David Aikman
Musings and commentary on the world scene from Senior Fellow David Aikman
Hold that Ad
Tue 10 Jul 2007 • Responses: 1 • by David Aikman
Perhaps China has been too successful at censorship.
It was some eighteen years ago that the world was trying to absorb what had taken place in China’s Tiananmen Square in Beijing on the night of June 3–4, 1989. Six weeks of sometimes chaotic, always spontaneous, and invariably exhilarating demonstrations had taken place in Tiananmen Square, after the death of Hu Yaobang, a Chinese leader associated with reform, on April 15.
Accounting for Tenet
Wed 20 Jun 2007 • Responses: 2 • by David Aikman
David Aikman looks at the actions and explanations of former US Director of National Intelligence George Tenet.
Washington insiders have seen it happen so often that they roll their eyes every time it takes place. A national policy is deemed to have been a failure and an individual deeply involved with it resigns or is fired by the administration in office at the time. Then he attempts to redeem his reputation (and finances) by accepting a huge advance from a publisher for a tell-all book and by appearing on TV shows defending his reputation.
By saying this is what has happened with former CIA director George Tenet in the case of the publication of his book, At the Center of the Storm (advance $4 million), is not intended to depict the man as a scoundrel.
Six Days and Forty Years
Mon 11 Jun 2007 • Responses: 2 • by David Aikman
David Aikman looks back on the Six Days War and its unexpected outcomes.
The Six-Day War of 1967 was one of the most startling military victories in history. In the course of six days, from June 5 through June 11, the Israeli Defense Forces essentially wiped out on the ground the air force of Egypt, crippled for years the air forces of Jordan and Syria, and triumphed over the armies of those three Arab states deployed against Israel.
More significantly, after just a few days’ fighting, Israel found itself in military control over 1.2 million Arabs in the West Bank (part of British Mandate Palestine and annexed by Jordan in 1950) and Gaza (before 1967 under the control of Egypt). Arabs killed, wounded, and imprisoned were in the scores of thousands; Israeli casualties were listed at the almost mythical level of 777 (which seems small but is a higher proportion of the 1967 Israeli population than all the 57,000 Americans killed during the Vietnam War).
The Atheist Onslaught
Fri 25 May 2007 • Responses: 1 • by David Aikman
David Aikman considers the “new atheists” and new prospects for civility from unexpected sources.
An interesting publishing and cultural phenomenon has been afoot in the U.S. since the fall of 2006. To a degree unprecedented in recent publishing history, to my knowledge, at least four books by self-described atheists, all of them militantly attacking religious belief, have made it to The New York Times best-seller list and sold hundreds of thousands of copies.
Virginia Tech Considered
Fri 11 May 2007 • Responses: 2 • by David Aikman
David Aikman considers the factors surrounding the massacre and makes a suggestion for workable gun control.
More than two weeks have passed since the bloodbath on the campus of Virginia Tech University (officially Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University) in Blacksburg on April 16 2007. The President of the U.S., George W. Bush, expressed horror at what happened and the Governor of Virginia, Tim Kaine, returned early from a trip to Japan, declaring in Virginia a state of emergency. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, who is, of course, Korean, sent his condolences, as did Pope Benedict XVI. An entire army of counselors descended on the campus from various corners of the U.S., and some of them are still there.
Much of the world press drew predictable conclusions: the Virginia Tech massacre, European newspapers said, would not have happened had it not been so hideously easy to obtain guns in the U.S.; or, the culture that has romanticized gun-ownership and gun-usage played into the hands of a deranged, alienated psychopath. Britain’s Economist tried to straddle the fence with the subhead: “The horror might have happened anyway. But gun control might have made it less easy.”
Death Penalty Reconsidered
Fri 04 May 2007 • Responses: 2 • by David Aikman
Thoughts on Amnesty International’s death penalty statistics.
Amnesty International is an international human rights organization that draws attention on a regular basis to the plight of political prisoners in various countries of the world. But for many years it has had a standing campaign to abolish the death penalty.
Proponents of the death penalty have traditionally argued that it is needed by society to provide retributive justice and to grant some sort of emotional “closure” for the families of murder victims. Opponents argue that it is inherently barbaric, that it is an irreversible punishment if the executed person turns out to be innocent, and that it doesn’t deter murder at all. Proponents tend to regard Amnesty International as an international meddling group determined to impose do-good liberalism on everyone else. Opponents regard it as a champion of global humanity, civilization, and progress.
Remembering Boris Yeltsin (1931–2007)
Wed 25 Apr 2007 by David Aikman
Senior Fellow David Aikman saw a lot of Boris Yeltsin over the years and recalls a flawed and fascinating leader.
I first met Boris Yeltsin in Moscow in February 1989, when he was still Deputy Minister for the construction industry, a job to which Mikhail Gorbachev had sent him after Yeltin’s dramatic resignation from the Politburo in October 1987 and ouster from the Moscow Party leadership the following month. I was interviewing him for Time Magazine not only because he had already emerged from the gray tapestry of Soviet politics as an outspoken critic of corruption and stagnation within the Soviet bureaucracy, but also because the following month he was going to run as the at-large candidate for the seat representing Moscow’s eight million citizens.
As he spoke during the interview about his adventurous youth and early manhood, losing two fingers in right hand after trying to dissect a Soviet hand-grenade and later traveling like a hobo across the Soviet Union by train, it was obvious he was quite different from the colorless apparatchiks who usually occupied seats on the Soviet Politburo. He joked, he loved tennis, he enjoyed being asked personal questions. It was obvious to me then that he was a quite exceptional Soviet figure: lively, eccentric, and spontaneous.
Okaying the Bible
Tue 17 Apr 2007 by David Aikman
A cultural milestone of sorts has been passed recently. The cover story in the April 2, 2007 edition of Time Magazine is titled “Why We Should Teach the Bible in Public School.”
There are several reasons why this is significant. First, a national publication of centrist-to-liberal politics has endorsed a project hitherto associated with the agenda of conservative Christians, albeit for a different set of reasons from theirs. Second, this is the first evidence that the center of American public opinion is looking beyond Left-Right culture wars towards a possible consensus on issues often at the center of those wars. Third, there is a recognition that American cultural literacy, held to be in a state of decline for years, can’t really be recovered in any meaningful way while ignoring the core documents of Western civilization that posit a belief in the transcendent.
Fighting Wars During Peace-Time
Mon 02 Apr 2007 • Responses: 1 • by David Aikman
Britain’s magazine The Economist once made an interesting point about democracies and fighting wars. “Democracies,” the magazine said—and I offer a paraphrase rather than quote precisely—“find it difficult to fight wars during peace-time.” The point is a subtle one. Essentially, it is that democratic societies are seldom prepared to engage in sustained war-fighting if they do not believe that their county is really at war.
The Fifth Year of War
Fri 23 Mar 2007 • Responses: 2 • by David Aikman
David Aikman muses on the US war in Iraq.
A major landmark in American foreign policy was passed this week: the fourth anniversary of the war in Iraq. As the US enters its fifth year of fighting in Iraq, many observers have noted that America has been at war there longer than it fought in World War I, World War II, or Korea. Americans, it is fair to say, do not like fighting wars, and especially in peace-time. On this topic, more below.
The original reasons given by the administration for the invasion of Iraq in March 2003 were to locate and destroy Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime. Much has been made of the fact that, after US forces had conquered Baghdad and subdued most of the remainder of the country, no weapons of mass destruction were found. This fact has been used to support assertions that President Bush lied to the American people by using the WMD argument to initiate hostilities against Iraq.
