I have a confession to make: I am the foreign affairs columnist for The New York Times and I didn't listen to one second of the Sept. 11, 2001 hearings and I didn't read one story in the paper about them. Not one second. Not one story.
Lord knows, it's not out of indifference to Sept. 11. It's because I made up my mind about that event a long time ago: It was not a failure of intelligence, it was a failure of imagination. We could have had perfect intelligence on all the key pieces of Sept. 11, but the fact is we lacked -- for the very best of reasons -- people with evil enough imaginations to put those pieces together and realize that 19 young men were going to hijack four airplanes for suicide attacks against our national symbols and kill as many innocent civilians as they could, for no stated reason at all.
Imagination is on my mind a lot these days, because it seems to me that the only people with imagination in the world right now are the bad guys. As my friend, the Middle East analyst Stephen Cohen, says, "That is the characteristic of our time -- all the imagination is in the hands of the evildoers."
I am so hungry for a positive surprise. I am so hungry to hear a politician, a statesman, a business leader surprise me in a good way. It has been so long. It's been over 10 years since then Israeli prime ministerYitzhak Rabin thrust out his hand to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat on the White House lawn. Yes, yes, I know, Arafat turned out to be a fraud. But for a brief, shining moment, an old warrior, Rabin, stepped out of himself, his past, and all his scar tissue, and imagined something different. It's been a long time.
I have this routine. I get up every morning around 6am, fire up my computer, call up AOL's news page and then hold my breath to see what outrage has happened in the world overnight. A massive bombing in Iraq or Madrid? More murderous violence in Israel? A hotel going up in flames in Bali or a synagogue in Istanbul? More US soldiers killed in Iraq?
I so hunger to wake up and be surprised with some really good news -- by someone who totally steps out of himself or herself, imagines something different and thrusts out a hand.
I want to wake up and read that US President George W. Bush has decided to offer a real alternative to the stalled Kyoto Protocol to reduce global warming. I want to wake up and read that 10,000 Palestinian mothers marched on Hamas headquarters to demand that their sons and daughters never again be recruited for suicide bombings. I want to wake up and read that Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia invited Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to his home in Riyadh to personally hand him the Abdullah peace plan and Sharon responded by freezing Israeli settlements as a good-will gesture.
I want to wake up and read that General Motors has decided it will no longer make gas-guzzling Hummers and Bush has decided to replace his limousine with an armor-plated Toyota Prius, a hybrid car that gets over 40 miles to the gallon.
I want to wake up and read that Vice President Dick Cheney has apologized to the UN and all our allies for being wrong about weapons of mass destruction. in Iraq, but then appealed to our allies to join with the US in an even more important project -- helping Iraqis build some kind of democratic framework. I want to wake up and read that Representative Tom DeLay called for a tax hike on the rich in order to save Social Security and Medicare for the next generation and to finance all our underfunded education programs.
I want to wake up and read that Justice Antonin Scalia has recused himself from ruling on the case involving Cheney's energy task force when it comes before the Supreme Court -- not because Scalia did anything illegal in duck hunting with Cheney, but because our Supreme Court is so sacred, so vital to what makes our society special -- its rule of law -- that he wouldn't want to do anything that might have even a whiff of impropriety.
I want to wake up and read that Bush has announced a Manhattan Project to develop renewable energies that will end America's addiction to crude oil by 2010. I want to wake up and read that Mel Gibson just announced that his next film will be called Moses and all the profits will be donated to the Holocaust Museum.
Most of all, I want to wake up and read that Senator John Kerry just asked Senator John McCain to be his vice president, because if Kerry wins he intends not to waste his four years avoiding America's hardest problems -- health care, deficits, energy, education -- but to tackle them, and that can only be done with a bipartisan spirit and bipartisan team.
Recently, China launched another diplomatic offensive against Taiwan, improperly linking its “one China principle” with UN General Assembly Resolution 2758 to constrain Taiwan’s diplomatic space. After Taiwan’s presidential election on Jan. 13, China persuaded Nauru to sever diplomatic ties with Taiwan. Nauru cited Resolution 2758 in its declaration of the diplomatic break. Subsequently, during the WHO Executive Board meeting that month, Beijing rallied countries including Venezuela, Zimbabwe, Belarus, Egypt, Nicaragua, Sri Lanka, Laos, Russia, Syria and Pakistan to reiterate the “one China principle” in their statements, and assert that “Resolution 2758 has settled the status of Taiwan” to hinder Taiwan’s
Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong’s (李顯龍) decision to step down after 19 years and hand power to his deputy, Lawrence Wong (黃循財), on May 15 was expected — though, perhaps, not so soon. Most political analysts had been eyeing an end-of-year handover, to ensure more time for Wong to study and shadow the role, ahead of general elections that must be called by November next year. Wong — who is currently both deputy prime minister and minister of finance — would need a combination of fresh ideas, wisdom and experience as he writes the nation’s next chapter. The world that
The past few months have seen tremendous strides in India’s journey to develop a vibrant semiconductor and electronics ecosystem. The nation’s established prowess in information technology (IT) has earned it much-needed revenue and prestige across the globe. Now, through the convergence of engineering talent, supportive government policies, an expanding market and technologically adaptive entrepreneurship, India is striving to become part of global electronics and semiconductor supply chains. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Vision of “Make in India” and “Design in India” has been the guiding force behind the government’s incentive schemes that span skilling, design, fabrication, assembly, testing and packaging, and
Can US dialogue and cooperation with the communist dictatorship in Beijing help avert a Taiwan Strait crisis? Or is US President Joe Biden playing into Chinese President Xi Jinping’s (習近平) hands? With America preoccupied with the wars in Europe and the Middle East, Biden is seeking better relations with Xi’s regime. The goal is to responsibly manage US-China competition and prevent unintended conflict, thereby hoping to create greater space for the two countries to work together in areas where their interests align. The existing wars have already stretched US military resources thin, and the last thing Biden wants is yet another war.