Política Internacional

Editorial do The New York Times.

We were glad to see President Obama go to Fort Bliss on Tuesday before his Oval Office speech on Iraq, to thank those Americans who most shouldered the burdens of a tragic, pointless war. One of the few rays of light in the conflict has been the distance America has come since Vietnam, when blameless soldiers were scorned for decisions made by politicians.

President George W. Bush tried to make Iraq an invisible, seemingly cost-free war. He refused to attend soldiers’ funerals and hid their returning coffins from the public. So it was fitting that Mr. Obama, who has improved veterans’ health care and made the Pentagon budget more rational, paid tribute to them.

“At every turn, America’s men and women in uniform have served with courage and resolve,” he said on Tuesday night. He added: “There were patriots who supported this war, and patriots who opposed it. And all of us are united in appreciation for our servicemen and women, and our hope for Iraq’s future.”

The speech also made us reflect on how little Mr. Bush accomplished by needlessly invading Iraq in March 2003 — and then ludicrously declaring victory two months later.

Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction proved to be Bush administration propaganda. The war has not created a new era of democracy in the Middle East — or in Iraq for that matter. There are stirrings of democratic politics in Iraq that give us hope. But there is no government six months after national elections.

In many ways, the war made Americans less safe, creating a new organization of terrorists and diverting the nation’s military resources and political will from Afghanistan. Deprived of its main adversary, a strong Iraq, Iran was left freer to pursue its nuclear program, to direct and finance extremist groups and to meddle in Iraq.

Mr. Obama graciously said it was time to put disagreements over Iraq behind us, but it is important not to forget how much damage Mr. Bush caused by misleading Americans about exotic weapons, about American troops being greeted with open arms, about creating a model democracy in Baghdad.

That is why it was so important that Mr. Obama candidly said the United States is not free of this conflict; American troops will see more bloodshed. We hope he follows through on his vow to work with Iraq’s government after the withdrawal of combat troops.

There was no victory to declare last night, and Mr. Obama was right not to try. If victory was ever possible in this war, it has not been won, and America still faces the daunting challenges of the other war, in Afghanistan.

Mr. Obama, addressing those who either believe that he is not committed to the fight in Afghanistan or believe that he will not leave, said Americans should “make no mistake” — he will stick to his plan to begin withdrawing troops next August. He still needs to clearly explain, and soon, how he will “disrupt, dismantle and defeat Al Qaeda” and meet that timetable.

As we heard Mr. Obama speak from his desk with his usual calm clarity and eloquence, it made us wish we heard more from him on many issues. We are puzzled about why he talks to Americans directly so rarely and with seeming reluctance. This was only his second Oval Office address in more than 19 months of crisis upon crisis. The country particularly needs to hear more from Mr. Obama about what he rightly called the most urgent task — “to restore our economy and put the millions of Americans who have lost their jobs back to work.”

For this day, it was worth dwelling on this milestone in Iraq and on some grim numbers: more than 4,400 Americans dead and some 35,000 wounded, many with lost limbs. And on one number that American politicians are loath to mention: at least 100,000 Iraqis dead.

By MARTIN INDYK

The New York Times Journal

NOW that President Obama has finally succeeded in bringing the Israelis and the Palestinians back to the negotiating table, the commentariat is already dismissing his chances of reaching a peace agreement. But there are four factors that distinguish the direct talks that will get under way on Sept. 2 in Washington from previous attempts — factors that offer some reason for optimism.

First, violence is down considerably in the region. Throughout the 1990s, Israel was plagued by terrorist attacks, which undermined its leaders’ ability to justify tangible concessions. Israelis came to believe that the Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat was playing a double game, professing peace in the negotiations while allowing terrorists to operate in territory he was supposed to control.

Today, the Palestinian Authority is policing its West Bank territory to prevent violent attacks on Israelis and to prove its reliability as a negotiating partner. Hamas — mainly out of fear of an Israeli intervention that might remove it from power — is doing the same in Gaza.

These efforts, combined with more effective Israeli security measures, have meant that the number of Israeli civilians killed in terrorist attacks has dropped from an intifada high of 452 in 2002 to 6 last year and only 2 so far this year.

Second, settlement activity has slowed significantly. As a result of Israel’s 10-month settlement moratorium, no new housing starts in the West Bank were reported by the Israeli Central Bureau of Statistics in the first quarter of this year. What’s more, there have been hardly any new housing projects in East Jerusalem since the brouhaha in March, when Vice President Joe Biden, during a visit to Israel, condemned the announcement of 1,600 additional residential units. The demolition of Palestinian houses there is also down compared with recent years.

The settlement moratorium, however, is due to expire on Sept. 26. The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, seems unlikely to extend it, and Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian Authority president, has declared that he will withdraw from negotiations if settlement activity resumes.

However, there could be a workable compromise if Mr. Netanyahu restricts building to modest growth in the settlement blocs that will most likely be absorbed into Israel in the final agreement, while offering changes that would make a real difference to West Bank Palestinians. Israel could promise that there would be no more Israeli Army incursions into areas under Palestinian control; it could also allow the Palestinian police to patrol in most West Bank villages.

Third, the public on both sides supports a two-state solution. So do a majority of Arabs. The simple truth is that most people in the Middle East are exhausted by this conflict, and if Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Abbas can reach a viable agreement, the public on all sides will likely support it by a large majority.

Yes, Mr. Netanyahu would face strident opposition from within his Likud party, but he could lean on the support of the Israeli center and left to ensure a Knesset majority. And because a referendum on Palestinian statehood would likely receive overwhelming support in Gaza as well as the West Bank, Hamas — always attuned to Palestinian public opinion — would have a hard time standing in the way.

Fourth, there isn’t a lot to negotiate. In the 17 years since the Oslo accords were signed, detailed final status negotiations have dealt exhaustively with all the critical issues. If an independent Palestinian state is to be established, the zone of agreement is clear and the necessary trade-offs are already known.

Security arrangements were all but settled in 2000 at Camp David before the talks collapsed. The increased threat of rocket attacks since then, among other developments, require the two sides to agree on stricter border controls and a robust third-party force in the Jordan Valley. But one year is ample time to resolve this. In fact, if the leaders are sincere in their intent to make a deal, dragging out the negotiations would only weaken them politically and give time for the opponents of peace to rally.

In short, the negotiating environment is better suited to peacemaking today than it has been at any point in the last decade. The prospects for peace depend now on the willpower of the leaders.

Does President Abbas, already a weakened figure, have the courage to defend the necessary concessions to his people, particularly when it comes to conceding the “right of return” to Israel? Does Prime Minister Netanyahu have the determination to withdraw from at least 95 percent of the West Bank and to accept a Palestinian capital in Arab East Jerusalem? And does President Obama have the statesmanship to persuade both parties to make the deal and to reassure them that the United States will be there with a safety net if it fails?

At the end of the Clinton administration, Shimon Peres observed that “history is like a horse that gallops past your window and the true test of statesmanship is to jump from that window onto the horse.” Arafat failed that test, leaving Palestinians and Israelis mired in conflict. We cannot know whether Mr. Abbas and Mr. Netanyahu will take the politically perilous leap. But for the time being, we should suspend disbelief and welcome the fact that American diplomacy has ensured they will soon be put to the test.

Martin Indyk, the director of the foreign policy program at the Brookings Institution and the author of “Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East,” was the United States ambassador to Israel during the Clinton administration.

Pakistan’s Double Game

There is a lot to be disturbed by in the battlefield reports from Afghanistan released Sunday by WikiLeaks. The close-up details of war are always unsettling, even more so with this war, which was so badly neglected and bungled by President George W. Bush.

But the most alarming of the reports were the ones that described the cynical collusion between Pakistan’s military intelligence service and the Taliban. Despite the billions of dollars the United States has sent in aid to Pakistan since Sept. 11, they offer powerful new evidence that crucial elements of Islamabad’s power structure have been actively helping to direct and support the forces attacking the American-led military coalition.

The time line of the documents from WikiLeaks, an organization devoted to exposing secrets, stops before President Obama put his own military and political strategy into effect last December. Administration officials say they have made progress with Pakistan since, but it is hard to see much evidence of that so far.

Most of the WikiLeaks documents, which were the subject of in-depth coverage in The Times on Monday, cannot be verified. However, they confirm a picture of Pakistani double-dealing that has been building for years.

On a trip to Pakistan last October, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton suggested that officials in the Pakistani government knew where Al Qaeda leaders were hiding. Gen. David Petraeus, the new top military commander in Afghanistan, recently acknowledged longstanding ties between Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, known as the ISI, and the “bad guys.”

The Times’s report of the new documents suggests the collusion goes even deeper, that representatives of the ISI have worked with the Taliban to organize networks of militants to fight American soldiers in Afghanistan and hatch plots to assassinate Afghan leaders.

The article painted a chilling picture of the activities of Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul of Pakistan, who ran the ISI from 1987 to 1989, when the agency and the C.I.A. were together arming the Afghan militias fighting Soviet troops. General Gul kept working with those forces, which eventually formed the Taliban.

Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States said the reports were unsubstantiated and “do not reflect the current on-ground realities.” But at this point, denials about links with the militants are simply not credible.

Why would Pakistan play this dangerous game? The ISI has long seen the Afghan Taliban as a proxy force, a way to ensure its influence on the other side of the border and keep India’s influence at bay.

Pakistani officials also privately insist that they have little choice but to hedge their bets given their suspicions that Washington will once again lose interest as it did after the Soviets were ousted from Afghanistan in 1989. And until last year, when the Pakistani Taliban came within 60 miles of Islamabad, the country’s military and intelligence establishment continued to believe it could control the extremists when it needed to.

In recent months, the Obama administration has said and done many of the right things toward building a long-term relationship with Pakistan. It has committed to long-term economic aid. It is encouraging better relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is constantly reminding Pakistani leaders that the extremists, on both sides of the border, pose a mortal threat to Pakistan’s fragile democracy — and their own survival. We don’t know if they’re getting through. We know they have to.

It has been only seven months since Mr. Obama announced his new strategy for Afghanistan, and a few weeks since General Petraeus took command. But Americans are increasingly weary of this costly war. If Mr. Obama cannot persuade Islamabad to cut its ties to, and then aggressively fight, the extremists in Pakistan, there is no hope of defeating the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Retirado do site Chairim

Hoje é o aniversário de um dos maiores gênios dos quadrinhos.

Bill Watterson é o criador de Calvin & Haroldo, uma atraente crônica sobre o cotidiano de um garoto de seis anos. As tirinhas de Calvin & Haroldo figuraram em mais de 2400 jornais em todo mundo até primeiro de Janeiro de 1996, dia em que Bill Watterson parou de publicar a sua criação.

Desde a sua primeira aparição em 1985, Calvin & Haroldo ganharam apelo mundial. Mais de 23 milhões de livros foram impressos e, cada um dos 14 livros da coleção vendeu mais de 1 milhão de cópias no seu primeiro ano de publicação. A coletânea mais recente, The Calvin & Hobbes Tenth Anniversary Book (O livro do décimo aniversário de Calvin e Haroldo), foi publicado na primavera de 1995 (Ed. Andrews and McMell) e chegou a liderar a lista dos mais vendidos do New York Times. Ele permaneceu na lista dos mais vendidos por muitas semanas depois da sua publicação.

Em uma carta mandada aos editores dos jornais anunciando a aposentadoria de Calvin & Haroldo, Watterson declarou: “Esta não é uma decisão nem fácil nem recente, e eu saio com uma certa tristeza. Porém meus interesses mudaram de direção, e eu pretendo trabalhar agora em um projeto com menos compromissos artísticos. Eu ainda não decidi sobre futuros projetos, mas minhas relações com a UPS (Universal Press Sindicate) vão continuar.”

Bill Watterson foi nomeado para ganhar o Reuben Award de 1992 pelo prêmio de Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year (o mais notável cartunista do ano) pela Sociedade Nacional dos Cartunistas, e ganhou os prêmios de 1986 e 1988. Em 1986, Watterson foi o mais jovem cartunista a ganhar este prêmio.

Abaixo você irá encontrar uma pequena biografia de Bill Watterson (irá saber quem é a tal Melissa que aparece no início dos livros de Calvin & Haroldo) e a carta que ele fez anunciando o fim da tira.

Bill Watterson

“William B. Watterson II, nascido em 5 de julho de 1958 em Washington, é o criador das histórias de Calvin & Haroldo, um garoto de seis anos e seu melhor amigo, um tigre de pelúcia chamado Haroldo. Se formou no Kenyon College em Gambier, Ohio, em 1980 com grau em ciência política. Casado com Melissa, moram em Hudson, Ohio.

Infelizmente Bill Watterson parou de desenhar as tiras de Calvin & Haroldo no dia 1 de Janeiro de 1996. As tiras de quadrinhos eram diárias e distribuídas em 14 países pela Universal Press Syndicate. A primeira tira foi lançada no dia 11 de Novembro de 1985 e desde então Calvin & Haroldo ganhou fama pelo mundo. Seus livros venderam mais de um milhão no primeiro ano de venda sendo que o último,  Os Dez Anos De Calvin & Haroldo, alcançou a lista dos mais vendidos do New York Times.

Bill Watterson foi nomeado para ganhar o “1992 Reuben Award” pelo prêmio “Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year” pela Sociedade Nacional dos Cartunistas, e ganhou os prêmios de 1986 (mais jovem cartunista a ganhar o prêmio) e 1988.

Bill Watterson é tão bom escritor quanto desenhista. O gênio do mau comportamento que é Calvin é feito tanto de grandes diálogos quanto de um desenho personalíssimo. Ele não dá entrevistas e raramente posa para fotos, seu endereço e telefone são segredos bem guardados, até seus contatos profissionais são feitos pela esposa. É difícil que o autor apareça para se justificar para os órfãos de Calvin. O que se sabe é que há anos Watterson disse ser impossível continuar mantendo indefinidamente seu altíssimo padrão de qualidade num trabalho para publicação diária. Ele não tem equipe e trabalha só. Nunca aceitou vender os direitos da história para camisetas, bonecos e desenhos de tv.”

A CARTA:

Veja a seguir a carta escrita por Bill Watterson em 1995 avisando o fim da tira.

Caro Editor:
Eu vou parar com Calvin e Haroldo no final do ano. Esta não foi uma decisão fácil ou tomada às pressas, e saio com tristeza. De qualquer modo, meus interesses mudaram e acredito ter feito o possível de acordo com as obrigações de fechamentos diários e quadros pequenos. Estou ansioso para trabalhar num ritmo mais atencioso, com menos compromissos artísticos.

Ainda não decidi sobre futuros projetos, mas meu relacionamento com a Universal Press Syndicate continuará.

É uma honra que tantos jornais publiquem Calvin e Haroldo e me orgulho disso. Agradeço seu apoio e indulgência durante a década passada. Desenhar a tira foi um privilégio e um prazer e agradeço a você por ter me dado esta oportunidade.

Bill Watterson

Fonte: Calvin BR

Alguns jornais, perspicazmente, lançaram hoje reportagens sobre o Haiti. Posso resumir a idéia central de todas na seguinte premissa, todos preocupados com o futuro do Haiti e, sobretudo, com a forma de reconstrução desse país arrasado em virtude do tempo agir como um ‘apagador de lembranças’ da comunidade internacional.

Não mais se fala do Haiti. Não mais se questiona se as ajudas humanitárias foram empregadas e se será necessário (obvio que sim) uma continua renovação dos suprimentos e esforços para ajudar a população haitiana.

Assim, também me invergo a esses jornalistas em afirmar que nosso trabalho na pequena ilha só está começando.

Indico, então, o relato do observador do New York Times, Lawrence Downes, que escreve o artigo Haiti’s Do-It-Yourself Recovery.

Infelizmente a natureza mostra sua força e traz novas cenas de terror. A natureza dá uma lição que tragédias não são adstritas a um tipo de gênero, raça, economia ou, como imbecilmente defendeu alguns políticos, religião.

Sobre essa tragédia trago um mapa confeccionado pelo jornal New York Times descrevendo o epicentro bem como as conseqüências do terremoto que atingiu a costa chilena.

O editorial de hoje (10/02/2010) do New York Times, traz uma estratégia de campanha dos Republicanos para angariar votos nos Estados Unidos, apelidado de política do medo.

Os Republicanos estão afirmando que o governo democrata não tem capacidade, ou não se importa em capturar e punir terroristas e que recentes episódios de terrorismo poderão ser uma constante se não se mudar a política americana.

Jogo baixo, claro, mas a política como bem sabem, caros leitores, não é feita por anjos.

Como dito pelo jornal, a tática é absurda, mas efetiva. “It’s nonsense, of course, but effective. The be-very-afraid approach helped former President George W. Bush ram laws through Congress that chipped away at Americans’ rights. He used it to get re-elected in 2004. Now the Republicans are playing the fear card for the fall elections”.

O interessante é a análise final do artigo que nos remete a problemas enfrentados pelos Estados Unidos desde a era Bush que envolta em problemas estruturais e éticos no combate ao terrorismo, deixou marcas profundas na consciência coletiva americana (uma paranóia coletiva).

The Republican propaganda is a distraction from the real issue: that the counterterrorism system is malfunctioning more than eight years after the Sept. 11 attacks. Like many of the nation’s other problems, Mr. Obama inherited this one. For eight years, Congress failed in its legal duty to oversee the intelligence community and the basic operational tasks of the Department of Homeland Security and correct the abusive system of detention at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and elsewhere that made our country more vulnerable, not less.

Vale a leitura, não só pelo assunto ser atual, mas pela abstração que se pode retirar dessa situação, que é a plena caracterização da política como uma atividade onde, infelizmente, os fins justificam os meios (de assumir o poder).

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/10/opinion/10wed1.html

No editorial do dia 06 de fevereiro de 2010, o New York Times descreve que existem verdades sobre o déficit público. A pergunta que não quer calar é como retornar os patamares pré-crise financeira, sem o endividamento público.

Várias receitas são colocadas no texto, mas chamo a atenção para essas, que sem querer puxar o viés para o Brasil, denota problemas que são comuns e que merecem ser vistas com atenção por nossos dirigentes.

What is needed is a combination of benefit cuts and tax increases that preserve the program’s essential nature — a contract under which the young support the old via taxes and the rich help the poor via a benefits formula that favors low- income beneficiaries. One sound approach would be to link benefit levels to life expectancy, so that as people live longer, future benefits would be modestly reduced while payroll taxes that support Social Security would be modestly increased.

Finalmente, a conclusão dada foi a de que não há meios de se controlar déficits públicos com pensamentos retrógrados e carregados de medo de medidas novas.
Vale a leitura, e espero que possamos aprender com os erros dos outros.

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/07/opinion/07sun1.html?scp=1&sq=deficit%20editorial&st=cse