Ominous signs for Obama

Afghanistan is giving US President Barack Obama sleepless nights. If he wants to avoid a disastrous legacy, he should stop listening to neocons and instead heed the advice of Matthew Hoh who, last month, became the first Foreign Service official to resign in protest against the Afghan war. Hoh who was the senior US civilian in Zabul province, a Taleban hotbed, says the war is simply fueling the insurgency.

Even otherwise there are ominous signs for Obama. October has been the deadliest month for US troops in the eight-year war in Afghanistan. Two powerful bombs killed eight soldiers and an interpreter on Tuesday in separate attacks.

Neocons are urging Obama to send more troops and escalate the war in Afghanistan. They think that if the US wins the war, credit will go to George W. Bush and if things go wrong, it will affect Obama’s popularity and diminish the chances of his winning a second term. Either way he will be a loser. Meanwhile more and more people in the US and outside are losing “understanding of and confidence in the strategic purposes of the United States’ presence in Afghanistan,” as Hoh wrote in his resignation letter.

Ghulam Hussein, Dammam, published 29 October 2009

Not at all illogical

This is regarding your editorial, “Illogical fear” (Oct. 27). I guess I am reading entirely different reports about the anti-swine flu vaccine from the ones you are reading. I read that Americans in their millions are refusing the vaccine. This includes some who work in the medical field themselves. This happens all over the world.

Also how can there be sufficient testing for a vaccine for a disease that was only noticed in the past year? Swine flu is new, so how can there have been years of testing the vaccine? That doesn’t make sense. I will reserve my right to refuse the vaccine till I see five or so years of results of those who have given themselves as guinea pigs for the testing this year.

Umm Khalid, By e-mail, published 29 October 2009

Abdul Sattar Edhi

Abdul Sattar Edhi, the well-known human rights champion in Pakistan, has been awarded a prestigious United Nations prize for his work in promoting tolerance and nonviolence. According to the UNESCO press release, Edhi received the award for lifelong efforts to improve the conditions of the most poor and neglected people in Pakistan and South Asia. He deserves this prize and much more. Edhi started his charity work with just 15,000 rupees and just one ambulance; now the Edhi Foundation has a $10 million budget and over 600 ambulances all over the country.

Along with hospitals and ambulance services, the Edhi Foundation has set up clinics, maternity homes, blood banks, adoption centers, shelters for runaway children, schools and colleges. There is a basket outside each Edhi center so that a woman who, for some reason or other, cannot afford to keep her child can simply place the baby in the basket and the foundation will place it in an orphanage and give the children food, shelter and free education. Edhi is a shining example for the corrupt and selfish politicians of Pakistan.

Khawaja Umer Farooq, By e-mail, published 29 October 2009

Riyadh traffic police

I have a feeling that the Riyadh traffic police do not get applause or appreciation for the work they are doing. Their efforts in controlling traffic have been laudable. They have to deal with drivers of different nationalities, and varying degrees of civic consciousness. The traffic police deal with patience and understanding with each and every errant driver. Of course there are the problems of communication because most of the foreigners don’t speak Arabic. Even this aspect is handled efficiently.

However, I have one suggestion: The traffic on Gulf Bridge (Riyadh) from west to east toward Khurais Road could be further controlled, if there were another exit on Gulf Bridge after Sa’ladeen Street exit, opposite Panda. This would ease pressure on the signal on Sa’ladeen Street, and the traffic to Al-Ahsa Street could easily move without waiting for the Sa’ladeen signal.

I would once again like to thank the traffic department for doing a good job. Expatriates should cooperate with them and praise their work if they do good things. We always criticize the police if we find them wanting or inefficient. Should we not give them credit when they do good things?

Parvez Khan, Riyadh, published 29 October 2009

Choices before ASEAN

Further to your editorial on the ASEAN summit (Oct. 25), it is really very disappointing for ASEAN to tolerate Myanmar as a member state. They know Myanmar’s military junta is still keeping the country’s democratically elected leader, Aung San Suu Kyi, in jail. Unfortunately, ASEAN has a policy of noninterference in a member state’s internal affairs.

Only East Timor (an ASEAN observer) had the guts to voice its sentiment against Myanmar; that is why Myanmar is opposing the accession of East Timor into ASEAN. If the so-called “ASEAN way” of noninterference can be used as a pretext for not sanctioning Myanmar or expelling it from ASEAN, in order to force its ruling military régime to recognize and respect the results of the country’s democratic elections, then ASEAN will surely lose its credibility as an influential regional body. ASEAN disapproval will have serious repercussions in Myanmar’s dialogues with its giant neighbors such as China, Russia and India, and other regional bodies such as the EU.

As regard AFTA (ASEAN Free Trade Agreement), which was the focus of the latest summit, it is quite regrettable that your editorial came up with a simplistic and false analogy between the EU and AFTA by stating that if AFTA can be made to function strongly, then laggards such as the Philippines, Cambodia and Laos can expect to benefit economically in the same way that Greece, Spain and Portugal did when they joined the European Community (which is now the EU) in the 1980s. It must be emphasized that there were many strict macroeconomic criteria that were achieved by Greece, Spain and Portugal before they were admitted to the EC. It is not the case that they benefited economically after becoming members of EC; rather, they had first become modern democracies, industrialized and competitive vis-à-vis other EC member states before their applications to join the EC were approved.

In the case of ASEAN, the economic disparity among its member states is still quite glaring (Laos, Cambodia, Myanmar and Vietnam each have a GNP per capita income of less than $1,000), which means that some states have a decidedly greater comparative advantage in certain sectors compared to others, and which may make the playing field unequal and free trade detrimental to poorer ASEAN members’ domestic economic interests.

While AFTA’s plan is to stimulate greater trade and competitiveness and attract more foreign direct investments into the region by gradually eliminating tariff levels — and perhaps create a trickle-down effect to its less “forward-thinking” members in the process — it is but understandable that national interests would have to be prioritized before regional economic integration, especially when it comes to highly-sensitive agricultural products, such as rice, which continue to be the main products of most ASEAN member states. This is why, although AFTA negotiations began in 1993, it is not yet ratified by Thailand, Indonesia and Laos.

In the same vein, the Philippines refuses to lower down its tariffs on imported Thai rice from 40 percent to 35 percent, as Thailand in the last summit pointed out, lest Thai rice will inundate the Philippine markets at the expense of local rice producers who are still reeling from the effects of recent typhoons.

AFTA’s vision of completely eliminating tariffs by 2015 may be too visionary. Although tariffs on certain goods have already been effectively reduced through AFTA’s Common Effective Preferential Tariff (CEPT) system, there are still many hurdles to be overcome toward a greater economic integration.

Nevertheless, ASEAN members must realize soon that they will either have to shape up or ship out in the face of irreversible global interdependence and cutthroat competition from China.

Ronald Lara, Jeddah, published 29 October 2009

Al-Yami’s responsibility

This refers to the article, “Bragging about sex and respecting social norms” (Oct. 28). Some people say we are backward but actually we are not. Only we don’t publicize such acts as it provokes and encourages others to do the same and speak to others about their exploits. We should flog people who try to redefine our norms and culture.

People simply can’t do all that they are being asked to do by their employer or company. There is a red line one should not cross. So we can’t blame it on the TV channel for forcing Al-Yami to be a part of this production. There must have been some willingness on her part.

Hamza Farooq, By e-mail, published 29 October 2009