Tyranny in Jakarta

Tyranny in Jakarta

The eviction of squatters living in 1,500 houses in Jembatan
Besi, Tambora, West Jakarta two days ago was a "war" between the
people and the security apparatus.

Some people had to be taken to the hospital after sustaining
injuries. The city administration and the owner of the land
occupied by the people refused to claim responsibility for the
forced eviction.

Who then should be responsible for this? It would take a long
debate to get an answer to this question.

The war is only the tip of the social problems piling up on
Jakarta. The problems stem from the poor mentality of the law
enforcers.

It seems that almost everything could be done in Jakarta,
provided one has the money to pay the security apparatus. And
the result? Jakarta has turned into a kampong, recognizing only
the law of the jungle.

The guilty people whose number is large then emerge as the
winner or dictator.

Ojek (motorcycle taxi) drivers already have the courage to
wait for passengers at the Soekarno-Hatta International Airport.
They even have the guts to block the street leading to the
airport.

The rich meanwhile are also tyrants in Jakarta as with their
money, they could hire people to commit violence.

-- Media Indonesia, Jakarta

;MI:
Anpak..r..
OtherOp-US-economy
The economic performance of President Bush
JP/06/

A group of prominent Democratic economists organized a conference
call last week to blast the economic performance of President
Bush. Nobel laureate Robert Solow of MIT pointed out that three
federal tax cuts in three years have done little to stimulate the
sluggish economy. Laura Tyson, who ran President Bill Clinton's
Council of Economic Advisers, observed that the government has
traded structural budget surpluses for structural deficits since
Bush took office. Berkeley professor George Akerlof, another
Nobel laureate, called Bush's tax cuts the worst fiscal policy in
200 years.

One might dismiss this critique as predictable sniping from
partisan players - except that these leading liberals now
represent the responsible wing of economic thought in the United
States. ...

Perhaps the most scathing critique, however, came from the
International Monetary Fund, an organization of ultracautious
development experts who monitor fiscal responsibility around the
globe. In a scathing report on U.S. fiscal policy, the IMF warns
that continued government borrowing could undercut world
confidence in the U.S. dollar and that tax and budget gimmicks
approved by Congress this year mean that "fiscal transparency
appears to have weakened in recent years."

That's the sort of language the IMF usually reserves for
basket-case economies such as Brazil or Mexico.

Bush's advisers say there's nothing wrong with federal budget
deficits during a recession, and they're right. But there's
nothing temporary about these budget deficits. Every major
forecast - by the White House, by the Congressional Budget
Office, by private economists - shows federal deficits persisting
long after the economic recovery takes hold. ...

-- Star Tribune, Minneapolis

Human shields
in the Iraq war

One of the almost forgotten sidelights of the Iraq war was the
"human shields."

Some 300 of these self-styled peace activists, about 20 of
them Americans, journeyed to Iraq before the war with the
intention of placing themselves in schools and hospitals to
discourage air strikes.

Most of them left before the bombing, many of them
disillusioned by the Saddam regime's use of them for propaganda
purposes and its suggestion that they might more usefully be
placed around military targets. Those shields that stayed
survived the war, unwitting testimony to the precision of the
allies' attack.

Now, those Americans who went to Iraq are receiving letters
from the U.S. Treasury noting that they face up to 12 years in
prison and fines of up to $275,000 for violating U.S. sanctions
against Iraq. ...

The sanctions against Iraq are U.S. law and Treasury is not in
a position to ignore its violations, but the human shields merit
only the most token penalty and probably shouldn't be prosecuted
at all. Surely there are bigger sanction busters the Treasury
should be after.

The human shields and the few dollars they brought with them
were of no material benefit to the Iraqis, did not affect the
outcome of the war, and engendered more ridicule than emulation.
These are not John Walker Lindhs. ...

-- The Stuart News, Stuart, Florida

By The Associated Press=
Here are excerpts from editorials in newspapers in the United States and abroad:
---
La Repubblica, Rome, on the bombing of United Nations headquarters in Baghdad:

If the attack on the U.N. building carries Saddam's signature
it could be a calculated warning to the United Nations, a body
that has now recognized the Anglo-American occupation and is
becoming more involved in it.

But there's another possible explanation. Hitting the U.N.
representatives was intended to show that the Americans are inept
occupiers, that they can't guarantee security, water and electric
power. They are not even able protect their guests. It was a
bloody insult from an invisible Saddam to George W. Bush.

The fact that a suicide bomber may have carried out the attack
on the U.N. is alarming. It is not typical of the Iraqi regime,
which never counted among its ranks religious fanatics ready to
sacrifice themselves. The Baath was traditionally a lay party,
rabidly anti-clerical.

Even if in the last few years Saddam was seen in mosques
proclaiming jihad, he never became a fundamentalist.

But in recent weeks, Iraq has been a target for those who want
to hit America. And among those are Islamic terrorists. For them
this is a unique opportunity: America is no longer a remote
object, it's now within their grasp.
---

The Guardian, London, on the bombing of Baghdad's U.N.
headquarters:

If there is any organization in Iraq about which it can be
said unequivocally that it is there to help, it is the United
Nations. The bombing of its Baghdad headquarters yesterday is
thus doubly a tragedy, both for those who lost their lives -
including the U.N.'s most senior envoy, Sergio Vieira de Mello -
and for the people of Iraq, whose future was as much a target in
the attack as was the world body.

It is also further and startling evidence of the vulnerability
of the occupation regime to what appear to be new tactics by the
diverse saboteurs who have harassed it from the start and who may
have more recently been joined by extremists coming from
outside. ...

Senator John McCain said in Baghdad yesterday even before the
U.N. headquarters were hit that more American troops might be
needed, an expansion that would be deeply unpalatable to the Bush
administration. If more troops are needed, American or British,
they will no doubt be found. The ultimate solution, however, has
to be an Iraqi one. Real security can only be achieved by the
coalition forces and the Iraqis working in tandem, in policing,
in intelligence and, eventually, in military action. In its
efforts to expand the Iraqi police and lay the basis for a new
Iraqi army, the occupation regime has recognized this truth, but
there is unhappily a long way to go.

Yet there is another side to these events. They are not likely
to lead to a general repudiation of the occupation, and may even
stiffen Iraqi support for the Americans and British, albeit in a
despairing way. Whatever the imperfections of the project to
bring stability and normality back into Iraqi life, it can be
presumed to be still preferable to the chaos and bloodshed which
is all that the spoilers have to offer.
---

---

---
Le Figaro, Paris, on France's deadly heat wave:
Two, three, or five thousand? The victim count is not yet final. But the mere idea that elderly people can die from heatstroke in 21st century France is an intolerable one ... the first impulse is to identify the culprits among us. The witch hunt has begun, the polemic is raging. ... In a democratic society, it amounts to a game. We've nearly strayed from the real issue: could we have avoided all these deaths?
Most health care professionals say (the catastrophe) can't be blamed on weakened rescue and emergency services. Ambulances, fire departments and doctors worked around the clock. They took action without orders from the government. But what can be done when an elderly person ... dies alone at home? The alert is often signaled too late. ...
But the reality of the situation matters little. ... To govern is to communicate. And on this point, the government failed. The presence of (the Prime Minister and the Health Minister) in hospitals from the outset of the crisis would certainly not have averted many deaths. But it would have reassured everyone. Our era is a strange one: communication is held up as a measure of precaution and compassion goes in guise of good leadership. ... And the media circus almost makes the real human drama look irrelevant!
----
Expressen, Stockholm, Sweden, on attack against U.N. headquarters in Baghdad:
The working hypothesis for the actor in Iraq must be that an organized guerrilla and terror threat is starting to take shape. First, a sufficiently forceful military - internationally based - resistance must be mobilized against this threat. Second, massive efforts must be made to help the Iraqi society, politically and in civilian life, to become self-propelled. Third, humanitarian efforts by the U.N. as well as other aid organizations, must continue and accelerate.
The victorious war against Saddam, as well as yesterday's act, are reminders that destruction is easy. To rebuild is infinitely more difficult. But the world community has no other choice than total engagement in Iraq's cause. Disintegrated states, we know by now, spread their venom across the world with the ease of the wind."
---

The recent blackout

And so, it seems, into each generation, a massive power
failure must fall.

The Blackout of '03 introduced millions of younger, plugged-in
Americans to what life was like on the prairie. OK, maybe that's
an exaggeration. But certainly, it was an echo of what it was
like before cell phones, microwave ovens and PlayStation 2, all
of which were useless when the power went out from Canada to
Canarsie. ...

Indeed, the most encouraging aspect of the massive power
failure that crippled the New York metropolitan area, along with
much of the rest of the state and surrounding areas, is the calm
manner in which most people reacted. It may be that having lived
through major blackouts in 1965 and 1977 and the tragic terrorist
attack on the World Trade Center in 2001, many New Yorkers have
become not only survivors, but also adept ones. ...

Sure, they wondered why the power was out and weren't happy
that it was. But no one panicked over rumors of terrorism.
Rather, they rushed to buy water and ice and nonperishable food.
They checked out candles and flashlights.

The younger ones watched and learned about power grids and
patience. They rediscovered board games. (Some cheated and
watched portable TVs.) And they cheered when the lights finally
came back on, having become the newest members of that ever-
larger club that can ask: "Where were you when the lights went
out in (fill in the blank)?"

-- The Times Herald-Record, Middletown, New York