In Pursuit of Peace in the Middle East

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"The Framework for Peace in the Middle East and the Framework for the Conclusion of a Peace Treaty Between Egypt and Israel were two major steps forward. For a few hours, all three of us were flushed with pride and good will toward one another because of our unexpected success. We had no idea at that time how far we still had to go."

Jimmy Carter
Keeping Faith (1982)

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It is probably not an exaggeration to say that the presidency of Jimmy Carter endured more bad days than good.

But today is the 35th anniversary of one of the good ones — maybe the best one — for it was on this day in 1978 that Carter, Israel's Menachem Begin and Egypt's Anwar Sadat signed the Camp David Accords.

Those accords led to a peace treaty the following year — the first such treaty ever signed by the still–new nation of Israel with any of its Arab neighbors in the Middle East — and a shared Nobel Peace Prize for Begin and Sadat.

Secretly, the three men had been engaged in nearly two weeks of negotiations at Camp David, Md., the presidential retreat. Their mutual suspicions required Carter to negotiate with each one separately, going from one cabin to another. At one point, I have heard, he even took the two men to nearby Gettysburg in the hope that they would be inspired by the story of America's civil war.

At the time the accords were signed, it seemed to the general public that the negotiations at Camp David were virtually spontaneous, but appearances can be deceiving. In truth, the Camp David Accords were the outcome of more than a year's worth of diplomatic discussions between the three countries that began after Carter became president in 1977.

What was unique was the fact that Carter managed to bring the two leaders to the same place at the same time.

But even that wasn't enough to ensure the success of the negotiations.

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It required a lot of hard, behind–the–scenes work. The two nations had a brief but stormy history that aroused great passion on both sides — and erected often–enormous barriers between them.

Since Israel was established in 1948, there had been three armed conflicts between Egypt and Israel by the time of the Camp David Accords. Israel won them all and, as a result of the 1967 war, controlled the Sinai Peninsula that connects Africa and Asia.

But Sadat, who probably deserves more credit for the Camp David Accords than he received, traveled to Jerusalem in late 1977 to speak to Israel's parliament, the Knesset. Less than a year later, he joined Carter and Begin at the presidential retreat.

At the time of the accords, Sadat was widely praised outside the Arab world — within it, though, he was roundly condemned. Three years later, on the eighth anniversary of the Yom Kippur war, Sadat was assassinated by Muslim extremists while he watched a military parade in Cairo.

The peace process continued.

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Preserving, Protecting and Defending Our Constitution

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It is ironic that we should observe the 225th anniversary of the creation of the U.S. Constitution at this time.

I know some folks who think the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are one and the same. That simply isn't so. The Constitution was created in 1787 and ratified in 1788. The Bill of Rights wasn't even created until 1789. America was very much a work in progress at that time — as it still is.

The 225th is a milestone — even if it lacks the pizzazz of a centennial or bicentennial — which is always an occasion for reflection.

This particular milestone, however, is more than an occasion to pause and reflect on the past. It is an occasion to ask ourselves where we are going and if a Constitution that was written in the 18th century is the appropriate vehicle to take us there.

The Constitution is the document that spells out the powers and duties of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of the U.S. government.

And the president's #1 duty is ...

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"The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia of the several States ..."

U.S. Constitution
Article 2, Section 2, Clause 1

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When the president takes the oath of office, he swears that he will "preserve, protect and defend" the Constitution (which does not mention things like education, health care, marriage law, etc., being presidential responsibilities).

In other words, national security and defense are the president's top priorities. Some would say they are the president's only responsibilities. I don't feel that way. The president clearly has important domestic responsibilities as well, but he is the face of American foreign policy

However, it is Congress, not the president, that is authorized to declare war.

That condition has eroded considerably since about the mid–20th century.

And it leads me to wonder sometimes if the Constitution needs to be overhauled. I'm afraid, though, that, as polarized as this nation is, no consensus could be reached.

To listen to the presidential candidates this year — at least until recently — one would think that foreign policy no longer had any relevance to American life.

But the events last week in the Middle East prove that is not the case.

So it is a good thing that this Constitution Day brings a fresh reminder that, while a sound economic policy is critical to the well being of the United States, a president has a sacred commitment to the nation's security and defense.

Until last week, the most I had heard from either side regarding national security and defense was Joe Biden's proposal for a bumper sticker: "bin Laden is dead and GM is alive."

That kind of attitude demeans the importance of this portion of the presidential job description. To be sure, the economy and jobs are the most important issues facing this country, in the minds of most Americans, but that does not mean national security and defense have stopped being important.

What has happened — and continues to happen — in the Middle East underscores the fact that no president can control what people in other countries do. Jimmy Carter could not control the radical Muslims in Iran, and Barack Obama cannot control the radicals in Egypt or Libya or Syria.

The best any president can do is insist that U.S. troops be prepared. It is an ongoing responsibility. It cannot be checked off one's presidential to–do list simply by eliminating Public Enemy #1 from the global terrorism roster.

It's not so unusual for Democrats to ignore national defense issues, but it is rather unusual for Republicans to do so. Yet, that is what they did in their convention.

Voters can be forgiven for wondering if either candidate is prepared to stand up for them against a hostile world.

All along, the Obama administration has pretended — to its peril as well as the peril of the rest of us — that the situation in the Middle East was not what the rest of the world could see it really was.

Which goes a long way toward explaining the administration's tepid response to the wave of overt anti–Americanism that is sweeping through the region like a roaring fire.

The administration is perplexed. It sincerely believed that being apologetic and accommodating to the Muslim world would herald a new relationship between America and the countries of that region.

But that has not happened. And now the administration has been forced to acknowledge that privately — it cannot do so publicly because this is an election year.

So the cover story of an objectionable video was invented.

Actually, that's a reasonably plausible straw man, and it seems to be fooling quite a few people. We've already seen how little tolerance countries in that part of the world have for concepts like dissent and free speech, but some simply will not see it.

It seems to me that one would have to be a dunce not to realize the significance of the date on which these protests began. It was the 11th anniversary of 9/11.

Why, you may ask, didn't the terrorists try something on the 10th anniversary? Well, I would say it was not because they didn't hate us. They have hated us for a long time. I think the spotlight was too bright. Security was beefed up everywhere for that anniversary.

But, apparently, no one was really paying attention on the 11th anniversary. The rituals of every 9/11 since 2001 were observed, but I heard no talk of how U.S. forces were on highest alert for the anniversary.

Perhaps the extremists gambled that, since nothing happened in 2011, our guard would be down in 2012. We Americans are notorious for our short attention spans.

Surely, if nothing else, we have seen that these Muslim extremists are extraordinarily patient. After all, they waited nearly 10 years after their first attack on the World Trade Center to launch their second. Why wouldn't they be willing to wait out the 10th anniversary of 9/11 — with the intention of striking on the 11th?

I can't understand why any U.S. forces in the Middle East or any other place in the world where there is a significant Muslim population would not be on their toes on every September 11.

But this time, apparently, they were not. If they had been, four Americans would be alive today.

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Twisting Slowly in the Wind

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There have been many tragic stories coming from Egypt in recent weeks, but the most tragic may well have been the report of the sexual assault and barbaric beating of CBS correspondent Lara Logan.

Reports of attacks on foreign journalists have been fairly common, but Caroline Glick writes, in the Jerusalem Post, that "the most egregious attack ... took place ... when ... Lara Logan was sexually assaulted and brutally beaten by a mob of Egyptian men."

I can't argue with that.

CBS, Glick goes on to say, "took several days to even report the story, and when it did, it left out important information. The fact that Logan was brutalized for 20 to 30 minutes and that her attackers screamed out 'Jew, Jew, Jew' as they ravaged her was absent from the CBS report."

Glick tells a tale of journalistic cowardice and misogyny that makes the attack on Logan seem virtually inevitable, and she begins her column with the bewildered questions that many people no doubt were asking after word of the attack began to spread:

"The Western media have been unanimous in their sympathetic coverage of the demonstrators in Egypt," Glick writes. "Why would the demonstrators want to brutalize them? And why have Western media outlets been so reticent in discussing the significance of their own reporters' brutalization at the hands of the Egyptian demonstrators?"

Such questions distract from the facts. This wasn't some kind of uncontrolled response to persecution. The mob wasn't angry about unfavorable representation in the media. What happened to Logan was a crime, and the people who were responsible should be treated like criminals. No one should justify their acts because their acts cannot be justified.

I am reminded of a scene from the Jack Lemmon–Sissy Spacek film "Missing," in which an American has disappeared during a coup in Chile and his father, played by Lemmon, and his wife, played by Spacek, try to find him.

Lemmon believes his son must have done something to lead to his arrest, and he keeps asking people to tell him what it was. Then a native scoffs at the idea. "You Americans," he says, "you always assume you must do something before you can be arrested."

"Isn't that the way it usually works?" Lemmon asks.

"Not here," the man replies.

And that isn't the way it works in Egypt, either. I've read many reports on the attack on Logan, and I have found not a single word that suggests that she was doing anything other than her job when she was attacked. Meanwhile, the men who did this to her have been protected, their faces blurred to hide their identities in broadcasts of videos showing Logan with her assailants just before the assault.

Here in America, there are still people who think a woman brings such an assault on herself, usually by dressing and/or behaving provocatively. But even if Logan was wearing a short, tight skirt and a low–cut blouse and grinning suggestively at the men who attacked her, that would not make what was done to her all right — by any stretch of the imagination.

Logan's attack presents an ugly picture, and it tells a twisted and shameful tale of media coverage in foreign lands. Many foreign journalists have been intimidated by their treatment in the Middle East, and they have been eager to avoid rocking the boat.

The absence of courage among Western journalists has been, to use the most charitable term possible, disappointing.

But what this says about the treatment of women is, if anything, even worse, because it isn't the kind of thing that is confined to Egypt or other places teetering precariously between freedom and repression. The subjugation of women is often tolerated in supposedly free nations.

In essence, journalists (who have always been willing to risk their lives to bring the news to their readers and listeners — but who could usually count on a certain amount of support and protection from their employers and governments in return) are being left to, in the words of Nixon aide John Ehrlichman, "twist slowly in the wind."

That may be an unfamiliar sensation for many journalists. But the women in their ranks have long felt that way in Egypt and elsewhere.

What happened to Logan may yet yield some good things because it shines the spotlight on the appalling treatment of women in Egypt. As Jeff Jacoby writes in the Boston Globe, "Perhaps the most shocking thing about the despicable sexual attack on CBS correspondent Lara Logan ... is that to those who know Egypt, it wasn't shocking at all."

Nearly three years ago, the BBC reported that 83% of Egyptian women — and nearly all foreign visitors — had been subjected to some form of sexual harassment. The BBC called it "Egypt's cancer."

Mary Rogers wrote about sexual harassment at CNN.com nearly four months ago.

While I'm on the subject, a good place to begin moving past the "socially acceptable bigotry" (in Glick's words) that is permitted to exist would be to start calling that attack what it was.

I don't mean to insert a note that is too frivolous for the subject, but I have long been a fan of the late George Carlin — and I particularly enjoyed his observations about language.

Carlin didn't care for euphemistic language. He said Americans had invented a "soft language" to help them avoid dealing with reality, and he was right. Sometimes, as he pointed out, the euphemisms were fairly innocuous — like saying "bathroom tissue" instead of "toilet paper." No harm, no foul, right?

But sometimes euphemisms are used to hide really ugly truths, and this case seems to be loaded with euphemisms like that.

If Logan was sexually assaulted (by approximately 200 men, I have heard) and the attack went on for 20 or 30 minutes, she was raped.

I know the Wall Street Journal disagrees with that. The Wall Street Journal, quoting an unnamed source, insists that she was not raped. But could such a thing really be possible?

"Sexual assault" sounds like it was not as bad as it almost certainly was. It makes it sound like it involved everything but penetration (which wouldn't be particularly good, either, but some people could use that distinction to minimize what happened).

It sounds to me like the attackers were in a frenzy. How many blows would have been required to render Logan unconscious and then strip the clothes from her body? Are we supposed to believe that her attackers suddenly stopped after fondling Logan and said to each other, "Stop! We can go no farther. We are already guilty of sexual assault. If we go past this point, it will be rape."

Let's call it what it was — rape.

Even if, technically, only one of Logan's attackers committed the rape. Or two. Or three.

Wouldn't anyone who stood by while someone else committed a rape be guilty of, at the very least, being an accessory?

I'm not a lawyer, and I don't know the fine points of the law so I could be wrong. But it would be consistent.

See, "sexual assault" is rather broadly defined and is often used interchangeably with "rape." But "sexual assault" could mean a lot of things.

"Not all sexual harassment is physical," Jacoby writes. "[B]esides groping women's bodies, grabbing at their clothing, and indecent exposure, it can also include blatant ogling, sexual catcalls, and stalking."

And, for the "I'm–too–sexy–for–my–shirt" naysayers, Jacoby has this: "More than half the Egyptian women reported being molested every day. And contrary to popular belief, most of the victims were wearing modest Islamic dress."

Different jurisdictions have different definitions for rape — or statutory rape. And they don't necessarily have to include intercourse. Even if Logan was not violated (which I still find doubtful), her assailant(s) could be charged with rape.

The sight of Egyptians protesting against their corrupt government certainly was stirring for many pro–democracy types, including those who aren't especially worried about whether freedom really is inclusive.

But, as Miranda Devine writes in Australia's Herald Sun newspaper, a free Egypt will mean nothing to its women ...

... And it will mean even less to its foreign visitors.

Surely, there must be some way for justice to be served — and for Egypt's newfound freedom to have real meaning.

Let's stop hiding behind words. Let's say what we mean and mean what we say.

And let's take a resolute stand against this kind of behavior, wherever we find it.

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Bad Craziness

When I was a teenager, I was a fan of the Doonesbury comic strip.

I recall reading a strip once in which the Hunter Thompson–inspired character, Uncle Duke, in a clearly hallucinatory state, slumped behind something and muttered, "Bad craziness," while some sort of bizarre creature hovered over where he had stood in the previous frame.

I don't remember the details — and they aren't important, anyway.

But "bad craziness" is what came to my mind when I heard that gas prices have hit a 28–month high.

That is true in spite of the fact that, as Sandy Shore of the Washington Post reports, "[O]il and gas supplies in the U.S. continue to grow and demand for gas is weak."

It's the same through–the–looking–glass sensation I get when I look at the monthly unemployment report.

Earlier this month, we were told that joblessness went down dramatically. But the number of jobs created was not enough to keep up with the growth of the working–age population.

Mathematically, it doesn't add up — until you realize that only the people who are receiving benefits are counted. People whose benefits have expired aren't being counted anymore. They may still be unemployed — and, in this economy, they probably are — but they aren't being counted.

And bureaucrats can congratulate themselves on lowering the unemployment rate — when, in fact, they have done nothing to lower the unemployment rate.

Bad craziness.

Likewise, it is bad craziness for gas prices to be at their highest level since the fall of 2008.

One would be tempted to blame the unrest in Egypt for the price spike. But, as Shore points out, gas prices have been going up since November — predating the revolt in Egypt (which, nevertheless, has contributed to the regional instability that has traders worried about disruption of production and delivery).

And how's this for news? Gregory Karp of the Chicago Tribune reports that prices "aren't likely to go down anytime soon."

Bad craziness.

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Is Mubarak Alive?

It isn't my usual procedure to write about rumors, but this one is truly extraordinary. If it is true, it could have some truly profound repercussions on the Middle East peace process.

Neal Ungerleider of True/Slant writes that "[t]he talk of the Egyptian blogosphere right now is a fast–spreading rumor that President Hosni Mubarak has died."

I've been looking for confirmation, one way or the other, on reputable news sites, but, as of 7:45 p.m. (CDT), I haven't found any reports that Mubarak, 81, who recently had gall bladder surgery, died during his operation more than a week ago.

Ungerleider says "[t]he reports occurred after reports of Mubarak dying in a German hospital were broadcast on Russian television and on Arabic television."

If Mubarak really is dead, it will be the first time in nearly 30 years that Egypt has been without a leader. Mubarak assumed the Egyptian presidency following the assassination of Anwar Sadat in October 1981.

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