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