German Chancellor Angela Merkel addresses a press conference on March 19 in Berlin. Ms. Merkel defended her country's decision to abstain in a UN Security Council vote authorizing a no-fly zone over Libya, saying Germany did not want to participate in a war in North Africa. (Credit: Johannes Eisele/AFP/Getty Images/Newscom )
Among allies, Germany is the odd man out in UN vote on Libya
No one was surprised that Russia and China abstained from the United Nations Security Council vote for a no-fly zone in Libya. But Germany?
Actually, Berlin had been signaling for days that it would not go along, but still. Germany is one of America's closest allies. In this vote, Europe's biggest democracy stood alongside authoritarians and developing nations, not with its freedom-loving partners, Britain, France, and the US.
It had plenty of international cover to vote "yes." The Arab League supported the UN resolution, which is meant to avert a bloodbath in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. The European Union also endorsed the resolution.
The German exception was all the more remarkable because of this: Berlin lobbied hard for its two-year seat on the Security Council, which began Jan. 1. It gave the impression that it would be ueber responsible, that this stint was a dry run in a bid for a permanent seat.
"Germany will be a reliable, responsible and engaged partner," said Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle, about his country's seat on the Security Council. "We will do our part to ensure that the world continues to see the Council as the central body for peace and security in the world."
Muammar Qaddafi has praised Germany for its position. What an embarrassment for a country that sustained one of the colonel's terrorist bombings (his agents blew up the La Belle nightclub in West Berlin in 1986).
So why did Germany abstain? There are several official reasons. It is in the middle of restructuring its defense forces. Adding another mission outside of Afghanistan, where it has the third largest troop presence after the Americans and the British, would stretch it too far.
Mr. Westerwelle has also warned against the "slippery slope" of another war in a Muslim country with perhaps unintended consequences. Germany will not participate in the UN mission, although it is considering how it can help more with tasks in Afghanistan, such as radar flights, to free up personnel or equipment for Libya.
The unofficial reason for abstaining is because this is the popular position to take in a year chock full of important German state elections, including one on Sunday. This vote is entirely consistent with populist positions taken by Chancellor Angela Merkel – no bailout for deadbeat, debt-ridden European countries, a rethinking of nuclear power, and no support for military action, even to stop a bloodbath.
This all sounds like pretty high-and-mighty criticism, so let's just take the German position for a minute, because nothing is ever as black and white as it looks.
Pacifism still runs deep in Germans who are sensitive to their tragic history. Slowly, though, Germany has taken on greater security roles in the world. Berlin is still keeping German troops in Afghanistan, despite a strong public desire to get them out. It has deployed Germans as UN or NATO peacekeepers to the Balkans, Africa, and Lebanon.
And lobbing criticisms from America is like throwing stones at a glass Bauhaus. Let's not forget that members of Congress are divided on the no-fly issue. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warned against it for the exact same reasons that the Germans brought up. Two-thirds of Americans say the US has no responsibility to act in Libya. The Obama administration was hardly decisive about Libya, allowing France and other countries to take the lead.
Once Washington pivoted, however, Berlin should have, too. Ms. Merkel said today that "we fully endorse the aims of the resolution. Our attitude can't be mixed up with neutrality." But those words don't change the fact that in a crucial vote, Germany sided with Russia and China, and not with her friends.
Her friends have surely noticed. Indeed, a US government official told me today that in NATO, Germany is beginning to resemble the France of yesteryear: "They have become the land of 'no.' "
US Supreme Court Justices Anthony Kennedy and Ruth Bader Ginsburg participate in the court's official photo session Oct. 8, 2010. In a ruling last year, Justice Kennedy wrote of “fundamental differences between juvenile and adult minds." (Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images/Newscom/File )
More states correct the mistake of trying juveniles as adults
Last week, the Monitor ran an editorial praising states for reversing ineffective "tough on crime" policies to try juvenile offenders in adult courts. It turns out, the states have made more progress than the Monitor reported.
A study released today by the Campaign for Youth Justice in Washington shows 15 states have changed their policies about trying kids as adults, and reform efforts are underway in another nine states. An estimated 250,000 youths under 18 years old are tried as adults in the US every year.
The progress goes beyond raising the age at which juvenile defendants can be considered adults, which is what the Monitor editorial focused on. States are also removing youths from adult jails and prisons. And they're rethinking mandatory sentencing laws so that sentencing reflects the developmental difference between youths and adults.
Kids are not adults and shouldn't be tried as such. The Supreme Court agrees. In 2005 it overturned the death penalty for juveniles under 18. Last year it again drew the line at 18 when it banned life-without-parole for anyone younger, though it made an exception for murder cases. There are “fundamental differences between juvenile and adult minds,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy last year.
Treating juveniles as juveniles is better for young offenders and society. Young people are physically and emotionally safer in the juvenile facilities than in adult jails and prisons. They get more rehabilitative attention. Studies show that offenders who go through the juvenile system have a lower recidivism rate than those who go through the adult system.
This doesn't mean all is peachy with the juvenile system, which needs to keep moving away from the practice of "warehousing." But states are wising up to the fact that treating young offenders as adults was a costly mistake, brought on by crime fears in the '80s and '90s. They're correcting that mistake now.
A picture taken last August shows a fuel storage pool inside the Fukushima plant. The reactor is behind the pool. Four of the six reactors at the plant have now overheated and sparked explosions since the earthquake and tsunami knocked out cooling systems. ((Credit: JIJI PRESS/AFP/Getty Images/Newscom/File))
A nuclear meltdown in Japan? Not if these brave workers can help it.
One noble trait that the Japanese admire is gaman. It is their word for the ability to persevere, endure, and overcome, with patience.
Right now a few dozen workers at the seaside Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power complex have decided to stay put, rather than flee, in order to curtail the radiation leaks caused by Friday's 9.0-magnitude earthquake and tsunami. Even if they don't succeed, Japan may remember them for their gaman despite personal exposure to dangerous levels of radiation.
The explosions at the plant have already left one worker dead, and injured many more. Two remain missing. Officials of the Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO), which owns the atomic power complex, are now so desperate that they plan to throw water from a helicopter on radioactive rods that are exposed.
About 750 of the plant's workers have been sent away in recent days, but a crew of about 50 o 70 remain, trying to stabilize the reactors and put out any fires. They may be Japan's biggest heroes in this crisis so far.
Prime Minister Naoto Kan rightly hailed those workers, saying they “are putting themselves in a very dangerous situation.” That may be the first of many accolades to come.
But for now, they need all the gaman they can muster.
Iraqi women show their ink-stained fingers after casting their votes at a polling station in Baquba, northeast of Baghdad, on March 7, 2010. Women accounted for 55 to 62 percent of votes in that parliamentary election. That's real power. (AFP/Getty Images/Newscome/file)
Despite democracy in Iraq, women actually losing freedoms
In the last five years, women have slowly gained more rights across the Middle East and North Africa. But in three places, the overall conditions for women have worsened, according to a new report by the US democracy watchdog group, Freedom House.
I was surprised to see that one of those three is Iraq.
Iraq? Where the Americans have had such a dominant role for nearly eight years?
What happened to all those jubilant Iraqi women holding up ink-stained fingers as determined voters? What happened to the parliamentary power they gained through the 25 percent quota that Iraqi women lobbied for, and won, under the former American administrator, Paul Bremer?
War is what happened. According to Freedom House's 2010 report on 18 countries in the region, a lack of security is the common condition that has made things worse for women in Iraq, Yemen, and the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza strip. Insecurity is only part of the reason for going backward. But it's an important one, explains the report.
War hurt both sexes in Iraq, but it significantly increased gender-based violence against women. Kidnappings, rapes, and "honor killings" soared in Iraq. That made many women afraid to go out, with a negative spin-off on their employment and education.
Meanwhile, Iraq seems to be moving toward a more conservative society, and this has affected the role of women in politics. Only one woman serves as a cabinet member in the new Iraqi government, as the minister for women's affairs. In the two previous governments, women held from four to six positions.
And in parliament, many of the women are relatives of party members. The New York Times reported this week that only 5 of 86 female parliamentarians got their seats because they won them. The rest were placed there by party leaders to meet the 25 percent quota.
The women MPs are often locked out of party strategy sessions. But some of them don't mind, in part because they don't believe they have the necessary experience (as if democracy is somehow newer to Iraqi women than it is to Iraqi men).
Women across North Africa and the Middle East make gains when three factors come into play: when more women see that rights will help, rather than hurt them; when more men join the cause; when women's advocates show persistence and courage in pursuing their goals.
That's not a formula unique to Iraq, but Iraqi women do have an advantage compared to many other countries in the region: their numbers. No census has been taken since 1977, but three decades of wars have likely left a female-dominant population. In parliamentary elections a year ago, women cast 55 to 62 percent of the votes, the government's electoral commission estimates. That's real power. If only Iraqi women will use it.
A famous Japanese wood-block print by Hokusai Katsushika (1760-1849) is known as "The Great Wave off Kanagawa." While it may simply depict a large ocean wave (and boats carrying fish to market), it is also often assumed to show a tsunami from an earthquake. ((Credit: HO/AFP/Newscom))
How Japan learns from its earthquakes and tsunamis
The Japanese reaction to Friday’s earthquake and tsunami will probably serve as lesson for other quake-prone countries. Ever since a 7.9-scale quake in 1923 that destroyed much of Tokyo, the Japanese have tried to prepared for the “big one.”
Here’s my account (written two decades ago when I reported from Tokyo) of how the survivors of that last “big one” helped keep the Japanese on their toes:
The only warning for Ichiro Uchibaba was the odd behavior of a bear, a neighbor’s pet, all excited in a cage like an old alarm clock gone berserk.
Seconds later, at just before noon on Sept. 1, 1923, the earth lurched, and all of Tokyo was jolted with a ferocity that Mr. Uchibaba will never forget.
Roof tiles went flying, pillars toppled, fires erupted, and Uchibaba was thrown to the ground. The bear, which had somehow sensed the quake coming, reached out of the cage and scratched Uchibaba’s arm.“There was no place for me to escape that quake,” he recalls. “I crawled to a moat and clung to a stick until it was over.” Eight years old at the time, he witnessed the destruction of Tokyo as the city was consumed by flames over three days, taking the lives of 140,000 people, including his parents. The quake’s intensity was later estimated to be 7.9 on the Richter scale.
The seismic upheaval was an experience that Uchibaba, as head of a group of remaining survivors, and the government do not want the Japanese to forget.
Only by keeping alive the memories of the 1923 disaster do officials hope to alert the Japanese to do more than just wait around for what is often called “the Big One.”
As a reminder of the disaster, Uchibaba keeps a clock in his home set to the exact time of the 1923 quake. And every Sept. 1, he and other survivors go to a Buddhist temple and museum built to recall the great quake.
Also on Sept. 1 every year, millions of Japanese take part in “disaster prevention” drills run by local governments. School kids put on quilted headgear and practice getting under their desks. Old folks are reminded to choose a spot to meet loved ones in case they are separated. Stores sell emergency kits of water, flashlights, and preserved Japanese food, such as pickled plums.
The Japanese need few reminders. They know that their archipelago sits at a point on the Pacific rim where three plates of the earth’s crust are colliding inch by inch, producing 30 or 40 “felt” quakes a year. Geologic instability is part of daily life in Japan. The word jishin (earthquake) is murmured with dread at every tremor.
If another big quake should hit the Tokyo area, which is now home to one-quarter of Japan’s population, it would not only affect Japan but also create aftershocks on world financial markets as the Japanese withdrew overseas investments to pay for reconstruction at home.
Around 10 years ago, many Japanese seismologists predicted that a big earthquake was possible in an area just south of Tokyo within the next few decades. An “earthquake counter-measure” law was passed to improve evacuation roads, strengthen school buildings, and construct shoreline embankments against quake-generated tidal waves.
AND to really keep people on their toes, an “earthquake simulator” was invented and put on traveling trucks. The vehicles are open on one side and contain a typical Japanese kitchen. People are invited to step in and be rocked back and forth with a rising intensity, like a raft going down rapids.
“You must not think earthquakes are fun,” yells one simulator-keeper, Katsumi Hirayama, to a gaggle of giggling school girls as they are jolted. He instructs them how to turn off the gas and get under a table. For taking a shake, each girl receives a packet of vacuum-packed rice crackers to keep as emergency food.
The mock quake is not always convincing. “When a real one comes, I won’t live anyway. So why bother?” says Jun Murayama as she steps off the truck. “Even experienced swimmers can drown.”
Since 1980, the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) has placed more than 130 sensors inside mountains and on the ocean floor to pick up geologic vibrations that might signal an earthquake in the region south of Tokyo. The electronic data are monitored by computers and two persons, 24 hours a day.
But the ability to predict a quake by scientific means has not been proved. “We don’t know if we will succeed. But can we afford not to try?” says Dr. Nobuo Hamada, the center’s deputy head.
If unusual signals are detected in several places, six prominent seismologists would be rushed to the agency. If all agree that a quake is imminent, they would then ask the prime minister to call for people to evacuate the most vulnerable areas.
Since 1923, the government has set strict construction codes to make buildings, bridges, dams, and other structures as seismic-proof as possible.
Some new buildings have “rubber feet” in the base to absorb shock. A few skyscrapers have a flexibility that allows them to sway for an hour after a tremor.
Yet no one knows for sure if all the structures were correctly built, or whether the designs themselves will actually work.
“We just don’t know,” says Chikahiro Minowa, chief engineer at a government quake-simulator center outside Tokyo. The center, built in 1970, uses a 180-ton floating table to test the seismic-resistance of new architectural designs.
“It’s difficult to test a whole structure,” he adds. “We’ll just have to wait for a big earthquake.”
Japan’s most active constructor of high-rises, Kajima Corp., has invented a device to reduce the sway of tall buildings during a quake. A four-ton mass of steel sits atop an 11-story experimental structure in Tokyo and helps to “suppress” sway by quickly moving in the opposite direction with computer-driven hydraulics.
“Previous ideas were to protect buildings,” says Akiko Oda, a company official, “but now comfort is pursued.”
Quake-veteran Uchibaba says all the precautions are useless.
“The effects of the next quake will be much worse because of the way we live today. Cars will jam roads, gas stations will explode, and people won’t be able to move.
“Japan is not ready for another quake, not at all. Even if you prepare, the real thing is different from anything that you can expect,” says one who has lived to tell about it.
Charlie Sheen enters a courthouse last August for sentencing in his domestic abuse case. He pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault on his wife. In return, prosecutors dropped a felony charge, clearing the way for rehab plus probation and anger management classes. ((Credit: rg1/ZUMA Press/Newscom))
Charlie Sheen and the media's double standard on drugs
Media fascination with Charlie Sheen would quickly fall off if his personal antics in public were caused by drunkenness.
Over the years, American culture has developed a certain social stigma against drunkenness. It is no longer funny or cool. Then why are tabloid newspapers and TV celebrity shows so comfortable in playing up Mr. Sheen’s experiences with drugs?
Perhaps this double standard can be explained by the success of Mothers Against Drunk Driving. The activist group was started by Candy Lightner in 1980 after her daughter was killed by a repeat drunk-driving offender. MADD has been the leader in creating legal and social condemnation of public drunkenness, especially when it harms others in driving accidents. State laws against drunk driving have gotten tougher as a result of MADD’s heart-felt campaign.
Yet the near-glorification of drug use by some media – perhaps to help legalize certain drugs such as pot – continues. Mr. Sheen’s past drug problems are regularly reported as almost normal for a TV or film star. And the media often leaves out the consequences to others, such as a history of physical abuse to women by the former star of Two and a Half Men.
Sheen has sought help for his personal problems in the past, and probably needs to do so again to regain his Hollywood career. But is there also such a thing as rehab for media journalists addicted to druggy stars?
And perhaps the victims of drugged-out stars can start an organization like MADD to eventually bring a strong measure of shame to an equally dangerous activity.
Foreign tourists walk past a bust of Mahatma Gandhi in Mani Bhavan, the residence where Gandhi planned political activities between 1917 and 1934, in Mumbai on November 4, 2010. (INDRANIL MUKHERJEE/AFP/Getty Images/Newscom)
Is Gandhi really in hell?
If you’re a Christian, do you believe that billions of the world’s non-Christians will go to hell? Do you think the question even matters?
Pastor Rob Bell thinks it does matter. The founding pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church in Michigan, Mr. Bell is a young and influential Christian speaker who's ruffling feathers with his latest book, “Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.” It challenges some of Christianity’s most fundamental beliefs about salvation.
According to the publisher’s description, Mr. Bell argues “that a loving God would never sentence human souls to eternal suffering.” And in his own promotional video, Bell puts adherents of traditional teachings on the defensive with a stark question about Gandhi, India's Hindu hero of nonviolent resistance: “Gandhi’s in hell? He is? And someone knows this for sure?”
Here’s the YouTube video:
The backlash to his book and video has been intense, resulting in charges of heresy and a robust defense of hell from leading conservative evangelicals. Those who rebut Bell with Scripture have plenty of verses to choose from, as this blog illustrates.
But debates over hell are as old as the Bible itself and the near-unanimous belief in eternal punishment has been giving way to kinder, gentler views (including universal salvation) about the afterlife since at least the 19th century, so why is Bell’s book causing such controversy today?
In part, it’s because defenders of traditional doctrine may have reached a statistical tipping point, making the perceived defection of one of their own on such a core, sensitive point seem all the more significant. Indeed, the fault line is no longer between evangelicals and mainstream culture; it’s between a core group of traditionalists and the rest of evangelicals (especially younger ones) who are increasingly uncomfortable with “my way or the highway” doctrine.
According to a 2007 Pew survey, a full 57 percent of evangelicals believe that many religions can lead to eternal life, while only 24 percent of evangelicals agree that “my religion is the one, true faith leading to eternal life.” And more than half agree that “there is more than one way to interpret the teachings of my religion.”
What the Pew poll suggests is that pluralism (there are many paths to salvation) and universalism (everyone gets saved) have grown from outlier concepts into mainstream Christian thinking.
That’s why Bell’s “to hell with hell” message feels like a Rubicon to conservative evangelicals. Take away hell, the thinking goes, and you might as well take away God’s wrath and our inescapable need for His saving grace.
Bell, for his part, may see another factor at work in the controversy: insecurity. Explaining criticism of his past views, he once said: "When people say that the authority of Scripture or the centrality of Jesus is in question, actually it's their social, economic and political system that has been built in the name of Jesus that's being threatened. Generally lurking below some of the more venomous, vitriolic criticism is somebody who's created a facade that's not working.... But I love everybody and you're next!"
And what would Gandhi think of his newfound role as Rorschach test for Christian teachings about hell? Perhaps the bumper sticker seen on many VW Beetles gives an answer: “I like your Christ. I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” – Gandhi
House GOP Whip Kevin McCarthy at a Monitor breakfast with reporters today. (Michael Bonsigli/Special to The Christian Science Monitor)
The deficit show, with House GOP Whip Kevin McCarthy
Kevin McCarthy, the Republican whip in the House, came to a Monitor breakfast with reporters today and flipped through various charts and graphs on the nation's deficit and debt. It was like Ross Perot all over again, except this chart guy was younger, more suave looking, and less folksy than the former presidential candidate from Texas.
Rep. McCarthy has shared these same charts with the 87 Republican freshmen to acquaint them with the budget landscape. Now it's time to take the show on the road, to districts and town hall meetings, he said. But can he round up the nation the way he rounds up votes on the House floor?
Reporters have seen such charts many times. They have written about them, especially the debt one that shows a tsunami of red ink whose waters are now starting to wash on to America's shores. But except for Mr. Perot, who made himself famous with his economic charts and graphs in his 1992 presidential bid, political leaders have not stayed focused on the debt.
The reason is the political difficulty in getting rid of it. As McCarthy himself admits, there's no way to do it without reforming costly entitlement programs – Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security. These programs are highly popular with the American people. More than 85 percent of the country supports Social Security and Medicare, according to a March Harris Poll.
A February ABC/Wall Street Journal poll also shows that many Americans don't recognize entitlements as the main problem. When asked whether it will be necessary to "cut spending on Medicare," defined as the "federal government health care program for seniors," in order to reduce the federal budget deficit, only 18 percent said yes. A substantial 54 percent said no (the rest had no opinion or were not sure). The results were only slightly better for the same question about Social Security.
In a recent interview with The Wall Street Journal, House Speaker John Boehner said Americans aren't yet ready for far-reaching changes to entitlements. "People in Washington assume that Americans understand how big the problem is, but most Americans don't have a clue," said Speaker Boehner. "I think it's incumbent on us, if we are serious about dealing with the big challenges, that we go out and help Americans understand how big the problem is that faces us."
Leaders from both parties, including President Obama, should be talking to the public about the need for significant change (wisely, a bipartisan group in the Senate, called the "Gang of Six," took their deficit-and-debt show on the road this week). Politicians might be surprised at the wisdom of the American people, once they understand the details.
The same ABC/Wall Street Journal poll that showed large majorities find it mostly or totally unacceptable to "significantly" cut Medicaid, Medicare, and Social Security, also found them open to specific changes. Majorities found it mostly or totally acceptable to reduce Medicare and Social Security benefits for wealthier retirees and to gradually raise the retirement age to 69. Both of these ideas were put forth by President Obama's deficit-reduction commission.
Two points jumped out from today's encounter with charts and graphs. The first is that unless politicians find the spine to lead on this issue, Americans won't follow. The second is that when Americans are given details to think about, they are quite capable of rallying behind a reasoned idea. It's when they are scared with generalities such as "significantly cut," that they seize up. That argues for details, not generalities, from politicians.
The Bryan Mound storage facility in Brazoria County, Texas, is one of four Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) sites in the US that are used as a first line of defense against an interruption in petroleum supplies. (DOE/AFP/GETTY IMAGES/Newscom)
Gas prices too high? Obama may not think so. He's pumped to use high oil prices.
Are gasoline prices too high?
They may be heading toward $4 a gallon by this summer, having already topped $3.50.
But perhaps they aren’t high enough – if you follow the logic of President Obama’s energy policy.
The administration said Sunday that it is weighing the option of helping lower gas prices by releasing supplies from the nation’s Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR). That oil kitty was set up after the 1973 Oil Shock in case of a national emergency.
But paying $4 at the pump is not really an emergency – based on Mr. Obama’s moves to wean Americans off oil.
His budget proposal last month, for instance, would repeal $46.2 billion in subsidies for the fossil fuel industry over the next decade – a move designed to raise oil prices in order to boost investment in renewable energy sources such as solar and wind.
Obama is also reluctant to expand offshore oil drilling. And he’s also trying to boost the sales of electric cars – something that won’t be easy if gasoline prices go down – as part of a broad government effort to reduce carbon emissions and boost energy security.
Obama’s energy secretary, Stephen Chu, advises politicians in Congress not to panic and demand that the president lower prices by selling oil from the SPR.
The last time Americans saw $4 pump prices, in 2008, they did start to change their energy habits.
Taking the long view means the US must recognize that it has to kick the oil habit sooner rather than later.
Senate Foreign Relations Chairman John Kerry (left) and ranking member Richard Lugar. Sen. Kerry wants the US to develop a financial aid package to help support the emerging democracies in the Arab world. (File/Scott J. Ferrell/Congressional Quarterly/Newscom)
A US aid package for the Arab awakening? Consider these three things.
"Events this powerful demand a powerful response," said Sen. John Kerry at a hearing this week on America's foreign policy budget.
He's right about that. Even if the Arab awakening goes no further than North Africa (and, over the long run, it's likely to spread), the tilt toward democracy in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya deserves unequivocal, meaningful support from democratic nations. But what kind of support, and who should take the lead?
Mr. Kerry, who chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, says he's consulting across party lines to come up with a financial aid package for Arab countries throwing off despotism. He has no numbers yet. He has in mind United States humanitarian assistance and expertise with democracy building – running elections, writing constitutions, that kind of thing. He also says the US should help breathe life into economies that can't absorb the Arab youth bulge.
Of course, the US deficit puts a damper on this idea. But it's not really the money that's the issue. Spending is a matter of prioritizing, and something this historic, and of this strategic importance, should move to the top of the priority heap. (FYI, the US spent $2.7 billion last year to further democracy worldwide; about half of that was for Afghanistan.)
More important than the money is whether Mr. Kerry and others are asking these three questions:
1. Is the US coordinating aid with other countries? Europe is closer to this region, has more economic and political ties to it, and has more at stake given the possibility of refugees hitting its shores. It also has extensive experience in helping new democracies find their footing (think Eastern Europe). And what about involving Turkey, or the G20?
2. Do the people of the Arab awakening want US help? America, as well as Europe, carry heavy historical baggage in the Arab world. Whatever is done, it has to be at the request of those affected, and with locals in the lead. The US can't be perceived as meddling, or wanting to remake a region after its own image.
3. Is financial aid the only answer? Trade and investment incentives can be a powerful tool in rebuilding economies.
The great turning over that's taking place requires a strategic response from America. But not from America alone. And only in a way that will be welcomed by those leading their countries to a new beginning.
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