standing with some segments of the white population worsened.

Clinton exploited the latter without having to stir the pot on the former. It had a life of its own.

She said merely, but pointedly: "You don't choose your family, but you get to choose your pastor."

After Obama told California fat cats about bitter small-town Americans who clung to their guns and Bible, Clinton saw a chance to become ever more the populist, and went for it with gusto.

In Indiana and North Carolina, she won the votes of two-thirds of whites without a college education, exit polls found.

In the bizarre calculus of choosing a Democratic presidential nominee, expectations remained paramount deep into the race, even though hard delegate totals give a candidate the prize.

In part, that's because this nomination is close enough that it can only be clinched by the party figures known as superdelegates, who sit out the contests and decide on their own time who's most likely to beat Republican John McCain in the fall.

Through all of Obama's trials, they continued drifting his way, slowly but inexorably. Bill Clinton hectored some of them, to no avail.

Still, Hillary Clinton survived, as long as she exceeded expectations.

At first she was expected to win big in Pennsylvania. Then she appeared to lose most or all of her advantage. So her eventual win there, just short of 10 points, was a bit more than expected.

That all changed in Indiana and North Carolina.

By then, Obama was the one seen struggling, still wrestling with the Wright fallout and his broader problem with some whites.

And so expectations rose for Clinton to win Indiana handily and close in on Obama in North Carolina.

It didn't happen.

In a twisted way, the Wright matter may have been the worst thing that could have happened to Hillary Clinton.

___

Associated Press Writers Jim Kuhnhenn and Nedra Pickler contributed to this report.

__._,_.___

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