Iraq Roundup - The Vote and US/Syria Tensions

Today Iraqis are voting on their constitution. WaPost notes that in the Sunni city of Ramadi three major polling places were shut down due to clashes between insurgents and US forces. Isn't in interesting that insurgents target Shiites almost all of the time but go all out on fellow Sunnis when they try to vote? In other Sunni areas the turnout was reported as "surprisingly brisk." The NYT report has a more man-on-the-street feel and touches on the security measures put in place for the elections. CFR tries to explain why Sunnis don't support the constitution, but conveniently fails to mention how the vote will turn out. Also at CFR James Lindsay explains why the vote is crucial for W...gosh I never would have figured that out on my own. A WSJ notes that this vote is crucial also, but for the people of Iraq. It also looks ahead to scheduled December elections. Also on WSJ Gen Petraeus says that the Iraqis are in the fight. Finally NYT talks about continued tensions between US forces and Syrians.

A Sign of the Apocalypse

I'm little rusty on my Book of Revelations but Human Events and TNR agreeing on something has to be a sign that the world is in fact coming to an end. Both listened (and read) W's speech at the National Endowment for Democracy and both agree that W FINALLY got it right. TNR said:

But Bush's words to the National Endowment for Democracy proved to be major indeed--not to mention most welcome. In his speech, Bush all but admitted that the war on terrorism, a phrase he himself practically coined, is actually a misnomer. The United States is engaged in a struggle not against terrorism per se, Bush said, but against something more specific--an evil ideology that inspires terrorism. And, for the first time, Bush gave this evil a name.

"Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamofascism," Bush explained, before, for his own purposes, settling on the term Islamic radicalism--whose characteristics and goals he proceeded to elucidate. "Islamic radicalism," he said, "is more like a loose network with many branches than an army under a single command. Yet these operatives, fighting on scattered battlefields, share a similar ideology and vision for our world." That vision, Bush explained, includes "end[ing]American and Western influence in the broader Middle East"; "us[ing] the vacuum created by an American retreat to gain control of a country, a base from which to launch attacks and conduct their war against non-radical Muslim governments"; and ultimately "establish[ing] a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia." Under the banner of that empire, Bush said, Islamic radicals "would be able to advance their stated agenda: to develop weapons of mass destruction, to destroy Israel, to intimidate Europe, to assault the American people, and to blackmail our government into isolation."

Writing for Human Events, the firebrand conservative weekly, Robert Spencer was equally thrilled:

Last Thursday, President Bush went farther than he ever had before in naming the enemy. of the United States actually named the enemy. While on most occasions previously he had generally limited himself to calling them “terrorists” and “evildoers” — names so general that they can apply to multitudes besides those who are actually warring against the United States today — this time he pointed out that the terrorists’ attacks “serve a clear and focused ideology, a set of beliefs and goals that are evil, but not insane. Some call this evil Islamic radicalism; others, militant Jihadism; still others, Islamo-fascism.”

Of course both have their complaints - TNR thinks W needs to go further than a name change to the "war", he also needs to change the way he fights it:

Whatever our ideological advantages in the fight against Islamic extremism, there are actions that will further our aims and actions that will push these aims further away. In a war of ideas, strategic and tactical wisdom is more, not less, important than in a conventional conflict, because errors that give us a reputation for malevolence are more difficult to reverse than battlefield losses. Alas, while the president may have spoken about the enemy we face with greater sophistication than he has evinced in the past, it's not clear that his views on the appropriate uses of U.S. power have evolved at all. For that, apparently, we will have to wait for another speech.

Spencer thinks that we should change the way we fight it too, although I don't think it is in the same vein as TNR:

If Bush’s new forthrightness enables officials to pursue jihadists in America more openly than they have up to now, it is all to the good. But in practically the same breath Bush assured his audience that “whatever it’s called, this ideology is very different from the religion of Islam. This form of radicalism exploits Islam to serve a violent, political vision: the establishment, by terrorism and subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom. These extremists distort the idea of jihad into a call for terrorist murder against Christians and Jews and Hindus -- and also against Muslims from other traditions, who they regard as heretics.”

It is good to see the President speaking openly about the totalitarian supremacist ideology of the jihadists. But in fact they hope to establish not only, as Bush put it, a “radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia,” but one that spans the entire globe. And while it is true that jihad in traditional Islam does not call for terrorist murder of Christians, Jews, and Hindus, it does call for their conversion to Islam or subjugation as inferiors under the rule of Islamic law. The third alternative is war, as delineated by the Muslim Prophet Muhammad himself (Sahih Muslim 4294).

These and other elements of traditional Islam have become for jihadists a mandate for mayhem. Bush has not confronted the deep roots that the jihad ideology has within both Islamic tradition and the contemporary Islamic world. This could lead and has led to policy misjudgments.

In the Tanks: Problems With al-Zawahiri's Letter to al-Zarqawi

Jamestown Foundation gives a sneak peak to it's next Terrorism Focus and says that the (in)famous intercepted letter seems a little too convenient:

This letter presents a number of problems. To date there has been no clarification as to how the letter was intercepted, and despite high official confidence of its authenticity, verified by "multiple sources over an extended period of time," there is little in the way of independent corroboration offered. Further questions are raised by the content. While the message of global jihad's aims is consistent with other documents outlining al-Qaeda strategy, it is remarkable that a letter between the two al-Qaeda leaders should spell this out in such an explanatory way, as if these basic details, shared as common knowledge among mujahideen, were the subject of some doubt. Indeed, the text is conspicuous for the way in which it seems to counter, almost point for point, the objections raised by Western critics of the coalition campaign in Iraq, in that:

• al-Qaeda's aims are not confined to "resistance" of a foreign invader;
• the war would not end with American withdrawal but extend to neighboring states and to Israel; the "foreignness" of the mujahideen in Iraq may be a de-legitimizing factor;
• al-Qaeda has actually resigned itself to defeat in Afghanistan;
• the organization is experiencing difficulty in communications; and
• funding has become a problem for the organization.

Aside from the oddness in appending a call for financial help after criticizing one with whom relations have never been close, there is simply the problem of the form of the letter. The opening greeting, the customary blessing "Peace and blessings upon the Messenger of God," is followed by the phrase "and on his Family," a formula which is more often encountered among Shi'a salutations—the Shi'a emphasizing respect to the house of the Prophet in the way that Sunnis generally do not, and Salafists never. The letter is certainly dismissed by al-Zarqawi himself. In a posting on October 13 on the al-Hesba forum, he rejected it as "without foundation, except in the imagination of the leaders of the Black House and its servants," and argued that it simply indicated "the clear bankruptcy which the infidel camp has been reduced to." Consequently al-Zarqawi urges the mujahideen "to ignore this cheap propaganda" (www.alhesbah.org). Indeed, in view of the surprising lack of jihadi forum comment on a high-level communication that should be of immense significance and controversy, and pending further confirmation of origin, it would be wise to treat the letter with skepticism.

On the Newstand: Syrian Suicides

The Economist also reminds us this week of the unfortunate demise of disgraced Syrian PM Mahmoud al-Zubi who manged to shoot himself repeatedly while under house arrest. Interior Minister Ghazi Kanaan must have known that the gig was up because in his last public interview he closed by declaring, "I think this may be the last statement I give.”

On the Newstand: China Syndrome I

The Economist goes ga-ga over China this week, China gets three of the four articles in the Asia section. The first bit of info is on China's Five Year "Program" - they're not doing "Plans" anymore. The Economist likes what it hears:

The five-year programme for 2006 to 2010, endorsed on October 11th by the Communist Party's Central Committee, by no means abandons the pursuit of high growth. But, according to a communiqué issued at the end of the four-day annual meeting, it is “essential” for China to “speed up the transformation of the economic growth pattern”. Details of the programme are still secret (it will not be formally promulgated until the annual session of parliament next March). But officials say the transformation includes ensuring that growth is more evenly shared across the country, is less investment-driven and less polluting.

Nonetheless there is obviously a difficult road ahead:

What can China's leaders do? Among the very few specifics suggested by the communiqué is a goal of reducing energy consumption per unit of GDP by 20% over the next five years, but that is easier said than done. More vaguely, it calls for “big improvements” in education and public health. The social security system, currently in tatters, should be put on a “relatively firm basis”. How any of this will be financed is left unsaid. In a research report, Stephen Green of Standard Chartered, a British bank, says it is highly unlikely that China will intentionally pursue new policies, such as higher income-tax rates, that could undermine growth and job creation.

But Mr Green suggests that growth could suffer as an unintentional consequence of pursuing equality. In the past couple of years, privatisation as slowed down as a result of an outcry over asset-stripping by managers of state-owned enterprises. The new document, unlike its equivalent that was issued by the party five years ago, makes no mention of any need to boost the private sector. Nor does it suggest, as the party did last time, that “orderly participation in politics” by citizens should be expanded.

A second piece reports on troubles in Taishi, a prosperous village, where thugs rule. A strong recall movement to toss out the village chief got a bit too popular so local officials had to respond:

Repeated protests by the villagers eventually prompted the authorities to arrange an election in September to create a recall committee that was supposed to meet this month to arrange a referendum. But thugs, apparently supported by village officials, began putting pressure on villagers and committee members. The committee resigned and support for the recall dried up.

On October 8th, a journalist from the Guardian, a British newspaper, accompanied by Lu Banglie, an activist who had been trying to promote the villagers' cause, was stopped from entering by a group of 30 to 50 goons, some wearing camouflage. They dragged Mr Lu from the car and beat him unconscious. The journalist was punched, but then allowed to leave. A bruised but apparently not grievously harmed Mr Lu was driven by officials back to his home province. A number of other Chinese lawyers and activists, as well as foreign journalists, who have tried to enter the village have been arrested or intimidated.

The Economist goes on to insist that there is little that the central government can do to stem the tide of gangsterism. Finally we get a story about the Reds in space and how it is freaking out the Japanese:

The speed with which China has developed manned space flight has surprised and alarmed Japanese policymakers. Shame was added to the mix when just a month after China's first manned flight, in October 2003, a Japanese rocket carrying two spy satellites had to be blown up, ignominiously, ten minutes after the launch when a booster failed to disengage. Further satellite launches were restarted only last spring.

For years Japan's space programme has dwindled, a consequence of budget cuts and of Japan's constitutional inability to develop anything that might have military applications. Japan now spends just $1.8 billion a year on its space programme, a fall of one-third from the peak: still more than China says it spends, but a fraction of NASA's annual budget.

China's progress in space has strengthened the hand of Japan's space lobby. In March, the Japanese space agency, JAXA, under a new head, Keiji Tachikawa (who previously ran NTT DoCoMo, the country's mobile-phone giant), laid out its new vision for the next 20 years. JAXA wants a manned space programme, with a space station on the moon. Some Japanese policymakers argue that space is an area where much needed co-operation could actually take place between Japan and China. But there is precious little sign of that yet.

A Syrian Suicide by Silencer and My Ode to the Church Lady

The Syrian Interior Minister reportedly shot himself with a silencer equipped gun. In the words of the Church Lady,"Isn't that conveeeeeeeeeeeenient." How polite! You want to kill yourself but you don't want to disturb the neighbors. Trust me if my neighbor was going to shoot himself I'd prefer that he'd do it with a cannon, the noise may be a bit much but the smell of a dead body is much worse.

In the Tanks: al Qaeda and WMDs

The Jamestown Foundation's Terrorism Monitor explores al Qaeda's WMD efforts before the US incursion in Afghanistan. al Qaeda was desperate for WMD, hoping that it would deter the US.

W - The First Arab President

Before ultimately pooh-poohing W's efforts Joseph Strabe, writing for TNR Online, allows W to rake in some credit for his efforts in the MidEast:

Shortly before the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, I had dinner in Washington with a visitor from Cairo: Muslim playwright Ali Salem, one of the few prominent Egyptians who has consistently spoken out in favor of a warm peace with Israel. Let me tell you something you never heard before about George W. Bush, he said, as I remember it. He's the first Arab president of the United States.

A lot of thought had apparently gone into this observation--for Salem promptly launched into an extensive explication of the president's latest speeches, recalling key lines with a playwright's memory for rhetoric, all to prove how brilliantly Bushisms translated into Arabic and how resonant the president's ideas were with Middle Eastern audiences. Whereas most American elites favor nuance, Salem explained, Bush communicates to mass audiences in the starkest terms--just like Arab leaders. Was this a good thing or a bad thing? I asked. It is a great thing, Salem replied, because Bush will flip the Manichaean terminology on its head in the Middle East, turning the tables on dictators and militants. Like several other progressive intellectuals in the Arab world at the time, Salem believed that Bush's muscular policies would prove a boon to the beleaguered forces of Arab liberalism.

Nearly three years later, the course of events in Iraq must come as a bitter disappointment to the Ali Salems of the Middle East. But if we judge by Salem's criteria, Bush is still America's first Arab president--now more than ever. His latest speech on Islamic radicalism, delivered last week at the National Endowment for Democracy, went further than speeches past in defining the Islamist threat: Extremists, he said, "believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region, and establish a radical Islamic empire that spans from Spain to Indonesia." He slammed Syria and Iran for aiding and abetting militants, while employing "terrorist propaganda to blame their own failures on the West and America, and on the Jews." And he faulted "elements of the Arab news media that incite hatred and anti-Semitism, that feed conspiracy theories and speak of a so-called American war on Islam-- with seldom a word about American action to protect Muslims in Afghanistan, and Bosnia, Somalia, Kosovo, Kuwait, and Iraq." You could argue that Bush overreached in his attempt to cast Islamist ideologues, Arab politicians, and Middle Eastern pundits as an aligned force. But there is no denying the boldness and clarity of his counter-narrative, which casts America as the Muslim world's liberator rather than its oppressor.

In the Tanks: Turkey at a Crossroads

The Washington Institute for Near East Policy Policy Focus #48 delves into the Turkish question and how to re-establish Turkey's western orientation. The advice for the US boils down to confront the PKK and do something about Cyprus. The report notes that Ankara's shift towards Iran and Syria was driven by mutual concerns about Kurd populations. It is noted that our usually most fervent allies in Turkey are the nationalists who also happen to be the ones most concerned about the Kurds.

Who Comes After Hu?

The fourth generation has been in power for just over a year but acclaimed Sinologist Arthur Waldron is already speculating on how the fifth generation leader is going to be selected. Perhaps reacting to continued signs of unrest in rural China and tensions brought on by inequality Waldron's pretty sure that this time "the people" will play a role:

Today only the people can anoint a leader and government that will enjoy real power in China, and that can happen only through an open political process. Beijing's power has been slipping since the provinces received new autonomy after the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. Now the "governance without politics" that has existed since strongman Deng Xiaoping died in 1997 is approaching its limits.

The end may come from above, conceivably by a well-planned transition but more likely when a would-be leader tries to break an elite deadlock by turning to the people. Or it may come from below, as increasing dissatisfaction with poverty, corruption and violence leads to change at the top or to regions taking over self-government.

Party rule from Beijing is increasingly an elaborately staged play. Its intricacies will doubtless continue to engage the attention of China-watchers. But they should not forget the people, crowding ever more noisily outside the theater. One way or another, we will hear from them -- and we must be ready.

Syria Finds a Scapegoat

The interior minister of Syria, Ghazi Kanaan, has conveniently committed suicide. Any guesses on who all the Syrians will point to as the mastermind behind the assasination of former Lebanese PM and Syrian critic Rafiq Hariri? Of course Kanaan was involved, he probably even set the whole thing up but it is unlikely that he acted alone.

The French Amb. Going to Jail...Hopefully His Own

WashTimes giddily informs us that the former French Ambassador the UN is getting his for his involvement in the food for oil scandal. Here's to my hope that he gets jailed at the Palais de Justice in Paris which has been described by the EU commissioner of human rights as the worst he has ever seen. James Taranto of WSJ recommends that we offer to put up the French Amb. where he might be more comfortable.

The Latest Draft of the Draft

I kind of get tired of all the comparisons of what Iraq is going through these days to the travails and experiences of our Founding Fathers. Pardon my western chauvinism but even the most scurrilous slave owner seems enlightened compared to most Sunni leaders. Yet for the first time perhaps a comparison can be drawn. Kurd, Sunni and Shia leaders have agreed to get together next year to consider amendments to the constitution. This seems to me similar to the agreement to approve a Bill of Rights to our own constitution in order to secure passage. Granted I do not expect Freedom of Religion or anything forbidding cruel and unusual punishment being enshrined, but that is besides the point.

On the Newstand: Defining the American Purpose

Granted I've never actually seen Proceedings, which is put out by the US Naval Institute, on a newstand, but it's a magazine so it qualifies. In the September issue conservative apostate Philip Gold reached for the "Kennan Prize," the fictional award bestowed on whoever can shape and define American foreign policy for the forseable future. Gold believes that the previous two centuries, from the American Revolution to the collapse of the USSR, was defined by "Wars of Ideology" and that now we have entered an era that can best be described as the "War of Ways." What are the War of Ways you ask?

Ideology still matters. So does religion. So does the rest of the human capacity for furor, vice, and folly. But the mix is different now, more subtle and more complex. I suggest that we have entered an era that might be called, at least provisionally, the Wars of the Ways. Across the planet and its increasingly irrelevant national boundaries, three sets of human beings are involved.

• Those nations, peoples, regions, groups, and movements who partake of the 21st century, its freedoms and diversities and possibilities: those whose ways are those of prosperity, tolerance, and humane aspiration.

• Those who want out of the 21st century: jihpadi, political exremits, violent racial and ethnic separatists, terrorists of other ilk (animal rights, ecological, etc.), male supremacists, leftover Marxist and traditional tyrants, and the gurus and gauleiters of philosophies and movements yet to be espoused—those whose ways would bring upon us new Dark Ages of hate, intolerance, oppression, and worse.

• Those who can't get into the 21st century: the three billion of us who live on under two a day, amid conditions of overpopulation, disease, and starvation, havoc, degradation, despair; most of the women of this planet; youth with no sense of opportunity and place—in sum, all those who may choose to live by the motto, "When you've got nothing, you've got nothing to lose."

The Wars of the Ways will pit those who partake, or desire to partake, of the 21st century, against those who want out, who will deliberately and cynically ally with those who can't get in, who will deliberately and cynically accept their help.

So what should be our mission?

It should be the American purpose to serve as a guardian of the 21st century, protecting those who cherish and partake of its ways, opposing those who would destroy them, and doing everything in our power to aid those who want in. This will require a national commitment, a stern and reasoned national commitment, at least as steadfast as the Cold War consensus. But it will also require new ways of thinking. John Maynard Keynes once remarked that, in the end, even the most practical businessman is the slave of some defunct economist. For too long we have been the slaves of too many (living and dead) social scientists, pundits, and prognosticators, military and civilian. It's time to zero-base our thinking and, in accordance with the motto of a certain ersatz Australian steak house chain, adopt as our interim guide: "No Rules. Just Right."

First to go: the entire "world's only superpower" cant. Not only does it encourage hubris, it positively mandates irrelevance. Next on the list: the notion that balance of power must be essentially bipolar or, if you prefer, manic-depressive. We've entered an era, similar in some ways to Europe from Westphalia to Napoleon although far more complex, of fluid and shifting arrangements. We have a few friends. Beyond that, we have relationships of various degrees of permanence. Beyond that: hook-ups. Best we remember which is which. Also time to deep-six the whole "If you're not with us, you're against us" mentality. It sounds tough. But it's also worth remembering that the rest of the planet has concerns of its own, and sometimes even your friends wouldn't mind seeing you taken down a peg or two. In any case, a nation that grows ever more deeply indebted to the world, while willfully destroying its own economic capabilities, should not expect its "superpower" or any other status to last forever.

Finally, we need to rid ourselves, once and for all, of the belief that the planet's highest aspiration is, or should be, to be like us—along with the notion that we can force people to be free...

This is how Gold proposes that we get this done:

First, let regions take care of their own problems, including war and national break-ups, whenever possible. As for the United Nations: We should listen respectfully to any delegation whose members pay their parking tickets.

Second, help the Islamic and African worlds create the civil societies without which constitutions are mere machinery to be taken over and civil rights weapons in the hands of those who would destroy them. Civil society requires, above all else, citizens. To the Greeks, a citizen was a man who was empowered to participate in the public world by virtue of education, material sufficiency, and arms. We must reaffirm this "enabling civic triad"—adequate education, remunerative work, and the bearing of arms for all citizens, male and female.

Third, adopt humane and rational policies on everything from environmental protection to the strict regulation of child labor and the abolition of all forms of human trafficking. An old Rudy Vallee song holds that, "You're Going to Do It Someday So Why Not Do It Now?" Let's do it now.

Finally, remember the Politiques. These were the men who ended the French Wars of Religion by deciding that, whatever their beliefs, they weren't going to kill each other over them anymore. Today, the more Politiques, the better. Especially among the young.

Here is the military angle:

It is not necessary, for this readership, to review the current condition of America's armed forces, save perhaps to note that we may well be approaching a situation described as "Defenseless on a Trillion Dollars a Year." At best, we're imploding: the Army, Marines, and National Guard because of Iraq, the Navy and Air Force because of the obscene cost of new ships and planes. To reverse this situation, it's vital to rediscover one great truth. America's military must be structured and used primarily for those things that only the military can do, most specifically, win wars decisively.

This means that our great comparative advantages, aerospace and naval power, must be maintained and enhanced, and that most of our land forces should remain oriented toward such eventualities. Counter-insurgency and operations other than war are best handled by the Marines, enhanced special operations forces, and (please pardon the non-PC allusion) modern variants of "colonial infantry" within the Army.

He closes with a few words of advice on Iraq:

I suggest here that it does not matter how long we stay, or how many insurgents we kill, or how many constitutions and elections we honcho. I suggest also that the time is coming when we should say to the people of Iraq:

"We liberated you from a hideous tyrant. We gave you years to think about what you wanted. We poured in billions of dollars to protect you, to help you rebuild. We sacrificed thousands of our finest young men and women, now dead, maimed, and hurting in body and spirit. We proclaimed you a lesson to the world. But now it is you who must teach that lesson. We've other work to attend to. Let's see what you do with your freedom. Your success may well inspire others. Your failure will teach lessons, too."

In the Tanks - Lies About el Che

Here it is the first time that I literally post an entire piece on the site. I hate Che and those moronic intellectual gnats who pay $25 at some chic boutique to wear a t-shirt printed by some child laborer overseas who got paid a nickel for 90 hours of work last week. So I'm letting Alvaro Vargas Llosa speak since I'm not entirely rational once it comes to Che...by the way there will be no debating this issue. If you are going to argue that AVLl is wrong and Che did some good then drop dead you scum sucking Commie slime my only regreat is that el Che's death was not agonizing enough...he should have been tortured a week for every life he took.

Ten Shots at Che Guevara

Che Guevara fans are preparing to commemorate one more anniversary of the revolutionary’s death, which took place thirty-eight years ago at the Yuro ravine in Bolivia. It’s an appropriate time to address ten myths that keep Guevara’s cult alive The last time I visited the Museum of Modern Art in New York, an American student wearing a Che Guevara T-Shirt and a beret caught my eye (the fact that Nicole Kidman happened to walk in at that very moment may have had something to do with my noticing him). I asked him politely what exactly he admired so much about that man. Here are the ten reasons he mentioned—and my response.

1.HE WAS AGAINST CAPITALISM. In fact, Guevara was for state capitalism. He opposed the wage labor system of “appropriating surplus value” (in Marxist jargon) only when it came to private corporations. But he turned the “appropriation of the workers’ surplus value” into a state system. One example of this is the forced labor camps he supported, starting with Guanahacabibes in 1961.

2. HE MADE CUBA INDEPENDENT. In fact, he engineered the colonization of Cuba by a foreign power. He was instrumental in turning Cuba into a temporary beachhead of Soviet nuclear power (he sealed the deal in Yalta). As the person responsible for the “industrialization” of Cuba he failed to end the country’s dependency on sugar.

3. HE STOOD FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE. In fact, he helped ruin the economy by diverting resources to industries that ended up in failure and reduced the sugar harvest, Cuba’s mainstay, by half in two years. Rationing started under his stewardship of the island’s economy.

4. HE STOOD UP TO MOSCOW. In fact, he obeyed Moscow until Moscow decided to ask for something in return for its massive transfers of money to Havana. In 1965 he criticized the Kremlin because it had adopted what he termed the “law of value”. He then turned to China on the eve of the Cultural Revolution, one of the horror stories of the twentieth century. He simply switched allegiances within the totalitarian camp.

5. HE CONNECTED WITH THE PEASANTS. In fact, he died precisely because he never connected with them. “The peasant masses don’t help us at all,” he wrote in his Bolivian diary before he was captured—an apt way to describe his journey through the Bolivian countryside trying to stir up a revolution that could not even enlist the help of Bolivian Communists (who were realistic enough to note that peasants did not want revolution in 1967; they had already had one in 1952).

6. HE WAS A GUERRILLA GENIUS. With the exception of Cuba, every guerrilla effort he helped set up failed pitifully. After the triumph of the Cuban revolution, Guevara set up revolutionary armies in Nicaragua, the Dominican Republic, Panama, and Haiti, all of which were crushed. He later persuaded Jorge Ricardo Masetti to lead a fatal incursion into that country from Bolivia. Guevara’s role in the Congo in 1965 was both tragic and comical. He allied himself with Pierre Mulele and Laurent Kabila, two butchers, but got entangled in so many disagreements with the latter—and relations between Cuban and Congolese fighters were so strained—that he had to flee. Finally, his incursion in Bolivia ended up in his death, which his followers are commemorating this Sunday.

7. HE RESPECTED HUMAN DIGNITY. In fact, he had a habit of taking other people’s property. He told his followers to rob banks (“the struggling masses agree to rob banks because none of them has a penny in them”) and as soon as the Batista regime collapsed he occupied a mansion and made it his own—a case of expeditious revolutionary eminent domain.

8. HIS ADVENTURES WERE A CELEBRATION OF LIFE. Instead, they were an orgy of death. He executed many innocent people in Santa Clara, in central Cuba, where his column was based in the last stage of the armed struggle. After the triumph of the revolution, he was in charge of “La Cabaña” prison for half a year. He ordered the execution of hundreds of prisoners—former Batista men, journalists, businessmen, and others. A few witnesses, including Javier Arzuaga, who was the chaplain of “La Cabaña”, and José Vilasuso, who was a member of the body in charge of the summary judicial process, recently gave me their painful testimonies.

9. HE WAS A VISIONARY. His vision of Latin America was actually quite blurred. Take, for instance, his view that the guerrillas had to take to the countryside because that is where the struggling masses lived. In fact, since the 1960s, most peasants have peacefully deserted the countryside in part because of the failure of land reform, which has hindered the development of a property-based agriculture and economies of scale with absurd regulations forbidding all sorts of private arrangements.

10. HE WAS RIGHT ABOUT THE UNITED STATES. He predicted Cuba would surpass the GDP per capita of the U.S. by 1980. Today, Cuba’s economy can barely survive thanks to Venezuela’s oil subsidy (about 100,000 barrels a day), a form of international alms that does not speak too well of the regime’s dignity.

TNR's Today in Despotism

T.A. Frank take on those naughty tyrants has a familiar cast this week. Not only are the players familiar but so is the banality that Hannah Arendt so aptly described. The tyrannical military lunatics formerly known as SLORC that are still running the nation formerly known as Burma are hyping the use of spare parts and poetry feting the regime. In Belarus Lukashenko is demanding more from his athletes. N. Korea makes fun of Japan and Libya marks the 44th anniversary of Muammar Qaddafi's expulsion from school.

Schroeder & Gore

Yes I've been giving Schroeder a hard time for leaving his country in limbo, but it took him less time to realize he lost than Al Gore. Congrats to Merkel. It'll be interesting to see if the latest incarnation of the Grand Coalition will make the necessary reforms.

The Miami Book Fair: Insult to Injury

My hiatus technically remains in effect until tomorrow morning but the list of confirmed authors for the Miami Book Fair is out. For those keeping track we did get to pick one author right, Carlos Alberto Montaner will be making his obligatory appearance. On the depressing side not only is Robert Kaplan not coming, but David Rieff will be there. What I would most like to see at the Fair would be a death match between Don Bohning (The Castro Obsession: U.S. Covert Operations Against Cuba, 1959-1965) and Humberto Fontova (Fidel: Hollywood's Favorite Tyrant). For the record I have not read Bohning's book but I can tell you that Fontova's is pretty bad. There will be some other writers worth seeing but as far as I can tell few that will be discussing topics of interest to our group.