Musings of a modern guy

This is not the first prisoner swap that Israel has done. In the past Israel has done this sort of swap many times, even exchanging the live prisoners that it holds for the bodies of its dead soldiers. However, this time was more traumatic for Israel, since it involved sending back a man whom Israel hates with a vengeance, Samir Qantar. Samir Qantar holds a special place in Israel, since he was convicted in 1979 for the killing of an entire family (Wikipedia), while leading a raid. His killing of the young daughter of the family was seen as particularly brutal, and he has been in jail ever since:

Hezbollah handed the bodies of two Israeli soldiers to the Red Cross on Wednesday to be exchanged for Lebanese prisoners held by Israel in a deal viewed as a triumph by the Lebanese Shi’ite guerrilla group. Many Israelis see it as a painful necessity, two years after the soldiers’ capture sparked a 34-day war with Hezbollah that killed about 1,200 people in Lebanon and 159 Israelis.
The fathers of the two Israelis soldiers spoke of their pain at watching the television pictures of their sons’ coffins. “It is not easy to see this, although there was not much surprise to it. But … confronting this reality was difficult, yes,” Shlomo Goldwasser told Israel radio. Zvi Regev said on Army Radio: “It was very moving when we saw it. We couldn’t watch too long. It was a terrible thing to see, really terrible. I was always optimistic, and I hoped all the time that I would meet Eldad and hug him.” Hezbollah’s Safa said Israel had later handed over via the ICRC the bodies of eight Hezbollah fighters slain in the 2006 war, and those of four Palestinians, including Dalal Mughrabi, a woman guerrilla who led a bloody 1978 raid on Israel.

These prisoner exchanges somehow give further belief to the terrorist groups that Israel is weak and will submit to more such exchanges; it has been proved in the past that these groups have taken the policy of kidnapping in order to get their own prisoners released.

Before the Iraq War, there was the war in Afghanistan. In 2001, after the WTC attacks, the US along with the Northern Alliance battled the Taleban in Afghanistan and overthrew its rule. However, they could not capture the leader of the Taleban, Mullah Omar, nor could they capture the leader of Al-Qaeda, Bin Laden. And then came the Iraw war. With the advent of the Iraq War, Afghanistan became a second priority in terms of reconstruction, security and overall attention. And as the post-Saddam Iraq flared up with a massive insurgency, little focus was paid to Afghanistan, specifically the role of the border regions of Pakistan where these terrorists and fighters got impressive support. And now, the lack of a proper focused strategy on Afghanistan is coming to roost:

For the second month in a row, U.S. and allied troop deaths in the Afghan war have surpassed those in Iraq, according to official figures tallied by CNN. In June, 46 foreign troops died in Afghanistan and 31 troops died in Iraq. In May, 23 foreign troops died in Afghanistan and 21 died in Iraq. A Pentagon report issued last week about Afghanistan said that security in many areas of the country is regarded as “fragile” and that Taliban militants have regrouped into a “resilient insurgency” after the Taliban was toppled from power in 2001.
The United Nations said recently that civilian deaths in Afghanistan have gone sharply upward in the past year, largely because of stepped-up Taliban attacks and an insurgent shift toward tactics like roadside bombings, U.N. officials said Sunday. Afghan civilian deaths in the first six months of 2008 jumped 60 percent, from 430 in the first six months of 2007 to 698 this year, John Holmes, the U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs, said.

If the coalition loses Afghanistan to the Taleban again, they will face a breeding ground for terrorists like never before, and will have to fight a massive battle on all fronts (in Afghanistan and at home) to recover from this situation.

This seems like deja vu again and again. It is a well established fact that Pakistan has played with fire in the past, using US and Saudi money and support to built up an Islamic Army to fight against the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. Towards this end, the Pakistanis used religion as a tool, and this spread of religion is now causing havoc in Pakistan and the world. Pakistan saw the use of religion as a great tool, and this lead to Benazir Bhutto’s Government creating the Taleban as a movement to regain control of Afghanistan. This worked all too well, with a new breed of religious warriors seeing the world as their fighting ground, and leading to Afghanistan and Pakistan becoming the new breeding ground for Islam inspired fighters. After the 2001 US terror attacks, President Musharraf was told to remove support to the Taleban and Al-Qaeda, and reluctantly did so. However, the wish to keep such a tool handy led to the Pakistani Government trying to make a pact with these fighters (against the wishes of the US Government); during the duration of the pact, this provided an unhindered refugee for Taleban fighters and terrorists who would attack in Afghanistan and then regroup in Pakistan. Eventually, this pact came to and end when the fighters started taking the battle inside Pakistan, trying to control larger areas and set up Sharia rule.
Well, when the popular parties regained power, they blasted the approach taken by Musharraf and claimed that they will need to address the problem in a political manner. What was the result ? They struck a pact with the Pakistani Taleban and came up with an arrangement that the army will leave the terrorist and the terrorists in turn will not cause problems to the Government. The same pact as done by Musharraf, and with the same result. The terrorists are not amenable to reason, and took this pact as a sign that the Government is weak. When the terrorists took more steps to increase their control, the Pakistani Government was finally forced to act:

The Pakistani military has launched an offensive against militants near the main north-western city of Peshawar, security officials said. Militants have become more active in and around Peshawar in recent months, say correspondents. Pakistani militant leader Baitullah Mehsud said he was suspending peace talks with the government.
The government has been in talks with him in an effort to pacify the tribal areas. The militants the government is acting against are not part of the wider Taleban movement in Pakistan, but are still Islamists who wish to enforce their brand of Islam, says the BBC’s Haroon Rashid in Islamabad. When it took power two months ago, the government said it would negotiate with the tribes of the north-west to curb cross-border raids into Afghanistan and end the domestic militancy that caused havoc in Pakistan last year. But now the government has authorised the army to back the talks with a credible threat of force. The Afghan government and the coalition forces in Afghanistan have complained that Taleban militants are finding safe haven in Pakistan. Increasing activity from militants around Peshawar lately has prompted the military to act.

It is very difficult for the Pakistani Government to strike a peace deal with the militants; they are inspired by the urge to establish a state based on Islamic ideals; the last time such a state was established, it lead to a brutal reign under the Taleban in Afghanistan. Unless the Pakistani Government recognizes the need to take action, it will keep on losing control of the country.

The Second Amendment of the US Constitution is probably one of the most contentious issues in the US polity. The Amendment covers the right of American citizens to bear arms, and reads thus, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” The Amendment was introduced more than 200 hundred years back, and ever since then, it has been an area of direct conflict between gun rights supporters and gun control supporters. The Courts have backed away from taking on this issue (and it is hard, with the supporters and opponents of gun control fighting over placement of commas in the amendment, over the intention of the constitution framers, and over the need to have effective crime control in the country); there have been some doubt over whether anybody can actually interpret what was the intention between the original intention of the amendment:

The U.S. Supreme Court’s unprecedented ruling that Americans have a right to own guns for self-defense in their homes will immediately shift the legal battle over gun rights to California, the state with some of the toughest gun control laws in the nation. Gun rights advocates, led by the National Rifle Association, plan to file suit in federal court today challenging a San Francisco law that bans handguns in public housing, pouncing quickly on Thursday’s decision striking down Washington, D.C.’s broader ban on the same weapons.
The Supreme Court revived the nation’s gun control debate by directly assessing, for the first time in history, the meaning of the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms. In a 5-4 ruling, the justices placed limits on modern society’s efforts to deal with gun violence if they violate a constitutional right established two centuries ago to allow citizens to take up their muskets against government control. In the majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia stressed that the ruling does not preclude all regulation of firearms, citing restrictions in schools and government buildings and laws against felons possessing guns. The court left intact D.C.’s requirement that guns be licensed but struck down its requirements that firearms be equipped with trigger locks or kept disassembled.

This is probably for the first time that the Court has actually ruled on the question of whether the Second Amendment applies to individual citizens or was meant to apply to the militia (that were thought necessary at that time since there was no army, and the conception was that militias would be important for ensuring the security of the state). What is going to happen now is that there are a number of cases where existing cases and regulations are going to get challenged at the instigation of the NRA (National Rifle Association). Also, the worries about the changes to the Supreme Court due to the pushing of conservative justices seem to be coming true even more.
This ruling is going to cause a nightmare for administrators trying to control the spread of gun control and crime prevention, especially with regard to handguns (that are the most easily concealed of weapons); expect many more cases and litigation over this. Lower courts, especially in places such as New York, Washington, and California are going to have a much harder time deciphering this ruling and coming out with is permissible and what is not.

The problem in Zimbabwe seems to be getting more pronounced. Ever since the elections, there has a state of acute tension in the country; initial reports seemed to indicate that the disastrous reign of the President, Robert Mugabe would be over. However, it seemed to be clear that after initial disarray, Mugabe and his party had decided that they will win no matter what. Hence, started the use of the state and legal (along with the violent and non-legal) methods to put extreme pressure. Opponents were attacked, and threatened with arrest. Leading opposition politicians had cases filed against them, including those of treason. Finally, the opposition has taken the expected measure - it has withdrawn from the run-off:

Zimbabwe’s opposition party on Tuesday formally withdrew its presidential candidate, Morgan Tsvangirai, from Friday’s run-off, a spokesman told CNN. The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) hand-delivered a letter signed by Tsvangirai to the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission, saying it will not participate in the runoff with President Robert Mugabe, spokesman Nelson Chamisa said.
Speaking to CNN on Tuesday, he said “This is total war and we cannot be part of that war. “This is not an election because the conditions are just horrendous.” He added, “I’ve been arrested, I’ve been brutalized — this is not exaggeration. This is reality here.” Tsvangirai announced Sunday that he was dropping out of the runoff, citing what he called an ongoing campaign of political harassment, intimidation and arrests by Mugabe’s government and the ruling Zanu-PF party.

This decision will just complicate things in Zimbabwe. Mugabe is now sure to win a runoff that is bound to come under incredible criticism from the international community (and mostly be deemed as invalid). Mugabe really does not care too much for the international community, but the country has really suffered in the past few years, and is likely to continue doing so.

The European Union has been constantly coming up against public pressure from time to time. Its attempts to make treaties that bring the countries into a tighter Union typically run against the gauntlet of public opinion. The treaties come up for voting in different countries, and the conditions have always been set that the treaties need to be approved by all the countries, a ‘No’ vote could be suicidal for the treaty. However, when the treaties come up for vote, even with the support of the ruling politicians, movements against the treaty quickly spring into life and gain a lot of strength. There is something fundamentally flawed in that it seems so easy to galvanize a majority of the population in multiple countries to vote against such a treaty. Hence, an earlier more ambitious version of the treaty had to be given up after no votes in many countries killed the treaty.
A more watered down version of the constitution was negotiated, and even that faced a critical setback when a majority of the voting population of the Republic of Ireland stood up on its hind legs and voted against the treaty. And now the Czech Republic seems to have a problem with being able to ratify the treaty. The country had to take a 2 step move to get ratification - first the constitutional court had to rule that the treaty was in accordance with the constitution of the country, and then the treaty had to be passed in Parliament:

“The European Council noted that the Czech Republic cannot complete the ratification process until the constitutional court delivers its positive opinion on the accordance of the Lisbon Treaty with the Czech constitutional order,” the leaders said in a footnote to their final statement at a two-day summit.
Most leaders sought to put a positive spin on the message, noting that ratification of the treaty by other countries would continue and they would review the way forward together with Ireland at their next summit in October.

This rejection by Ireland and a possible rejection by the Czech Republic threatens the treaty. If one country rejects it, then the opponents in other countries also get more impetus for their efforts.