These articles in the Los Angeles Times and Time magazine present a horrifying picture of the carnage and chaos in southern Lebanon: coffins stacked high and spray-painted with their victims’ names, family members searching the rubble for the remains of loved ones, Red Cross ambulances allegedly targeted by Israeli missiles, hundreds of thousands fleeing their homes.

The Israeli government, in turn, points out that it has taken steps to avoid civilian casualties — including leafleting Lebanese villages with warnings of impending strikes — in sharp distinction to Hezbollah’s targeting of civilians. It argues that Hezbollah is a “monster that must be dealt with,” whatever the unintended cost in civilian deaths.

Hezbollah’s July 12 attacks on the Israeli military — which included the abductions of two Israeli soldiers — might have been just a minor thread in the unending tapestry of violence between Israel and Hezbollah. After all, Hezbollah had conducted similar cross-border raids in recent years; it had abducted Israeli soldiers before, and in 2004 successfully swapped prisoners with Israel. (The soldiers abducted on July 12 were supposed to be bargaining chips to win the freedom of three Lebanese prisoners.)

As is often the case, says The Economist, the precipitating event was nothing but a “pinprick,” and yet the war that came seemed almost destiny: “The conditions for it have been building, in slow motion, for years.” For years, indeed — it is no small irony that the Islamic political/paramilitary/terrorist/philanthropist group at the heart of this latest conflict, Hezbollah, was formed in 1982 to fight against the Israel Defense Forces’ occupation of southern Lebanon. Now the IDF has returned, sweeping into the country to attempt once again to neutralize its enemy across the border.

Much ink has been spilled over the question of who is justified in attacking whom. I want to focus instead on another, more pragmatic question: What will be the end result of all this violence? It goes without saying that Hezbollah stands no chance of beating the much-stronger Israeli military. Its goal of destroying Israel is wishful thinking — a useful recruiting strategy, perhaps, but nothing with any hope of success.

On the other hand, it’s not so clear that the IDF can succeed in destroying, or even permanently weakening, Hezbollah with its latest campaign. “They can’t fight Hezbollah because Hezbollah is not an army,” said one Lebanese doctor quoted in the Times article. “They kill the people because they think it’s the only way to stop Hezbollah.” The IDF can bomb all the Hezbollah forces it can find, but in a nationalism-charged, guerrilla-style struggle like this, new recruits will always be there — galvanized, in fact, by the latest round of violence — and the sad truth is Hezbollah’s unrepentant resistance has probably raised its profile among international financiers willing to fund its terrorism.

If the IDF embarks on a full-scale ground invasion and occupies southern Lebanon once more, will the violence end, then? The history of the IDF’s occupation of the Palestinian territories and even Lebanon itself (which spanned almost two decades, until the 2000 withdrawal) seems to suggest otherwise. In fact, Israel’s prolonged presence in southern Lebanon allowed Hezbollah to take on the mantle of liberators. In spite of its penchant for terrorism, Hezbollah gained a huge following for its perceived success in forcing the Israeli army out of the country. This latest Israeli campaign, too, will probably cripple Lebanon’s hopefully reformist, but weak, national government. No matter that Israel needs a Lebanese government strong enough to rein in Hezbollah and enforce peace on the Lebanese-Israeli border.

The IDF can continue its bombardment for weeks, but it’s likely that Hezbollah will survive anything short of total war. Asymmetric wars like this one can be won, but they appear to require extraordinary measures, on the level of brutality of the British in the Boer War, who used a combination of overwhelming numbers, scorched-earth tactics, and concentration camps to quash the guerrilla resistance. In modern times, this kind of warfare is anathema. And so we are likely to see the conflict drag on until both sides tire, or the international community musters the backbone to step in and enforce a cease-fire. In the meantime, civilians on both sides will suffer in blood, fear, and mutual hatred.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Global warming and global poverty are two of the most important moral issues of the day. Writing in Newsweek, Robert J. Samuelson suggests that addressing one problem may exacerbate the other:

From 2003 to 2050, the world’s population is projected to grow from 6.4 billion people to 9.1 billion, a 42 percent increase. If energy use per person and technology remain the same, total energy use and greenhouse gas emissions (mainly, carbon dioxide) will be 42 percent higher in 2050. But that’s too low, because societies that grow richer use more energy. Unless we condemn the world’s poor to their present poverty — and freeze everyone else’s living standards — we need economic growth. With modest growth, energy use and greenhouse emissions more than double by 2050.

More than 20,000 people die every day of malaria, tuberculosis, AIDS, diarrhea, and other diseases linked to extreme poverty, according to the Columbia economist Jeffrey Sachs in his book The End of Poverty. It’s unclear how many people have died because of global warming, though catastrophes linked to the rise in temperatures — tsunamis, hurricanes, and tornadoes — have taken a dramatic toll in recent years.

China and India alone account for 40 percent of the world’s population. As their economies have swelled within the last decade or so, many of the world’s poor have been lifted out of poverty. Both countries still have large swaths of poverty and stark inequality, but their good economic fortune in recent years is good news — except when it comes to global warming. China, Samuelson points out, “builds about one coal-fired power plant a week.”

Before we blame China and India and other rapidly industrializing countries for our global warming problem, let’s put things in perspective: The richest nations — the United States, European Union, and Japan — produce the most greenhouse gases. The United States, in fact, is by far the worst culprit. It has just 5 percent of the world’s population, and yet produces a quarter of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions. In a way, the rich nations have had freedom to pollute so much because the rest of the world can’t afford a carbon dioxide-heavy lifestyle of disposable products, single-person transportation, and comfortable indoor climates.

That is changing. Populous countries like China and India are rapidly industrializing, and their carbon dioxide emissions are growing. The world’s population as a whole has been exploding in the last few decades, with a frightening upward momentum that seems to track global warming. The world can’t sustain so many people using so much pollution-producing energy.

Ironically, one of the best ways to clamp down on population growth is by alleviating poverty. Poor countries tend not to educate their girls, and this, in turn, contributes to high fertility rates — in these countries, Sachs writes, “the woman’s role is seen mainly as child rearing, and her lack of education means that she has few options in the labor force.” It is no surprise that affluent countries with widespread education have low fertility rates (in fact, dangerously low in Japan and Western Europe), while the world’s poorest nations are the areas of greatest population growth.  

As I see it, the most sensible and moral solution would be to cut down global poverty — thus cutting down the global population explosion — and at the same time launch an international effort to reduce greenhouse emissions and develop mechanisms for cleaning the atmosphere of these heat-trapping gases. Samuelson argues that the Kyoto Protocol and other efforts by politicians to diminish pollution are nothing but “grandstanding” and that the real problem is an “engineering problem.” Yet, he doesn’t seem to appreciate that any serious attempt to deal with the engineering problem — the kind of environmental “Manhattan Project” that Thomas Friedman talks about to develop energy alternatives — will need public consciousness and political will to bring about. The Kyoto Protocol may be flawed, but it is a step in the direction of facing inconvenient truths and acting upon them.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

The other day I saw the Al Gore movie An Inconvenient Truth. Let’s get beyond, for a moment, the issue of how likeable Gore is (certainly more animated and witty now that his campaign handlers are gone) or what his chances are as a presidential draftee for 2008 (denies any thirst for a rematch, but then again, so did Nixon). The film is worth seeing on its own merits. It’s the clearest presentation I’ve ever seen of the science of global warming, and the most convincing analysis I’ve heard of what the future likely holds if we fail to act soon. Forget duct tape. Maybe we should be more worried about the sea level rising up to engulf Lower Manhattan and the panhandle of Florida, not to mention large swaths of vulnerable coastland around the world. That’s just one of the disturbing scenarios that the film contemplates.

It’s remarkable that some of the important developments on the environmental front are completely lost on many Americans. I consider myself fairly informed (some readers of this blog may disagree), and yet I had no idea about the progress that has already been made in fighting ozone depletion. Remember the holes in the ozone layer that so alarmed everyone about a decade or so ago? Thanks to global cooperation in enforcing bans on chlorofluorocarbons, there is evidence that the depletion rate is finally slowing. On the flip side, I also had little understanding of just how much the planet’s temperature has been rising in recent years, relative to normal fluctuations, and what the consequences of this unprecedented climate shift are. We watch the TV meteorologists talk every day about record temperatures and record numbers of hurricanes, tornadoes, and floods, but no one talks about the connection between the two. We read news articles that present the White House talking points (provided courtesy of the energy lobby) that global warming is not manmade, but merely a naturally occurring up-tick in the planet’s thermostat — as if this were a legitimate scientific position.

As the film makes clear, the international scientific community believes, with certainty and unanimity, that human beings are responsible for the vast majority of global warming. And the danger of this trend could not be more obvious. It is already a reality for those people who live in the path of rising water levels, strengthened hurricanes and tornadoes, and disease-carrying insects that thrive in heat. Yet few politicians talk about doing anything substantive to address the problem. When we start redrawing our maps to take into account the world’s shrinking land mass, it will probably too late then to do much about it.

It’s a climate shift that may be compared to a seismic shift in the way it will — sooner or later, but probably sooner than we realize — transform the optimism we hold about the future and the appreciation we have for our ultra-convenient modern lives. If we’re smart, it may also influence the politics we support and the lifestyles we lead. If not, the Earth may have other corrective measures planned. Like tectonic plates slowly moving underground, the change may seem imperceptible — a degree or two here, a few more there — until a tipping point is reached. And when the reckoning comes, we may open our eyes too late to see a landscape irrevocably changed, and irreparably disfigured.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Reading the U.S. Constitution, one might think that the legislative, executive, and judicial branches have equal power. But, judging by its contempt for Congress’ lawmaking powers, the Bush administration believes that some branches are more equal than others. For instance, George Bush has decided to impose his own exceptions upon Congress’ ban on torture, which passed the Senate by a wide margin. The reason? The Constitution told him to do it. “If the Constitution and the law conflict, the president must choose,” an administration spokesperson said. Never mind that the Constitution has something explicit to say about torture, too.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

One thing to remember about the arrest of seven Miami men involved with the alleged plot to attack the Sears Tower is that they come from one of the most impoverished cities in America. A world away from affluent South Beach and its silky white beaches, the city of Miami has the third-highest poverty rate in the nation, with 28 percent of its population and 41 percent of its children living in poverty, according to 2004 census estimates. (Remember that the official threshold for poverty in this country is quite low: A family of four with a combined income under $18,850 was considered poor in 2004.)

The suspects also come from one of the poorest neighborhoods within Miami, Liberty City, an African American urban island shaped by decades of segregation. Liberty City was the scene of bloody riots in 1980 after an all-white jury acquitted five white police officers for the killing of a black motorist — in spite of an incriminating coroner’s report and testimony by one of the officers. Eighteen people died in the ensuing violence.

All seven of the terrorism suspects are black. Two are from Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

The connection between terrorism and poverty is controversial. Poor, unequal, and unstable countries like Afghanistan and Somalia have become havens for terrorism, and yet many terrorists striking across borders — such as the September 11 hijackers — came from privileged backgrounds. This noteworthy Harvard study dismisses any connection and instead points to the degree of political freedom as a crucial factor.

Yet in the Miami case, five of the suspects are American citizens. The threat, if true, was mostly homegrown — grown in a country that has been (well, at least until recently) admired around the world for its devotion to liberty and democracy. Why, then, would Americans commit violence against their own country? Why would they hate us?

The fact that these men hail from one of the most impoverished and segregated neighborhoods in America makes me wonder if poverty and race had anything to do with their alleged embrace of terrorism. Violence against a repressive, authoritarian regime or an invading power may come from all quarters of society, but violence against an open, established democracy seems to have a particular attraction among the most marginalized and alienated discontents — those who, thanks to the perpetual indignities of poverty and racism, have come to see their own nation as the enemy.

This is all the more reason for us to confront the reality of Two Americas: one full of wealth and hope, the other struggling to survive. Some may complain about raising the specter of “class warfare,” but the price of neglecting inequality may be class warfare of a much more brutal kind.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Here’s an interesting piece in the International Herald Tribune about the “fast-fading luster of the American story” — that is, the weakening power of American ideals and culture abroad thanks to globalization and the recent, divisive projection of American military power overseas.

I think the idea that Hollywood is losing sway over audiences abroad is somewhat overstated. This recent article in The Washington Post, for instance, suggests that the popularity of American movies is growing overseas, along with so-called “local product,” or domestically produced films. (Pop culture remains one of America’s top exports.) Even in France, a country with a storied history of filmmaking as well as state protection of its film industry, the American media juggernaut is all but unstoppable at the box office.

That said, America’s image abroad has clearly deteriorated in many countries in the past six years, as this recent Pew Research Center report makes obvious. This distaste for American foreign policy appears to live comfortably alongside a fascination with American pop culture.

A less parochial and more culturally sensitive Hollywood can play a role in improving America’s relations with the rest of the world, as the IHT op-ed points out. But what is more important is the actual policy of the U.S. government. “To recapture its winning story in this new global politics of culture, to recover its waning soft power,” the op-ed’s authors argue, “America has to once again close the gap between its ideals and their practical realization at home and abroad, starting with changing our policies and getting out of Iraq.”

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

After years of unsuccessful suicide attempts, Guantánamo Bay finally has its first bona fide martyrs: Three Arab men hanged themselves on Saturday in their cells at the U.S.-run prison camp. (According to the military, 23 of the 460 prisoners at Guantánamo have attempted suicide a total of 41 times, though news reports have put the number much higher — at one point, says this article, 130 prisoners were on a hunger strike.)

I say “martyrs” because that’s what these men will become in the eyes of many in the Arab and Muslim worlds. The U.S. policy of holding prisoners in Guantánamo without trial or charges is like the gift that keeps on giving. It provides holy warriors with a righteous rallying cry and inspires legions of other recruits (almost certainly more than the 460 holed up at Guantánamo) to take up terrorism. Much of this could have been avoided if the Bush administration had actually followed international law in dealing with these suspected terrorists — a significant number of whom, according to the government’s own data, have never committed hostile acts against the U.S. or its coalition allies.
  
Meanwhile, Guantánamo’s base commander said — I assume with a straight face — that the triple suicide “was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us.” Weldon Berger at BTC News sums up the logic of this sentiment rather nicely: “Pity we can’t execute the three for this heinous assault on all we hold dear, isn’t it? Maybe once rigor sets in we can stand them up against a wall and go through the motions.”

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Valerie Burgher — a contributor to this magazine, a journalism colleague, and a dear friend — passed away last week. She and I had worked together at the same newspaper several years ago, and last fall she became involved with InTheFray. I believe the last article she wrote was published in these pages.

Valerie was an exceptional writer, whose personality shone as brightly in her prose as it did in person: at turns bold or light-hearted, spirited or wry, thoughtful or mischievous. She was a determined reporter who had a passion for social justice and a heartfelt concern for the ordinary people whose lives she put to pen. She also had a brilliant wit, lethal when skewering celebrities at the Oscars or politicians at a legislative session.

She was intelligent and gifted beyond belief, always surprising friends with new talents. Like that time when she got up in front of the newsroom and strummed a guitar. Or her recent decision to embark on a promising new career in filmmaking.

She also suffered, like many people, from bipolar disorder. Yet Valerie managed in spite of this to do great things, and leave so many of us the wiser and happier for having known her.

I remember her laugh — a laugh so full of life you’d have to call it a guffaw. I remember the gleam she’d get in her eye when telling a joke. I remember how, in 34 years of work and play, she succeeded in making a life of her art, and an art of her life.

I’ll remember Valerie for all the ways she blessed us, before she left us too soon.

p.s. Valerie’s memorial service will be held at 1 p.m. on Tuesday, June 6, at Christ Evangelical Lutheran Church, 4714 Glenwood Street, Little Neck, N.Y. 11363. The Burgher family writes:

“Friends who would like to share thoughts about Valerie are warmly invited to do so at the service. I am hoping this will be more of a celebration of Valerie. Burial will be following the service at Pinelawn Cemetery [on Long Island].

“Valerie’s mom, Sonia Burgher, has asked that instead of flowers, contributions be made in Valerie’s name to NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness (nami.org).”

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

I am not surprised by what happened in Haditha because Americans are terrorists and killers. And this is the way of life now. I don’t care if they punish the American soldiers because they cannot bring back the lives of the dead.

—Baghdad sandwich vendor Murthada Abdel Rashid, 29, when asked for reaction to the alleged murder of Iraqi civilians by U.S. Marines in the northwestern town of Haditha last fall. According to news reports, U.S. military investigators have found that as many as 24 civilians, including women and children, were shot in retaliation for the death of a Marine lance corporal, and not killed in a roadside bomb blast or crossfire as the military previously said.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Here’s your occasional dose of inspiring news: Alaa Abdel-Fattah, an Egyptian pro-democracy activist who was arrested in early May, is continuing to blog from prison — somehow getting slips of paper with his scribbled posts past his jailers and into the safe havens of cyberspace. He and his wife Manal Hassan run a popular blog that has become a beacon within Egypt’s political reform movement, and a thorn in the side of President Hosni Mubarak’s authoritarian regime. You can read the blog here (it includes articles in English).

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

I just watched Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee’s masterpiece, for the second time (my wife is doing an interview with Rosie Perez, so this was technically “research”). I had first seen it maybe 10 years ago, and I remember being annoyed at the time about how the only Asian characters, the Korean American grocers, speak painfully pidgin English and come across as money-grubbing jerks. This time, however, it didn’t bother me so much. The portrayal is less than flattering, but that goes for all the characters in the film — from Sal the pizzeria owner to Radio Raheem the Public Enemy fan. The truth is, men and women like this exist in real life.

I agree with Roger Ebert, who points out that the brilliant achievement of Lee’s film is that there are no clear-cut heroes or villains. Every one of his characters is depicted sympathetically at some point in the film. Every character is also shown to be capable of vicious hate and racism. For Sonny the grocer, both come at once, at the incendiary climax of the film. Waving his broom violently to keep the crowd from his store, Sonny insists, “Me no white! Me black!” It’s a hopelessly naïve remark that shows how little Sonny knows about his African American customers, but also reminds us (and the crowd, which gives up on burning down his store) that he — a downtrodden immigrant struggling to survive — is also worthy of our empathy.

On this second viewing, it made perfect sense to me that Mookie (Spike Lee’s character) throws the trash can through the window of Sal’s pizzeria at the end of the film. Mookie is the character we most empathize with in the film, and someone we expect to “do the right thing.” His actions show the very human anger he feels at the death of a friend. They also remind us how all of us — even an intelligent, thoughtful man like Mookie — add our portions to this boiling pot of racial rage in America. No one is blameless in Lee’s film, and no one comes out unscathed. Just like in real life.

It’s sad but true that so many years after Lee’s film, the racial incident that inspired Do the Right Thing — the 1986 assault of three African American men by local teenagers in Howard Beach, New York — was replicated last year in the very same neighborhood. (The trial started this week.)

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen

Once upon a time, women weren’t allowed to wear pants (trousers, for you Brits). In our more enlightened age, women are free to wear pants, or dresses, or even colorful bits of string. Meanwhile, men have taken to trotting around in dresses all the time — very, very manly men included.

Yet, when it comes to the high school prom — that pinnacle of teenage sobriety and good manners, that sanctuary of moral upbringing where no hoochie mama may set foot — a boy wearing a dress is still off-limits. So says the principal of a high school in Gary, Indiana, who prevented a male student from coming to his prom last week in a slinky fuschia dress and heels.

She did let in a female student dressed in a tuxedo, however. And, a few other students who were “half-naked.” But boys in dresses? No way. That would be sacrilege against the prom gods.

“Girls can dress like a boy and they are just seen as tomboys,” pointed out Taleisha Badgett, the female student who wore a tuxedo to the prom. “It’s not a big deal. But if boys wear girls’ clothes, it’s a problem.… That’s not right.”

“I already had approval to go to the prom,” said the de-prommed student, Kevin Logan. “I do have constitutional rights. I asked [the principal], ‘Why are you doing this to me? This is my prom. This is like the most important night of my life.’”

Well, it may not actually turn out to be the most important day of your life, Kevin — think of it instead as the one day in your life you’ll ever see a wrist corsage — but that fuschia dress probably didn’t come cheap. Luckily, the state ACLU chapter is on the case.

Victor Tan Chen Victor Tan Chen is In The Fray's editor in chief and the author of Cut Loose: Jobless and Hopeless in an Unfair Economy. Site: victortanchen.com | Facebook | Twitter: @victortanchen