The iPINIONS Journal

Here, in part, is how hip-hop star Wyclef Jean rationalized his decision to run for president of Haiti this November:

If I can’t take five years out to serve my country as President, then everything I’ve been singing about, like equal rights, doesn’t mean anything.

(TIME, August 4, 2010)

But I suspect some Haitians will be put off by the arrogance inherent in this rapper suggesting that being president is the only meaningful way he can serve his country. (Other wannabe presidents will probably accuse him of wanting not to be president but a cross between a black Moses and a black Messiah….)

Not to mention the disservice this rationale does to his own legacy of charitable and humanitarian work on behalf of the chronically impoverished people of Haiti. Or, for that matter, the unwitting way it discounts the abiding pride he has expressed for Haiti throughout the years in his very popular music. A pride in fact that is plainly manifest even in the name of the band that made him famous: the Fugees - derived from the refugee status far too many Haitians can relate to.

Nevertheless, the arrogance of Wyclef’s candidacy would be easily surpassed by the foolhardiness of anyone who thinks that he is not qualified to serve as president.  Here’s why:

It’s a sad commentary on the state of world affairs that the political initiatives of a Hollywood actress or rock star are taken more seriously than those of a seasoned statesman. 

How else can one explain the President of Sierra Leone drooling over Angelina Jolie last week as he promised HER immediate action on redressing human rights abuses in his country after rejecting repeated appeals by President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa to do just that?

How else can one explain Western leaders, including U.S. President George W. Bush, fawning over rock star Bono earlier this year as they promised HIM debt relief for African nations after rejecting repeated pleas by President Obasanjo of Nigeria (and even from Nelson Mandela) to do just that?

(Celebrity-obsessed world has made actors and rocks stars statesmen of our time, The iPINIONS Journal, May 23, 2005)

Actually, I published a commentary only yesterday (on my weblog The iPINIONS Journal) in which I noted that, despite the efforts of revered politicians like the late Senator Ted Kennedy, hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons is generally regarded as the one who finally got the U.S. government to amend drug laws which mandated racial disparities (in favour of whites) in cocaine cases.

So given that, in our celebrity-obsessed world, even Western leaders get this star struck, just imagine how captivated ordinary Haitians will be by Wyclef’s celebrity, which clearly rivals that of Angelina, Bono, and Russell.

In point of fact, this is why actor Sean Penn is the most celebrated relief worker in Haiti today - even if he’s too self-righteous to recognize it. It is also why I fear that the other 30-plus candidates in this presidential election will find that all of their academic degrees and political experience will seem irrelevant to most voters, especially once Wyclef begins wooing them at entertaining rock-the-vote campaign rallies.

But I hasten to clarify that this is not to suggest that his celebrity is all Wyclef has to offer.  After all, I doubt there’s another Haitian, let alone another presidential candidate, who has done more than he has done: not only to raise global consciousness about the chronic poverty and disease that plagued Haiti even before the earthquake, but also to raise funds to bring about change in this godforsaken country through programs in education, the arts, sports and the environment.  

Which brings me to the undeniable fact that what Haiti needs now more than anything is a leader who can institutionalize the cause célèbre aiding this earthquake-ravaged country has become.  Because the overriding mandate of any Haitian president for the foreseeable future will be to attract foreign direct investments as well as technical support to reform government institutions and build the country’s infrastructure.  Interestingly enough, here’s how I commented on this national mandate over a year ago:

I commend UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon for appointing former President Bill Clinton as Haiti Envoy. Because, in addition to keeping this country’s despairing plight in our global consciousness, Clinton will be able to marshal more financial resources and technical expertise to build infrastructure, improve democratic institutions and establish regard for the rule of law (and human rights) than any Haitian, including President René Préval and Wyclef Jean, ever could.

(Compassion fatigue for Haitian migrants, The iPINIONS Journal, July 31, 2009)

Of course, as much as he might like to, Clinton will not be on the ballot this November. But President Préval won’t be either because he is constitutionally prohibited from running for a third term.

It follows that, over a year before he announced his candidacy, I thought Wyclef had enough international contacts and gravitas to be mentioned in the same context as Clinton and Préval when it comes to providing the unique kind of leadership Haiti needs today. More to the point, it was probably this recognition of Wyclef’s clout that moved Préval to appoint him as Haiti’s international goodwill ambassador in 2007.  

I would be remiss, however, if I did not acknowledge a glaring problem with Wyclef’s candidacy. It stems from reasonable concerns that he cannot be trusted with any access to the billions in aid and investments that will be flowing into Haiti.  Here’s how I commented on this critical element of trust earlier this year:

What will distinguish this latest round of foreign aid is the vested interest all donor nations are taking in Haiti’s sustainable development.  Indeed, nothing militates against billions more being squandered quite like having former U.S. President Bill Clinton, instead of local leaders, managing this nation-building project. Especially since one can be forgiven for thinking all Haitian politicians are congenitally incompetent and corrupt…

(Haitians returning to Africa…, The iPINIONS Journal, February 12, 2010)

The reason Wyclef has some ‘splainin’ to do in this respect is that, according to credible reports, the IRS has filed over $2 million in federal tax liens against him.  This dreaded tax collection agency alleges that Wyclef was either grossly negligent or willfully dishonest in filing his tax returns for several years. In a similar vein, he has also been dogged by allegations that he has used contributions to his humanitarian Yéle Haiti Foundation for his personal benefit….

Nevertheless, I submit that Wyclef can allay all concerns about his fiduciary competence and trustworthiness by pledging that all foreign aid and investments will be directed to and processed through the NGO for Haiti’s recovery and reconstruction that Clinton is currently heading.

In any case, he would be wise to announce a team of political advisers comprised of the most talented Haitians who have not been tainted by the legacy of corruption, incompetence, nepotism, and cronyism that have made successive Haitian governments such a dysfunctional mess.  Naturally this would include calling on impeccably qualified Haitians in the Diaspora, like my esteemed colleague Jean H. Charles MSW, JD, to return home along with him to serve their country.

If Wyclef allays these concerns, I fully expect him to be elected the next president of Haiti - with all due respect to the other wannabes.

In the meantime, given that some Americans are still questioning Barack Obama’s birthright to be president of the United States simply because he lived abroad as a child, it might be helpful for Wyclef to publish irrefutable evidence that he was in fact born in Haiti and has never abrogated his birthright to serve as its president.  Especially since rumour has it that, having grown up in Brooklyn and New Jersey, he now speaks Creole, his native tongue, the way Henry Kissinger speaks English; i.e., like a foreigner.

Can Wyclef save Haiti?  Yes he can.

Related commentaries:
Celebrity obsessed world…
Compassion fatigue for Haitians…
Haitians returning to Africa…

For over 25 years, many politicians, including the late Senator Ted Kennedy, fought to redress the imbalance between federally mandated sentences for possession of crack cocaine and the powder form of the drug.  Therefore, it is ironic that no one became more identified with this fight than rap mogul Russell Simmons.

[I]t is Simmons who has led opposition to draconian Rockefeller drug law that has had such a disparate impact on poor blacks. For the application of this law invariably results in longer sentences for the small amount of crack cocaine that blacks usually possess than for a much larger amount of powder cocaine that whites usually possess…

(Black political leadership is dead…, The iPINIONS Journal, April 26, 2005) 

For example, a person convicted of possessing five grams of crack cocaine got the same mandatory sentence as one convicted of possessing 500 grams of powder cocaine.

Of course, it would be disingenuous not to acknowledge that the prevailing view in 1986, when this law was enacted, was that, because it was so cheap, the use of crack cocaine was becoming epidemic. Not to mention the association that was established between crack and inner city violence. Still, it did not take long to realize that populating federal prisons with people convicted for possessing small amounts of crack cocaine was demonstrably unfair. 

Human Rights Watch’s analysis of prison admission data for 2003 revealed that relative to population, blacks are 10.1 times more likely than whites to be sent to prison for drug offenses.

(Fellner, Jamie, “Decades of Disparity: Drug Arrests and Race in the United States,” Human Rights Watch (New York, NY: March 2009), p. 16)

Then there’s this:

Blacks comprise 62.7 percent and whites 36.7 percent of all drug offenders admitted to state prison, even though federal surveys and other data detailed in this report show clearly that this racial disparity bears scant relation to racial differences in drug offending. There are, for example, five times more white drug users than black. Relative to population, black men are admitted to state prison on drug charges at a rate that is 13.4 times greater than that of white men. In large part because of the extraordinary racial disparities in incarceration for drug offenses, blacks are incarcerated for all offenses at 8.2 times the rate of whites. One in every 20 black men over the age of 18 in the United States is in state or federal prison, compared to one in 180 white men.

(Human Rights Watch, “Racial Disparities in the War on Drugs” (Washington, DC: Human Rights Watch, 2000)

Not to mention the long-term social and economic impact disparate sentences for drug offenses have had not just on black families but life in the inner cities of America.

This is why it is so important that Obama has now followed through on his transformative promise to bridge the gap in sentencing for drug offenses, which he said during his presidential campaign was a gap that “cannot be justified and should be eliminated.”  

Most importantly, the bill he signed on Tuesday will eliminate the five-year mandatory minimum for first-time possession of crack that compelled judges to send so many blacks to prison.  But it’s not a perfect resolution because it only reduces the current disparity in sentencing between crack and powder cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1.

This day was long in coming. [This bill will] go a long way toward ensuring that our sentencing laws are tough, consistent, and fair.

(Attorney General Eric Holder, CNN, August 3, 2010)

It’s just too bad that, in order to get Republican votes, the Democrats - who control both houses of Congress - agreed not to make this new law retroactive. After all, if the law was so inherently unjust, those unjustly affected by it should have benefited by its repeal, no?

Besides, I can think of no better way to deal with prison overcrowding in this country than by freeing blacks who have already served years for possessing crack under the old federal sentencing guidelines.  Especially since then there would be no excuse for prison authorities to grant early release to celebrity convicts like Lindsay Lohan - who served only 13 of 90 days - because of overcrowding.

Finally, the reason I titled this commentary the real drug war is that America’s declared war on drugs has always been a misguided farce. Not least because targeting drugs coming into the country is rather like bailing out a sinking ship with a spoon.  Instead, targeting the unfairness in sentencing for drug offenses was the only war that was ever worth fighting.  And now that it has been won, all that remains is for America to accept the progressive social and economic benefits of decriminalizing the use of all drugs….

Related commentaries:
Black  political leadership is dead

Here, in part, is how I marked the occasion when the house of cards upon which American Idol was built began to fall apart:

[W]hen Paula was unceremoniously dumped a year ago, almost every TV critic said that the show would not only survive but thrive without her distracting and seemingly drug-induced ramblings.

By contrast, here, in part, was my prescient admonition:

I know conventional wisdom has it that most people tune in to watch Simon rip untalented fools masquerading as wannabe idols to shreds with his nasty, acerbic comments. But hasn’t his shtick become a bit trite and predictable?

On the other hand, I’ve seen enough episodes of this show to assert that just as many people probably tune in to watch Paula. And that they do so for the same reason so many people tuned in to watch the human train wreck that was The Anna Nicole Show; namely, because her seemingly drug-induced ramblings made for perversely suspenseful and entertaining TV.

Not to mention the side drama of wondering which new talent might end up being the object of her Mrs. Robinson-style mentoring… It’s undeniable: Paula was good for ratings.  And her absence is bound to result in significantly lower ratings for Idol next season.

(Paula Abdul quitting American Idol, The iPINIONS Journal, August 9, 2009)

And here’s how I presaged the spectacular failure of the “it girl” Idol brought in to replace Paula:

Apropos of success, Ellen DeGeneres is having even less of it in prime time than Jay Leno.  Frankly, the folks at FOX must have been taking advice from the geniuses at NBC. For only this explains why they thought Ellen’s folksy humor, which only appeals to the vanilla, stay-at-home moms who tune in to her daytime show, would appeal to the diverse people who tune in to Idol during primetime. 

For the sake of her career, I urge Ellen to stick to daytime.

(American Idol Jumps the shark, The iPINIONS Journal, May 27, 2010)

These opening quotes should indicate why I was not at all surprised when Ellen DeGeneres announced last week that she’s leaving American Idol after serving only one year of her five-year contract.  She protests - too much methinks - that she’s leaving because she could not muster the mean-spiritedness to criticize the no-talent foils who provided the fodder for Simon’s celebrated barbs. In fact, her reason is about as credible as a scandal-plagued politician claiming that he’s resigning to spend more time with his family.  She was fired. 

More to the point, though, with Paula gone, and Simon now jumping this sinking ship, firing Ellen and the fourth judge, what’s her name, is rather like putting a band aid on a hemorrhaging wound. And it has been clear from year one that all Randy Jackson brings to the show - with his “hey dog” comments - is dead weight….

Granted, hiring Jennifer Lopez to join him at the judge’s table might make it a little more buoyant. Unfortunately, whatever lift she brings will probably be offset by the downer hiring the barely-out-of-rehab Steven Tyler, lead singer of Aerosmith, is bound to cause.

For, if reports of his hiring turn out to be true, I suspect that after a few episodes of listening to this erstwhile poster boy for sex, drugs, and rock-n-roll trying to sound professorial, most viewers will be screaming at him to just shut and sing. 

Not to mention that most people who enjoy the kind of buffoonery Idol peddles as entertainment can now watch the Jersey Shore to see Snooki do the kind of carousing on screen that Tyler only used to do backstage during his heyday.

That’s a wrap!

Related commentaries:
Paula Abdul quitting American Idol
American Idol jumps the shark

There’s no denying that a number of politicians seemed hell-bent on making a career out of sounding alarms about the catastrophic and lasting impact of the BP oil spill. 

But a funny thing happened just days after BP managed to finally cap, though not kill, the well that was spewing an estimated 2.5 million gallons of oil into the Gulf Coast each day.  The oil slick, which everyone feared would be turning white sand into black tar all along the coast, simply disappeared.

There’s just no data to suggest this is an environmental disaster. I have no interest in making BP look good - I think they lied about the size of the spill - but we’re not seeing catastrophic impacts. There’s a lot of hype, but no evidence to justify it.

This is the seemingly incomprehensible assessment of the scope of the damage that has been observed so far. It was offered by marine scientist Ivor Van Heerden in a July 29 report by TIME magazine.  And here, according to this report, are the facts that support his assessment:

Yes, the spill killed birds - but so far, less than 1% of the birds killed by the Exxon Valdez. Yes, we’ve heard horror stories about oiled dolphins - but, so far, wildlife response teams have collected only three visibly oiled carcasses of any mammals. Yes, the spill prompted harsh restrictions on fishing and shrimping, but so far, the region’s fish and shrimp have tested clean, and the restrictions are gradually being lifted. And, yes, scientists have warned that the oil could accelerate the destruction of Louisiana’s disintegrating coastal marshes - a real slow-motion ecological calamity - but, so far, shorelines assessment teams have only found about 350 acres of oiled marshes, when Louisiana was already losing about 15,000 acres of wetlands every year.

Nevertheless, some in Congress are now fulminating about holding hearings to find facts to support the plainly politically-motivated charge that BP “carpet bombed” the gulf with “toxic” dispersants. The fish are fine (except for oysters that were killed not by oil but by fresh water that was pumped ill advisedly into their spawning areas to keep the oil at bay), the beaches are clean, and the wetlands are clearly going to be okay.

So what’s their beef with BP?!  Especially since the Obama administration, namely the EPA, approved every ounce of dispersant BP used. Are these politicians in Washington not aware, or do they not care, that proselytizing such unfounded concerns about the safety of commercial seafood is doing more than anything BP has done to destroy the livelihoods of people living on the Gulf Coast?

In point of fact, the federal government is now considering requests by local officials to lift the ban on commercial fishing for wide areas of the Gulf; and life is returning to normal for many fishermen and merchants who just weeks ago were lamenting the end of their lives as they knew it.  This is not to say, however, that these folks, and countless others, won’t be filing claims to get a cut of that $20 billion dollar fund President Obama extracted from BP to compensate victims for financial loss as well as emotional distress. And I urge them to be exceedingly thorough and forward thinking when filling out their claims to ensure they get as much cash as legally possible.

At any rate, it is interesting to note that this report in TIME makes a mockery of Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s Chicken Little demands - which got saturation media coverage - for $350 million to build sand berms and rock jetties to protect the marshes and wetlands. It cites the fact that the few berms the Coast Guard finally approved are now posing a far greater environmental impact than the oil itself; not least because they are already disintegrating into the Gulf. 

There are a lot of alarmists in the bird world. People see oiled pelicans, and they go crazy.

(Coastal scientist Paul Kemp, a former Louisiana State University profession who is now vice president of the National Audubon Society, The New York Times, July 29, 2010.)

But I find it particularly interesting (and encouraging) that in recent days Coast Guard spotter planes and helicopters have been flying out on missions in search of oil to be skimmed and finding none: BP oil everywhere, and not a drop to see? No doubt you recall that, not so long ago, media reports had us believing that BP’s oil was everywhere and creeping, ominously enough, towards the ballyhooed Loop Current that would have oil defiling much of the Eastern Seaboard.

Now, after this disappearing act, scientists are falling all over themselves to explain that much of the oil, which latest government reports say amounted to 205 million gallons, has simply evaporated (by a biodegrading process called weathering). The rest they say was captured at the source by BP, broken up by dispersants, eaten up by microbes, or skimmed or burned by BP and Coast Guard clean-up crews.

Despite all this, there are still some die-hard Chicken Littles who insist that this unfolding narrative of the disappearing oil is just another shameless attempt by BP’s PR machine to limit its liability. They insinuate that all of the oil is lurking underwater and will rise again … some day.  Never mind that, just like Coast Guard missions over the Gulf, all submarine missions to find this oil and, more importantly, damage to marine life haves found nothing. Undeterred, these BP critics have been reduced to challenging us to either believe their claims about an environmental catastrophe or our lying eyes….

Having said all that, I am not prepared to suggest that BP chief executive Tony Hayward has been vindicated and deserves an apology. Hayward, of course, is the empathetically challenged Englishman who was not only pilloried in the media but even lost his job for saying, among other purported gaffes, that:

I think the environmental impact of this disaster is likely to have been very, very modest.

But I feel obliged to note that even I’m on record suggesting that people, including President Obama, were overhyping the potential impact of the spill. For in the immediate aftermath this “worst environmental disaster in U.S. history,” here’s how I ended a commentary in which I pooh-poohed assertions that it would turn out to be Obama’s Katrina:

The infrequency of big spills is extraordinary considering the size of the offshore oil industry that provides Americans with affordable energy. According to the Interior Department’s most recent data, in 2002 the Outer Continental Shelf had 4,000 oil and gas facilities, 80,000 works in offshore and support activities, and 33,000 miles of pipeline.  Between 1985 and 2001, these offshore facilities produced seven billion barrels of oil. The spill rate was a minuscule 0.001%.

According to the National Academy of Sciences … only 1% of discharges in North America are related to petroleum extraction. Some 62% of oil in U.S. waters is due to natural seepage from the ocean floor, putting 47 million gallons of crude oil into North American water every year.

(BP Oil Spill: Obama’s Katrina? The iPINIONS Journal, citing report in the Wall Street Journal, May 3, 2010)

Back then I hoped this information would provide an informative and reassuring perspective on this spill. Today, with the disappearing oil, I hope it will inspire us to say thanks to Mother Nature for her seemingly infinite ability to clean up not just her own mess but these man-made ones as well….

Related commentaries:
BP Oil Spill: Obama’s Katrina

* This commentary was originally published yesterday, Monday, at 5:01 am.

I’ve always been dismayed by the fact that Caribbean natives can cite dates and facts about the emancipation of American slaves but are clueless about the emancipation of our own enslaved ancestors.

And my dismay is compounded by the fact that the predominantly white leaders of the United States have never even deemed this historic event in American history worthy of commemoration; whereas, the predominantly black leaders of the Caribbean deemed it so significant in the annals of our history that they actually established a national holiday to commemorate  Emancipation Day.  

Granted, it was over 150 years after abolition before Trinidad and Tobago became the first independent nation to do so in 1985.

In fact, the British Parliament passed The Slavery Abolition Act, which abolished slavery throughout the British colonies, on 24 August 1833. However, the Act did not come into force until 1 August 1834, which is why we purportedly observe Emancipation Day on the first Monday in August.

But our leaders have never shown any greater reverence for the occasion this holiday commemorates than they have for any of the innocuous bank holidays we inherited from our colonial masters. Therefore, it’s no wonder our people are so ignorant in this respect.

Frankly, for years I have felt rather like John the Baptist entreating government officials in all CARICOM countries to mark Emancipation Day with at least an official moment of silence (before we all rush off to the beach).

This is why I am so heartened by the fact that several countries are planning commemorative ceremonies this year. 

And in this regard, I would especially like to commend David Bowen, Director of Culture in my mother country of the Turks and Caicos Islands.  Because last year he revived our tradition of Emancipation Day celebrations (in this British Overseas Territory) by directing our Youth Development Group in an invigorating and enlightening performance of history, dance, and song.

Our enslaved ancestors must be proud!

Republicans, and even some Democrats, are saying that Barack Obama demeaned the presidency by appearing on The View  last week. 

But I don’t think this was any more demeaning than George W. Bush appearing on Dr. Phil in 2004. (Thanks for the reminder Jon….)

More to the point, though, it smacks of the most absurd form of elitism (perhaps even of sexism) to suggest that presidents should never appear on daytime TV.

Why would it be okay for the president to appear on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno at 11:30 pm (as Obama did in March 2009 to near-universal applause), but not okay for him to appear on The View at 11 am?  Frankly, I would think the latter would be more … presidential.

And, really, is it any more demeaning for Joy Behar to ask the president about Snooki than it is for Larry King to ask him about Lady Gaga?

Ironically, no one did more to romanticize the barbaric sport of bullfighting than American writer Ernest Hemmingway did with the publication of his non-fiction book, Death in the Afternoon. After all, even though it has a longstanding tradition in Latin America, Portugal, France, and Spain, bullfighting has always been every bit as morally repugnant as dogfighting in Hemingway’s own country, the United States.

But to read this book, one would think that developing an appreciation for the death-defying “magnificence of bullfighting” is every bit as important as developing an appreciation for the life-affirming experience of good sex or good food.  And if you doubt my reading, here’s how Hemingway rationalized his blood lust for this bestial ritual:

Bullfighting is the only art in which the artist is in danger of death and the degree of brilliance in the execution is left in honor of the fighter… About morals, I know only that what is moral is what you feel good after and what is immoral is what you feel bad after.

Well, it seems that Catalonia has finally decided that there’s no national pride in having its capital city of Barcelona be known as much for bullfighting as for the Sagrada Familia, the neo-gothic cathedral designed by Antoni Gaudi. For the parliament in this “autonomous community” of Spain voted this week to ban bullfighting.

The enlightened view that bullfighting is irredeemably “cruel” prevailed over the traditional view that it is an essential feature of Spain’s national heritage and enduring character. Now latter-day guardians of this animal sacrifice fear that the moral indignation inherent in the Catalan ban will inspire other places where bullfighting is still practiced to … see the light.

Hope springs eternal. Indeed, it is instructive to note that Britain banned foxhunting even though hunt-loving aristocrats insisted that it was as essential to their way of life as tea and scones.  And pay no mind to all of the talk about this foxhunting ban being repealed; because the Liberals in Britain’s new Tory-Lib Dem coalition government would not stand for it.  But I digress….

The ban on bullfighting in Barcelona will take effect in January 2012. 

Olé !

In a preliminary ruling yesterday, U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton declared that the core provisions of Arizona’s controversial immigration law are unconstitutional and therefore cannot take effect today as scheduled.

This means, among other things, that illegal immigrants in this state do not have to carry their papers at all times; that they cannot be arrested for seeking employment; and that the police cannot check their immigration status while enforcing any other traffic or criminal law.

Here in part is how the judge justified her ruling:

There is a substantial likelihood that officers will wrongfully arrest legal resident aliens under the new law [i.e., racial profiling]… Even though Arizona’s interests may be consistent with those of the federal government, it is not in the public interest for Arizona to enforce pre-empted laws.

(U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton, Associated Press, July 28, 2010)

But I knew it would be thus; for here, in part, is how I commented on this law after it was enacted earlier this year:

I was relatively pleased when Arizona legislators rushed on May 3 to enact several amendments to address well-founded concerns about racial profiling. But these amendments still do not address the inherent flaw in this legislation, which stems from this state’s attempt to preempt a power that the Constitution delegates to the federal government.  Specifically, Arizona’s attempt to enforce immigration law, no matter how amended to mirror federal law, is unconstitutional. This, notwithstanding its admittedly persuasive argument that it was only trying enforce a national law that the federal government seems unwilling or unable to enforce.

(AG Holder’s ignorance of law is no excuse, The iPINIONS Journal, May 17, 2010)

No doubt Arizona, as well as other states, will continue to litigate this matter. But when all is said and done, I am convinced that even this conservative U.S. Supreme Court will uphold Judge Bolton’s ruling that the federal government enjoys plenary and exclusive powers to enact laws pertaining to immigration: period.

But this will only settle the legal side of this issue.  Meanwhile, the political side might prove to be far more contentious. I rarely cite fellow political commentators on this weblog.  But I was so impressed with the way Chris Mathews framed the politics involved in a commentary on his program Hardball last night that I think it’s worth citing her for your comprehensive edification:

Let me finish tonight with this federal injunction against the new Arizona immigration law.

First of all, it is a “killer” issue politically for the Democrats this fall and a huge windfall for the right. It will anger even those people who believe the Arizona law went too far. It will dramatize the main case raised by the Tea Party people: that the federal government in Washington has become too powerful, that the rights of the states have been terribly abridged.

I wish Americans were fair-minded about immigration. I wish the politicians were honest about it. The right panders by suggesting it would throw the millions of illegal immigrants out of the country - knowing full well that would be a catastrophe. The liberals refuse to get serious about enforcement.

The deal is there to be struck. Find a way for people who have made lives here to become full, assimilated Americans like every other immigrant over our history. Find a way to stop the illegal hiring of people who have no right to be in this country. Do both or get out of the way because only by doing both will there be a deal and without a deal this problem will grow and grow. The divide in the country will cut deeper and the only winners will be the exploiters - those interests who love this issue because the more heat it raises on illegal immigrants the more it cheapens their labor and delivers the vote - and that, too, is a fact.

I couldn’t have said it better myself.  Oh wait, I have. See my 2006 commentary on the need for comprehensive immigration reform by clicking related link below.

Related commentaries:
AG Holder’s ignorance of law is no excuse
Comprehensive immigration reform

It is no exaggeration to assert that throughout much of the Cold War, France seemed almost as determined as the Soviet Union was to keep America’s military power in check. 

This is why it came as such a surprise when France enlisted in President George W. Bush’s coalition of the willing to invade Afghanistan to avenge the al-Qaeda attacks of 9/11. It is also noteworthy that France followed up its participation in this coalition by rejoining the U.S.-dominated NATO just last year - after a 43-year estrangement. 

These two developments signaled its intent to formally give up the Gallic notion of leading a European military organization to counter America’s unrivaled military power in the aftermath of the Cold War. Now it is arguable that this tortured Franco-American military alliance has come full circle - with France becoming the first nation to join the U.S. in formally declaring war on terrorism:

We are at war with al-Qaida.

(French Prime Minister Francois Fillon, Associated Press, July 27, 2010)

Interestingly enough, though, it did not take a 9/11-style terrorist attack, or one similar to the 7/7 attack in London, or even a terrorist attack on French soil to incite this declaration of war.  

Instead, all it took was the kidnapping (in late-April) and subsequent killing of a French humanitarian worker by al-Qaeda cohorts in Northwest Africa (Mali).   

And France is putting its military where its mouth is. Because less than 24 hours after President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed that the killers will “not go unpunished,” France launched the kind of retaliatory strikes at the suspected base camp of those responsible that America has been launching at al-Qaeda base camps in Pakistan for years….

It’s important to make that kind of announcement. I think it’s made of the same stuff as former U.S. President George W. Bush’s tough line on al-Qaida.

(Associated Press quoting Francois Gere, head of the French Institute of Strategic Analysis, July 27, 2010)

Welcome to the fight France. Just don’t repeat the U.S. mistake of conflating your right to launch strategic military strikes in defense of your country with some moral obligation to build al-Qaeda’s North African base camps into a thriving democracy.

Much ado is being made in Washington about the 91,000-plus U.S. military documents that the whistleblower website, WikiLeaks, leaked (via the New York Times, London Guardian, and Germany’s Der Spiegel) on Sunday. These documents purportedly give an unvarnished and unprecedented, bomb-by-bomb account of how U.S. soldiers fought the Afghan War from 2004 to 2009.

But despite the hype, the leaking of these documents pales in significance to the release of the famous Pentagon Papers, which exposed the policy misgivings top-level political and military officials had about America’s involvement in the Vietnam War.  Not least because, back then, the government and military exercised such control over the dissemination of information that what the Pentagon Papers revealed was truly shocking and newsworthy - given the rosy scenario those officials were painting of the progress of this war.

By contrast, what Wikileaks revealed about the folly, fog, and horrors of this war is, frankly, old news. Not least because the internet has provided the means for every foot soldier and crack reporter to “expose [the] true Afghan war” - to quote the London Guardian’s misleading headline.

For  example, the highlights in WikiLeaks’s “secret files” pertain to the fact that this war has become an unwinnable mess; that soldiers complain about the lack of resources and wonder why they’re fighting to win the hearts and minds of people who are just trying to kill them; that the military routinely discount the number of civilian casualties; that Iran has been arming Taliban insurgents; and that Pakistan has not only been providing refuge to al-Qaeda terrorists but also aiding and abetting Taliban attacks on U.S. troops.  

But a cursory search of this weblog, under the term “Afghanistan”, will reveal that even I have written commentaries on all of these so-called secrets over the past five years, citing them as reasons why this war is just another Vietnam.  Moreover, even on the most controversial point, namely of Pakistan’s treachery, no less a person than Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has been raising very damning and undiplomatic questions about Pakistan’s loyalties over the past year:

I believe somewhere in this government are people who know where Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida and where Mullah Omar and the leadership of the Taliban are. We expect more cooperation (from Pakistan) to help us bring to justice capture or kill those who brought us 9/11.

(Clinton, Times of India, May 10, 2010)

This is why the claim by the White House that the release of these documents compromises the war strategy is so demonstrably disingenuous. After all, I doubt that any revelation could be made about the conduct of the Afghan War that could make it any more of a costly mess - in terms of lost lives and treasure - than it already is.

That said, this leak, reportedly the biggest in U.S. history, could actually serve an important purpose. Because this documentation of the utter futility of the Afghan War might finally precipitate the kind of mass anti-war protests that finally forced the U.S. government to declare victory and retreat from Vietnam. But I doubt it.

Meanwhile, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange (pictured above) has now made quite a name for himself. I just hope he realizes that he is now as much a wanted man as Osama bin Laden. And I doubt Assange has a secret intelligence agency like Pakistan’s ISI to protect him….

NOTE: Assange, an Australian computer hacker turned self-professed internet activist, operates WikiLeaks pursuant to the credo that governments and corporations should have no secrets.  But this is as foolhardy as it is dangerous. Indeed, it is naïve to think that “total transparency” is the only way to combat corruption and unethical behavior - as he professes.

Frankly, it’s a reflection of Assange’s self-importance and self-righteousness that he believes the people of the United States want (in fact need) him to expose their government’s secrets.  But I think he would do better to target totalitarian regimes in those parts of world where oppressed people could truly benefit from his transparency crusades.

Related commentaries:
Afghanistan: Snatching defeat from jaws of victory
Please, spare us the al Qaeda obituaries
Iran arming America’s enemies in Afghanistan

Jean Gregoire Sagbo  gives new meaning to the term, Black Russian.  Because henceforth when that term is uttered, the reference might be as much to him, the first black to be elected to political office in Russia, as to the eponymous drink.

Granted, his election is more akin to the first black being admitted to serve on a town council in the Jim Crow South than Obama being elected president of the United States.  In fact, Sagbo has only been elected as one of ten councilors of Novozavidovo, a small town 100 kilometers (65 miles) north of Moscow. But his election still signifies a change in Russian politics that is worth heralding.

His skin is black but he is Russian inside. The way he cares about this place, only a Russian can care.

(Vyacheslav Arakelov,  mayor of Novozavidovo, Kyiv Post, June 25, 2010)

One can be forgiven for thinking, though, that Sagbo’s election is nothing more than a quaint or token gesture. During the Cold War, a significant number of Africans became indoctrinated with communist ideology and did all they could to immigrate to Russia, the motherland.  And, of course, Russia was all too happy to use them as pawns in a chess game with the West for superpower dominion over the Dark Continent.

[Putin was] the first Russian leader to visit Africa’s most influential country, South Africa. And there Putin vowed to end “the decades-long interruption in ties between South Africa and Russia”. More importantly, however, Putin used this vantage point to assure all African leaders - many of whom (including South African President Thabo Mbeki) studied communist ideology and received military training as communist revolutionaries in Russia during the Cold War - that he intends to seal their bond this time around with sustainable financial partnerships instead of mere rhetorical comradeship.

(Cold War II- from the Russian Front, The iPINIONS Journal, July 17, 2007)

At any rate, it is hardly surprising that a few of the estimated 40,000 Africans now living in Russia have become so “settled” that they consider themselves more Russian than African these days. 

Nevertheless, as my reference above to Jim Crow indicates, Sagbo’s election is only one very small step for racial equality in Russia. For one thing, blacks are so few in number there that they exist, collectively, as the Wrightian “invisible man”. Yet those who live in big cities are often the targets of the kind of hate crimes that blacks who lived in the South during segregation experienced.

Nearly 60% of black and African people living in Russia’s capital Moscow have been physically assaulted in racially motivated attacks.

(BBC, Africans ‘under siege’, August 31, 2009)

So congratulations to Mr. Sagbo. But I suspect that he and all of the other Africans who went to Russia seeking a socialist utopia must now wish that they had bought into the American dream instead….

Related commentaries:
Cold War II- from the Russian Front

It is hardly ever a good idea to allude to Nazism to make a political point. But there are rare occasions when such allusions are entirely appropriate. 

Apropos of this, it is only by alluding to the Nazi propaganda strategy of the “Big Lie” that one can fully appreciate the perfidy inherent in Tea Party spinmeisters accusing black politicians of racism.  The Big Lie of course was coined by none other than Adolf Hitler in his infamous Nazi manifesto, Mein Kampf.  It is defined in that text as:

… a lie so colossal that no one would believe that someone could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously.

No lie qualifies in this dubious respect quite like the Tea Party’s propagandist in chief, talk show host Glen Beck, accusing President Barack Obama of being a racist: 

I’m not saying he doesn’t like white people, I’m saying he has a problem. This guy is, I believe, a racist.

(Huffington Post, July 28, 2009)

Far more troubling, however, is the extent to which Tea Party activists have managed to spook the Obama administration by propagating similar lies.  For example:

• The administration threw Van Jones, its special adviser for green jobs, under the bus after Beck caricatured his political affiliations to make him seem like an unrepentant, militant communist;
• It presided over the disbanding of voter registration group ACORN after Tea Party activists distorted a few isolated cases of voter fraud to make this group seem like a latter-day, black version of the KKK; and
• It is now in the midst of a political firestorm for firing Shirley Sherrod, a low-level black employee at the Department of Agriculture, on Tuesday after a Tea Party blogger, Andrew Breitbart, made it seem (by slicing and dicing a 2 minute, 38-second viral video out of her 43-minute speech) like she was boasting about discriminating against white farmers as payback for all the years white employees in this department discriminated against black farmers.

This latest example is particularly illustrative of the Tea Party’s Big Lie strategy because Mrs. Sherrod was doing the exact opposite of what was being propagated. Specifically, she was sharing her personal story of racial enlightenment, forgiveness, and redemption (in an address at the NAACP 20th Annual Freedom Fund Banquet) by citing the many reasons she felt inclined to discriminate against a white farmer almost 24 years ago; not least of which was the fact that a white farmer had murdered her father and was never even charged.

But here are two of the critical (clarifying and qualifying) passages Breitbart left out of his doctored video:

Well, working with him made me see that it’s really about those who have versus those who don’t, you know. And they could be black; they could be white; they could be Hispanic. And it made me realize then that I needed to work to help poor people — those who don’t have access the way others have…

I’ve come to realize that we have to work together and — you know, it’s sad that we don’t have a room full of white and blacks here tonight, ’cause we have to overcome the divisions that we have. We have to get to the point where, as Tony Morrison said, “Race exists but it doesn’t matter.”

(Shirley Sherrod, NAACP 20th Annual Freedom Fund Banquet, March 27, 2010)

In fact, Breitbart’s distortion of Mrs. Sherrod’s record in this case was so offensive that the white farmer in question felt compelled to come forward yesterday to state that Mrs. Sherrod’s treatment of him was so professional and fair that he’s convinced she saved his farm.

Yet nothing demonstrates how effective Breitbart was in propagating the Big Lie that the NAACP is just as racist as the Tea Party quite like the fact that he not only “snookered” the NAACP into condemning Mrs. Sherrod but also misled the Obama administration (in the person of the Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack)  into firing her.

Never mind the irony that if people spoke at Tea Party rallies the way she spoke at this NAACP banquet - about eschewing racist tendencies and seeking common cause with people of all races, Breitbart and others would not have to resort to such pot-calling-the-kettle-black spin to defend this rogue party.

A disservice was done. An apology is owed.

(White House Spokesman Robert Gibbs, C-SPAN, July 21, 2010)

Indeed, within 24 hours - after finally reviewing the blogger’s video in the full context of her speech - the NAACP withdrew its condemnation and Vilsack fell on his sword, apologizing with an extraordinary mea culpa and offering to rehire Mrs. Sherrod (for a more high-profile job). There are even reports that Obama intends to offer a personal apology. Unfortunately, the political damage has been done; the Tea Party has won yet another one.

But as I indicated above, the real story here is not Mrs. Sherrod or even the Tea Party.  Rather it is the extent to which the Obama administration has become the puppet on a string of so many Big Lies that Tea Party ditto heads can be forgiven for thinking that the first black president of the United States is the most racist president in U.S. history.

The Tea Party and its Grand Poobah Rush Limbaugh have vowed to make Obama a one-term president.  And, evidently, they have decided that there’s no better way to do that than to propagate the Big Lie that all of his transformative accomplishments (e.g. on health care) are merely pursuant to a radical manifesto to turn America into a socialist dictatorship that will do unto whites what whites did unto blacks during the halcyon days of Jim Crow. Their aim is clearly to marginalize him as the first black president only of black American. And the more they can instigate such divisive political debates about race, the more likely it is that they will succeed.

So only God knows why the Obama administration, with all of its vaunted political and media savvy, is not just allowing Tea Party activists to poison so many minds with their Big Lies; it’s also reacting to these propagandists as if they were the arbiters of truth, justice, and the American way these days.

Meanwhile, President Obama signed the most sweeping financial reform legislation since the Depression yesterday - complete with the most comprehensive consumer protections in history.  Yet, instead of heralding this historic achievement, which, like all of his policies, will benefit far more whites than blacks, all major news broadcasts focused last night on this spectacle, featuring the administration’s bungling efforts to extricate itself from the reverse-racism trap some Tea Party blogger laid for it using Mrs. Sherrod.

Only in America folks….

* This commentary was originally published yesterday, Thursday, at 5:18 am.

You can be forgiven for having no clue that actor Wesley Snipes is facing hard time in prison for tax evasion.  But I suspect he is more distressed that so few people know about his plight than he is about his pending rendezvous behind bars.

Such are the egos of celebrities that Snipes probably resents the fact that the paparazzi are spending far more time following the antics of Britney Spears than the goings-on at his trial…

To prison he will surely go. Because prosecutors allege, and Snipes does not deny, that he filed a false claim for a $7-million tax refund, moved tens of millions of untaxed dollars offshore, and gave the government three bounced checks totaling $14 million to cover some of the taxes owed…

His conviction, which I expect the jury to announce later today or tomorrow, should serve as a reminder that only big corporations can get away with paying no taxes. And I have just two words for anyone who is inclined to buy his line about being prosecuted because he’s black: Leona Hemsley!

(Actor Wesley Snipes takes on IRS in dumbest role of his life, The iPINIONS Journal, January 30, 2008)

Given these excerpts from my commentary on his January 2008 trial, it follows that I was not at all surprised back then when Snipes was duly convicted and sentenced to three years in prison. Nor was I surprised this past Friday when the court rejected his appeal, in which he claimed that the sentence imposed was “unreasonable”.

Snipes engaged in a decade-long ‘campaign of criminal tax conduct combining brazen defiance with insidious concealment’ that amounted to a $15 million evasion and $41 million in ‘intended harm’ to the US Treasury.

(From the prosecutors’ memo to court calling for the maximum three-year sentence to be imposed)

In fact, the arrogance Snipes displayed while refusing to pay his taxes was so egregious that instead of arousing compassion, character references from a cast of Hollywood stars, including Denzel Washington and Woody Harrelson, may have only incited indignation in the sentencing judge.

What must be particularly galling to Snipes, however, is that another celebutart, Lindsay Lohan, is now hogging media coverage. Because he knows that there will be no media vigil until he reports (in a few weeks) to serve his three years in prison the way there was for Lindsay until she reported to yesterday to serve her 90 days in jail. Not to mention that she will only have to serve about a quarter of her time (around 23 days), while he will have to serve his full three years.

Lindsay of course is going to the pokey for committing a spree of violations while on probation stemming from a 2007 drug case. These included, most notoriously, traveling to Cannes earlier this year, where she partied like a girl gone wild and then gave a dog-ate-my-homework excuse by claiming that she could not make it back in time for one of her court-mandated alcohol treatment classes because somebody stole her passport.

But Snipes shouldn’t feel too bad about being ignored. After all, nothing demonstrates the dumbing down of our celebrity-obsessed culture quite like the fact that a no-talent like Paris Hilton routinely gets more media coverage than a talent like Scarlett Johansson.

Related commentaries:
Snipes takes on IRS

In our country, we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity… The burqa is not a religious sign; it’s a sign of subservience, a sign of debasement - I want to say it solemnly … it will not be welcome on the territory of the French Republic.

(French President Nicolas Sarkozy, London Guardian, June 22, 2009)

Whether or not women should be allowed to wear burqas or niqabs in public is a very controversial and contentious issue.

I do not think they should be allowed to wear either of them. But I see nothing wrong with women wearing Hijabs or jilbabs.

On the other hand, I do not agree with President Sarkozy’s patronizing pronouncements on the gender implications of the burqa. Not least because his declaration seems premised on the demonstrably false assumption that women who wear burqas in France are no more educated or liberated than those who wear them in Afghanistan (in places where the Taliban still rule). 

I appreciate the differences between Sharia laws that clearly oppress women in places like Afghanistan and those that appear to subjugate them in places like Iraq … and France. 

Moreover, no matter how well-intentioned, I do not think any Western government should be dictating to mature Muslim women what constitutes appropriate religious garb; especially if there’s nothing inherently untenable (legally or socially) about that garb.

(Sarkozy proposes ban on the burqa, The iPINIONS Journal, July 1, 2009)

This, in part, was how I expressed my disagreement when Sarkozy first proposed banning burqas in France a year ago.  Because I believe that concerns about law and order and national security present far more compelling reasons for governments to ban them. 

For example, it would rather defeat the purpose of installing CCTV cameras in every nook and cranny of public space, like most cities around the world are doing, if people could walk around with their faces completely covered. After all, terrorists and common criminals have been known to wear burqas as effective disguises.

But citing religious, cultural and gender concerns in this context is fraught with political conflict. And nothing demonstrates this quite like those opposing this ban arguing that, instead of liberating women as Sarkozy argues, banning burqas would actually oppress them:

A complete ban on the covering of the face would violate the rights to freedom of expression and religion of those women who wear the burqa or the niqab in public as an expression of their identity or beliefs.

(John Dalhuisen, Amnesty International’s expert on discrimination in Europe, Reuters, July 13, 2010)

In any case, I understand why the lower house of the French parliament voted 335 to 1 a week ago today to ban “any veils that cover the face”. The French Senate is expected to vote in similar fashion in late-September; then the ban becomes law.

For the record, several European countries, including Germany, Belgium and Italy, seem poised to follow France’s lead in banning the burqa.  And even though the U.S. Constitution purports to grant Muslim women the (religious) freedom to wear burqas, I suspect that will change as soon as someone wears one as a disguise to pull off a terrorist act.  (But contrary to popular belief, a woman cannot get a driver’s license wearing a burqa even in America.)

The instructive irony in this context, however, is that, as best I can tell, only two countries in the Muslim world (Saudi Arabia and Kuwait) require women to wear the burqa.  So, at least in this sense, Sarkozy is right, it’s not “a religious sign”.

Related commentaries:
Sarkozy proposes ban on the burqa

Over the years actor Mel Gibson cultivated an almost oxymoronic reputation as a devilish ladies’ man on screen but a devoutly religious family man in his private life.  Frankly, I never found him compelling in either role. And my cynicism was vindicated somewhat when he launched into an anti-Semitic rant four years ago after the police arrested him for driving under the influence.  Here’s the now prescient observation I made on that occasion:

[W]hatever one thinks of his movies or erstwhile sex appeal, Gibson is clearly a man possessed of many demons. And frankly, alcoholism is the least of them.

(”Arrested development of Mel Gibson: once the sexiest man alive, now the craziest”, The iPINIONS Journal, July 31, 2006)

Well, now come secret recordings of him hurling a fusillade of utterly vile, racist, profane, and abusive insults at his girlfriend Oksana Grigorieva, the mother of his baby daughter. And this prurient peep into Mel’s private life not only makes a mockery of his reputation but should put the nail in the coffin of his fledgling career.

Here are just a few excerpts that were transcribed and serialized by RadarOnline over the past few days. (I apologize if some readers find his language offensive even in this context):

Mel:  You’re an embarrassment to me. You look like a fucking bitch in heat, and if you get raped by a pack of niggers, it will be your fault.” RadarOnline.com had heard the tape.

Oksana:  You’re gonna answer one day, boy, you’re gonna answer… I’m not the one to threaten.

Mel: I’ll put you in a fuckin rose garden you cunt! You understand that? Because I’m capable of it. You understand that? (July 12)

Oksana:  What kind of a man is that? Hitting a woman when she’s holding a child in her hands? Breaking her teeth twice in the face! What kind of man is that?

Mel: Oh, you’re all angry now! You know what, you fucking deserved it! (July 13)

Enough? Well, maybe just one more:

Mel: I will fire [the domestic servant] if she’s at your house. I will make it known and fire her. I’ll report her to the fucking people that take fucking money from the wetbacks, ok?”

Oksana: You made me moneyless. I used to have hundred thousand dollars a year when you met me. You took me, you possessed me. Everything I am you own me with my liver and my kidneys and my thoughts and my soul. Everything! My career, whatever it is. Pathetic career. Whatever it is, it’s yours. You control me like marionette. I don’t belong to myself, only to you. I can’t do anything and I walk on eggshells always with you!

Mel: That’s because you’re a fucking using whore! Now, I own you… “I gave you everything. Don’t you dare fucking complain to me! I don’t fuckin’ hear you! You don’t fucking count! You’re a fucking using whore!”

Mel: Go look after my child!

Oksana: She’s my child too.

Mel: Yeah I know, unfortunately you cunt whore! I hope she doesn’t turn out like you! (July 14)

The Los Angeles police are investigating Gibson on domestic violence allegations.  Seems like a slam dunk to me.  The only question is what punishment, and how much of a mitigating factor his notorious alcoholism and now rumored bipolar condition will prove to be.

Meanwhile, Oksana has taken out a restraining order against him and is suing for full custody of their baby daughter.  That’s a wrap … on his acting career.

NOTE: In a shocking snub last week, Swiss authorities rejected an extradition request by the United Sates for critically acclaimed director Roman Polanski to be handed over to face justice for plying a 13-year-old with drugs and booze, and then raping her 31 years ago.  More to the point, though, despite this black cloud hovering over his head all of these years, Polanski was still celebrated in Hollywood. In fact, many of its A-list movers and shakers wrote character references pleading with the Swiss court to set him free. 

Therefore, Mel can derive some consolation from the fact that, even if nobody wants to see his psychotic mug on screen again, he could still be celebrated as a director - despite this black cloud, which is bound to hover over his head until the day he dies.

Related commentaries:
Arrested development of Mel Gibson
Cold justice for Roman Polanski

Washington is harrumphing with shock and outrage this week over reports that BP, the pariah oil giant, prevailed upon the British government to release Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset al-Megrahi in exchange for a $900 million oil deal with Libya.   

Recall that Megrahi was the only person convicted in 2001 for the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland on December 21, 1988; that 270 people, two-thirds of them Americans, died; and that Megrahi was sentenced to life in prison. Recall further that the British government released him almost a year ago on compassionate grounds, claiming that Megrahi was suffering late-stage prostate cancer and had only three months to live.

Well, I was harrumphing with shock and outrage back then, not only because I did not think Megrahi deserved any compassion but also because I suspected that the claim of compassion was just a pretext for a more sinister quid pro quo involving oil with the Libyan government:

Notwithstanding his alleged illness, Megrahi’s release is such an affront to common sense that I’m inclined to believe that the British released Megrahi for the same reason many believe the Americans invaded Iraq: oil… 

I am sensible enough to appreciate that incurring the moral wrath of the Americans for releasing him was a small price to pay for sweetheart oil deals with Libya…

I just wish British authorities did not insult our intelligence by citing compassion as their justification for releasing this mass murderer; especially since they have refused to show similar compassion for many other convicts who are (or were) relatively more worthy…

Also, don’t be surprised if Megrahi lives well beyond the three months he purportedly has to live … all praise be to Allah!

(Release of Lockerbie bomber: compassion v. justice, The iPINIONS Journal, August 24, 2009)

Reports this week reveal that, even though signed in May 2007, ratification of the deal BP and the Libyan was, in fact, conditioned on Megrahi’s release.  Here’s the cleverly worded statement BP issued effectively admitting as much:

BP told the UK Government that we were concerned about the slow progress that was being made in concluding a Prisoner Transfer Agreement with Libya. We were aware that this could have a negative impact on UK commercial interests, including the ratification by the Libyan government of BP’s exploration agreement.

(Reuters, July 15, 2010)

As for the obvious charade it took to secure his release, here’s what I wrote when the all too predictable reports began coming out of Libya about Megrahi’s miraculous recovery:

[A]s I predicted, Megrahi is evidently coping exceedingly well with his “terminal illness.” So much so in fact that an indignant U.S. Senator Charles Schumer is now demanding that he be extradited back to his prison cell in Scotland, immediately…

No matter Schumer’s moral demands (or President Obama’s political entreaties), however, the British simply cannot afford to renege on their Faustian exchange with Libya.  Therefore, this is a done deal!

(Lockerbie bomber still alive, The iPINIONS Journal, November 23, 2009)

Not surprisingly, Senator Schumer is now leading the calls for a full-scale investigation into what role BP played in orchestrating Megrahi’s release, insinuating that any profits BP generates from any Libyan oil well will be “blood money“. But trust me when I assert that any congressional investigation into this matter will amount to nothing more than political grandstanding. Not to mention the practical impact of cutting off nose to spite face.

For, in the first instance, just as the U.S. had no authority to prevent the UK government from releasing Megrahi, it has no authority to sanction either the UK or BP for concocting this terrorist-for-oil deal. Then there’s the self-defeating spectacle this matter poses. Because on the one hand, the Obama administration has extracted a $20 billion pledge from BP to compensate those affected by its oil spill in the Gulf; while on the other hand, this administration is raising all kinds of moral and political objections to BP’s efforts to earn those billions at every turn.

You’d think all U.S. politicians would have been chastened in this respect after their uninformed and vengeful comments caused BP to lose nearly 50 percent of its value (or $70 billion) in the immediate aftermath of the oil spill.

At any rate, it is as futile as it is misguided to meddle in BP’s business affairs in this way.  Alas, given the state of affairs in Washington these days, pursuing futile and misguided measures seems to be Congress’ mission statement.

Meanwhile, apropos of cutting nose to spite face, BP finally capped that leaking well in the Gulf yesterday - 87 days after it exploded on April 20. (Pictures juxtaposing the once-gushing and now-capped well speak volumes.) The company is now able to capture all of the seemingly inexhaustible supply of oil that is spewing from this well for sale on the open market. 

Common sense clearly dictates that the Obama administration should allow BP to do so on the condition that all profits from this well are placed in a perpetual trust, not only to ensure payment of BP’s $20 billion pledge but also to fund repair of the ecological damage it caused. Instead it is demanding that BP “kill” the well - by plugging it with mud and cement - in a reactionary, myopic, and ultimately self-defeating attempt to punish BP.

Finally, the UK government has taken pains to explain that the decision to release Megrahi was made by Scottish authorities. But whatever the nature of devolution between England and Scotland, when it comes to international matters like this, it was and is always the case that foreign governments deal with England, not Scotland or Wales - no matter how much these two former kingdoms are implicated.

More to the point, my Scottish friend, a very accomplished barrister, has lamented the way Scotland duly complies with the UK government expropriating profits from oil drilling off its coast to stash in the London treasury.  Therefore, it beggars belief to think that the UK government did not effectively instruct Scotland to release Megrahi for the benefit of the UK’s largest taxpayer, BP, and that Scotland duly complied.

This is why, when word got out that the Scots were thinking of releasing him on compassionate grounds, the U.S. appealed not to the Scots in Scotland but to that Scot in England who represents the UK government, Prime Minister Gordon Brown. And it is why Americans are so incredulous at the UK government’s attempt now to play the devolution card. Plausible deniability is one thing, but this just smacks of a rather puerile attempt to deflect blame.

Related commentaries:
Release of Lockerbie bomber
Lockerbie bomber still alive