Syrian activist nails the difference between vengeance and justice in Qadaffi’s death

Photo courtesy of newson6.com

Scanning the mostly shallow online news coverage this morning celebrating Qaddafi’s violent death, I was heartened to read David Kirkpatrick’s report from Tunisia on the front page of the NY Times. Kirkpatrick quotes a Syrian activist who points out the difference between vengeance and justice in how Qaddafi died – a distinction American and other world leaders appear to have forgotten since 9/11.

Kirkpatrick writes:

TUNIS — Like the flight of Tunisia’s dictator or the trial of Egypt’s, the capture of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi on Thursday afternoon captivated the Arab world, giving a renewed sense of power and possibility. But the photographs of his bloody corpse that circulated just moments later on cellphones and television screens quickly tempered that exhilaration with a reminder of the many still-unresolved conflicts that the Arab Spring has also unleashed.

“This isn’t justice,” Mustafa Haid, 32, a Syrian activist, said as he watched Al Jazeera’s broadcast in a Beirut office. Colonel Qaddafi should have been put on trial, his crimes investigated, Libya reconciled to trust in the law, he said, as though he still hoped better from the regional uprising that began with peaceful displays of national unity in Tunis and Cairo. 

Across the region, Colonel Qaddafi’s bloody end has brought home the growing awareness of the challenges that lie ahead: the balancing of vengeance against justice, impatience for jobs against the slow pace of economic recovery, fidelity to Islam against tolerance for minorities, and the need for stability against the drive to tear down of the pillars of old governments. 

Read more:

Al Qaeda tongue-tied in the face of uprisings in the Arab world

New challenges to bin Ladenism

NY Times foreign affairs correspondent Tom Friedman raises some good questions about U.S. involvement in the Middle East and the Arab world.

In this morning's op-ed, Friedman asks:

When one looks across the Arab world today at the stunning spontaneous democracy uprisings, it is impossible to not ask: What are we doing spending $110 billion this year supporting corrupt and unpopular regimes in Afghanistan and Pakistan that are almost identical to the governments we’re applauding the Arab people for overthrowing?

He continues:

Ever since 9/11, the West has hoped for a war of ideas within the Muslim world that would feature an internal challenge to the violent radical Islamic ideology of Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. That contest, though, never really materialized because the regimes we counted on to promote it found violent Muslim extremism a convenient foil, so they allowed it to persist. Moreover, these corrupt, crony capitalist Arab regimes were hardly the ideal carriers for an alternative to bin Ladenism. To the contrary, it was their abusive behavior and vicious suffocation of any kind of independent moderate centrist parties that fueled the extremism even more. 

Now the people themselves have taken down those regimes in Egypt and Tunisia, and they’re rattling the ones in Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, Oman and Iran. They are not doing it for us, or to answer bin Laden. They are doing it by themselves for themselves — because they want their freedom and to control their own destinies. But in doing so they have created a hugely powerful, modernizing challenge to bin Ladenism, which is why Al Qaeda today is tongue-tied. It’s a beautiful thing to watch.

Read more:

Pulitzer prize-winning Friedman’s educational background gives him additional credibility on today’s topic: he received a B.A. degree in Mediterranean studies from Brandeis University in 1975 and in 1978 he received a Master of Philosophy degree in Modern Middle East studies from Oxford.

Secretary Clinton focuses her worldwide efforts on behalf of human rights in Tunisia

Photo is in the public domain.

Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state has already been noteworthy for her efforts on behalf of human rights around the world. Recently, the Secretary has focused on Tunisia following the overthrow of long-time dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.

AFP reports:

WASHINGTON — US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called on the embattled Tunisian prime minister to carry out democratic reforms to stem the country's political turmoil, her spokesman said Saturday.

Clinton called Mohammed Ghannouchi "to encourage ongoing reforms, and pledged support for transition to open democracy," State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said in a message on the micro-blogging website Twitter.

Read more: