While thinking about the horrific events at Fort Hood, Texas just a few days ago, in which an Army psychiatrist, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, opened fire on a group of soldiers, killing thirteen (or fourteen, if you count the unborn child of one soldier), and wounding many others, I recalled a statement by a Pakistani journalist I read somewhere some time ago. Unfortunately, I do not remember his name, nor his exact words, but to the best of my recollection he said something like this: "While it is true that most Muslims are not terrorists, it is true that most terrorists are Muslims." Whether or not this is completely accurate, it does have a certain ring of truth. Certainly, if we think of the numerous terrorist attacks of the last few years that have taken place around the globe, it would seem that the majority were perpetrated by individuals who at least professed to be Muslims and justified their actions on the basis of Islamic teaching. One can certainly argue whether or not they were right in doing so (and I do not claim to be enough of an expert on Islam to be able to say definitely one way or the other); nevertheless, it is pretty obvious that there is a least a not insignificant percentage of Muslims who believe that killing "infidel" (non-Muslim) soldiers involved in the putative occupation of Muslim countries is morally justified or even required of faithful Muslims.

   Yet in the case of Hasan, we are being told by many, including President Obama, not to rush to judgment about the motives for his (Hasan's) murderous assault. I have to say that I find the president's stance somewhat ironic, given that he seemed to have no problem with rushing to judgment about the "stupid" actions of the Cambridge, Massachusetts police in the case of Professor Gates. Nevertheless, what is more significant, I believe, is that so many are trying to argue, in effect, that we shouldn't assume that Hasan's actions were motivated by his religious beliefs. Indeed, there has been speculation that he was suffering from some sort of mental distress resulting from his counseling American soldiers returning from combat zones overseas. Others have said that we may never know the reasons for this horrific event. Now I certainly agree that investigators should examine every possible explanation for Hasan's rampage and not jump to conclusions, but I don't believe that they should, in effect, rule out from the beginning what would seem a very likely reason--that Hasan believed he had a religious obligation to engage in what was essentially mass murder.

   After all, if even most of what has been reported in the media is true, it is hard to believe that Hasan was not driven by his religious beliefs. For example, it is reported that he once attended a mosque in northern Virginia that was attended by some of the 9/11 hijackers and that expressed considerable respect for the mosque's radical iman. Furthermore, he is reported to have argued with some of the returning veterans he was supposedly counseling about the U.S. presence in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is alleged to have told someone the day of the massacre that he was going to do something good for God and offered that person a copy of the Koran. There are also reports that he attempted to make contact with a figure tied to Al Qaeda. If this is all true, how likely is it that his faith, at least as he interpreted it, had nothing to do with his decision to commit this awful act?

   The tendency of many, particularly President Obama and his administration, to refuse to acknowledge the likelihood that Hasan was motived by a particular ideology--call it radical Islam, Islamo-fascism, Islamism, or whatever you wish--is rather breathtaking. Yet in the case of President Obama and those serving under him, it shouldn't be so surprising. Obama has made it clear from the beginning that he believed that under the Bush Administration the impression had been created that the U.S. was at war with Islam and that he intended to do away with such an impression--thus, the bow to the Saudi king, the Cairo speech, and related actions designed to show that Obama was sympathetic to the Islamic community. Furthermore, his administration has gone to great lengths to not only disassociate Islam from terrorism, but even, it would seem, to downplay the seriousness of the terrorist threat itself. As a result, the Bush Administration's "War on Terror" has become "Overseas Contingency Operations" (whatever that means) and the Department of Homeland Affairs no longer refers to terrorism, but to "man-caused disasters" (George Orwell, call your office!). Perhaps more of concern than this trend toward euphemisms is the Administration's apparent decision to treat terrorism as more a matter of law enforcement than of national security, resulting in the just-announced decision to put 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed on trial in a federal court in New York City, rather than before a military commission. As many have pointed out, this would seem to be a return to the antiterrorism policies of the Clinton years, which, however successful superficially, were unable to prevent 9/11 from happening.

   Furthermore, whatever else may be said about the Bush Administration, during all the years following the 9/11 attacks, there was not a single successful terrorist attack on U.S. soil. Some might argue that this was due to sheer "luck" or the fact that Al Qaeda wasn't trying very hard to attack the U.S., but my understanding of the evidence suggests that it wasn't just "luck" or a lack of iniative by the terrorists. Now we have had what some are arguing constitutes a terrorist attack, at a military base, of all places, in the heart of the country. While I think it would be unfair at this point to suggest that the Obama Administration's policies are responsible for creating an environment which this made this awful event possible, it will become increasingly difficult to so argue if there are more events like this in the next few years. In light of this, we might hope the Administration would undertake a serious rethinking of the approach it has take thus far, but, to use a very hoary cliche, I'm not holding my breath.

   One of the things I have learned teaching in a Chinese university is to expect that there will always be something that "they" (the English department, usually) forgot to tell you. For example, during my first semester teaching at the university--in fact, I believe it was the first day of class--I was going over the syllabus for an Advanced Reading class with my students, which I had spend some time in preparing, when I was informed (by the students) that nearly all of the students in the class would be having their teacher training for essentially the whole month of October. Thus, my meticulously developed schedule for the course was thrown into complete chaos. Then there was the time I scheduled an exam for a particular day, only to have a number of students turn up late and later hearing that the reason was that the students had had another, rather major examination scheduled for that day. Again, nobody had bothered to tell me this. (Why this happens, I don't know. Perhaps the Chinese faculty members all know about it and assume the foreign faculty also know, or perhaps the Chinese professors are just more flexible about their course schedules.)

   Thus, I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised when I found out on the first day of class for my Oral English course (for freshmen), that the students would be having military training for two weeks in October, after the Chinese National Day holiday. Once again, I found myself forced to change my plans for the semester.

   I knew very little about what went on during this training, so one day in class after they had come back, I thought I would ask my students about their experiences during the training. I should explain that this training is required of ALL students--it's not like ROTC training for college students in the U.S. who agree to serve in the military in return for a scholarship. When I first heard of it, I assumed that it was primarily intended as a way of inculcating "correct" political ideas in the students' heads. Nevertheless, I was curious to know what the students had been expected to do.

   As I had suspected, it seemed that at least part of the training involved a lot of practice marching. Given my own less-than-pleasant experiences in my high school's marching band, I was rather sympathetic. One exercise the students apparently were put through was to stand absolutely still for 40 minutes--something that I would not like to try myself. Also, not too surprisingly, there were a patriotic song contest and lectures given by their military trainer--although it sounded as if the subject matter of the talks wasn't all political, to be fair. However, what struck me was that one I asked the students about what they thought they had learned from the experience, at least one or two said that they had, in effect, learned the value of working together as a team. A number of students also mentioned that the aspect of the training they liked most was the opportunity to make new friends among their fellow students.

   Having listened to my students, I came to realize that despite my cynicism, it seemed that there had actually been something of value that these students had gained from this experience. However, I can't help thinking that while the intent of this training may have been to make the students more "patriotic"; in fact, what they got from it was much less political and much more personal.

   

   Since last week's elections in the U.S., it appears that the standard interpretation given by the Democrats is that the really significant results were those in the two special Congressional elections in California and New York, in which Democratic candidates were victorious, not the two gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia, in which the Republicans were winners. After all, it is argued, the House races involved national issues, while the elections in New Jersey and Virginia were focused on issues particular to each state. Furthermore, the Democratic losses in New Jersey and Virginia can be largely attributed to the weaknesses of the Democratic candidates--Jon Corzine had just become too unpopular in New Jersey and Creigh Deeds was just a poor campaigner.

   Now, on a certain level, these arguments would seem to have a certain merit. Presumably, the voters in the California and New York special elections were focusing on the national issues being debated in Washington, while voters in Virginia and New Jersey were thinking more about what was happening in Richmond and Trenton than in D.C. Also, it can be argued that voters in New Jersey and California were not primarily concerned with sending a message to Washington and that they did not view the elections in their states as a referendum on President Obama's (or the national Democrats') performance. Nevertheless, I find these arguments not altogether persuasive. For one thing, does it not seem a little strange to argue that an election (as in California or New York) that involved several thousand voters is more important than an election (as in New Jersey or Virginia) that involved millions of voters? Furthermore, even though it may be true that voters in New Jersey and Virginia were not trying  to express their views about President Obama through their ballots, is it of no sigificance that both states were carried by Obama in the 2008 presidential election? Also, the president did campaign for the Democratic candidates in both states, albeit perhaps more persistently for Corzine in New Jersey since he seemed to have a much better chance of prevailing than Deeds did. So, can Obama completely escape some of the blame for the Democrats' defeat in these states?

   Perhaps most importantly, both New Jersey and Virginia were states the Democrats would seem to have had good reasons to optimistic about. New Jersey has been a pretty consistently "blue state" for a long time--the last time a Republican won the governor's race was in 1985. As for Virginia, my home state, it had seemed to be trending in the Democrats' direction over the past few years. Indeed, in the last eight years or so, the Democrats in Virginia managed to do pretty well for themselves--two Democratic governors elected in succession, two U.S. Senate seats wrested from the Republicans in 2006 and 2008, control of the state senate (by one seat), and, perhaps most significantly, seeing a Democratic presidential candidate (Obama) take the state for the first time in decades. Futhermore, trends in the state, such as an inflow of people from other states and immigrants to the D.C. suburbs in northern Virginia, for example seemed to promise continuing electoral success for the Democrats. Yet, Bob McDonnell, the Republican gubernatorial candidate, not only won the election, but won it by nearly 20 points--an amazing performance. Furthermore, this was clearly not just a case of the Republicans having one strong candidate--all the Republican candidates in the elections for statewide offices (lieutenant governor and attorney general) were nearly equally successful. The Republicans even picked up several seats in the state House of Delegates. These results suggest that the election was not just a matter of personalities.

   What does all of this mean for the Democrats and President Obama? At this point, it is difficult to say. The polls seem to indicate the president personally remains fairly popular (but Congress much less so). However, Obama's policies seem to be viewed with much less favor. Obama can probably continue to make use of his personal popularity to pursue his agenda, but how long he can do so remains to be seen. As for congressional Democrats, a good many of those moderate-to-conservative Democrats ("blue dogs") representing traditionally Republican-leaning (or conservative) districts may be feeling that they have been put on notice. It would appear very likely, given present political conditions and historical trends, that at least some of these Democrats will be facing involuntary retirement next November. The question now may very well be--how many?

   Living in the People's Republic of China, specifically in its capital, Beijing, it's hard not to be aware of the late Chinese Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong. His body remains preserved in a masoleum in Tiananmen Square, which is also presided over by his portrait. I'm reminded of Mao every time I buy something, as Mao's portrait is featured on China's paper money; in fact, no matter how large or small a denomination a bill I hand over to the cashier, there is Mao's portrait (As an aside, I have never quite understood this. Certainly Mao was a significant figure in Chinese history, but so were many others, like the philosopher Confucius, the poet Li Bai, or Sun Yat-sen, the father of modern China. Couldn't their portaits also appear on the money? It would be less confusing, it would seem to me.)! Officially, Mao is still revered as the great founder of the People's Republic, and unofficially he is still highly regarded among many Chinese, although he is essentially a figure of history for younger Chinese, who have no personal memories of his time, unlike their elders. Despite this reverence, though, I still remember one of my former students, when asked to talk about someone she admired, replied "Mao Zedong," but then went on to say somewhat apologetically that she thought he was a great man even though it was true that he had made mistakes. Even the Communist Party has admitted that Mao was "seventy percent right, but thirty percent wrong." Nevertheless, it would not be that surprising that a Chinese might cite Mao Zedong as his or her favorite political philosopher, given the awe that he still held in.

   However, it would seem quite strange that an American, even a well-educated one--who presumably would know something more about China than his or her countrymen less well-versed in world history--would cite Mao as his or her favorite political philosopher. And yet, according to news reports, that is what Anita Dunn, the White House director of communications, did in a recent speech to some students.

   My understanding is that the White House is now saying that Ms. Dunn's comments about Mao were a joke, but having read the relevant portion of her remarks, it seems hard to believe that she was joking. Ms. Dunn appeared to be citing Mao as an example of not giving up on your dreams, in the face of difficult odds, referring to Mao's decision during the Chinese Civil War in the 1940s to take on Chiang Kai-Shek and his Nationalist forces, despite the fact that Mao's Communists seemed outnumbered and outgunned by the Nationalists. Mao's gamble paid off, as he ultimately led his forces to victory over the putatively stronger Nationalists.

   There are at least two problems with Ms. Dunne's comments, as I see it. First of all, although Mao did some contributions to Marxist political theory (his theory of "contradictions," for example), he wasn't really as much a political thinker as a revolutionary. Second, and perhaps more seriously, while Mao's gamble paid off in the case of the struggle against the Nationalists, his willingness to take risks didn't turn out so well in later years. For example, despite acknowledging that he knew little about economics, Mao launched the so-called Great Leap Forward in the 1950s in an effort to leapfrog the slow process of economic development. The policies adapted as part of the Great Leap Forward turned out to be a disaster for the Chinese economy. Then there was the infamous Cultural Revolution of the 1960s, when Mao tried to remake Chinese society totally, leading to a shut-down of China's educational system, the destruction of many cultural relics, and many damaged lives. Thus, the admission by the Communist Party that  Mao had been "thirty percent wrong."

   I know little of Ms. Dunn, but I can only assume that she is an intelligent person. Is she not aware of Mao's record? If not, then her admiration for Mao would seem superficial (this would not be the first time in the case of many otherwise intelligent Americans). If so, how can she still point to him as an example to be emulated? Something strange is going on here.

   In closing, I understand that Ms. Dunn cited Mother Teresa as her other hero, so to speak. I'm not quite sure what Mother Teresa, a great woman of faith and a celebrated humanitarian, had in common with Mao. I suppose both had their dreams and were risk-takers of a sort, but the nature of the risks they took and the nature of their dreams were quite different, I would argue. A very strange pairing indeed. This also points out something about the Obama White House--first Van Jones, the "green jobs czar" with alleged Marxist leanings and  now Anita Dunne, with a soft spot for Mao. This apparent leaning towards the far-left among at least two Obama staffers doesn't do much to dispell the notion that Obama is himself somehow a closet leftist.

   Like many people, when I first heard the news that President Obama had received the Nobel Peace Prize, my first reaction was shock. What possible reason could there be for awarding him the prize? The Nobel prize committee, made up of members of the Norwegian parliament, cited the president's support for international diplomacy, efforts toward nuclear disarmament, and outreach to the Islamic world. Well, these may all be desirable things, but at this point, the president's "efforts" in these areas have been entirely rhetorical. There simply aren't any concrete accomplishments by Obama in foreign policy to point to. At the very least, the decision to award President Obama the Nobel Peace Prize seems premature. If in the future he succeeds in brokering an Israeli-Palestinian peace accord or bringing about a major reduction in nuclear weapons worldwide, then it would seem appropriate to grant him this type of honor. Just giving a few speeches, no matter how beautifully phrased or presented, should not be the criterion for becoming a Nobel laureate.
   Furthermore, does one really want to argue that President Obama belongs in the company of such prior prize winners as Mother Teresa. Nelson Mandela, or Aung San Suu Kyi (the Burmese opposition leader)? These Nobel laureates not only accomplished something of value, but also made considerable personal sacrifices to do so. To his credit, the president did express some humility about being included in the ranks of celebrated prize winners such as these, but the contrast between their accomplishments and Obama's mere words still seems too great.

   On the other hand, consider some of the more recent Nobel Peace Prize recipients: former President Jimmy Carter (2002) and former Vice President Al Gore (2007). Notice anything they have in common with President Obama? That's right--they're all Democrats. In fact, of the four sitting or fomer U.S. presidents that have received the Nobel Peace Prize (Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, and Barack Obama), only one was a Republican--Theodore Roosevelt--and that was in the early 1900s!. Furthermore, recall that the Nobel committee was quite candid about why Jimmy Carter received the Peace Prize in 2002--it was intended as a slap at President George W. Bush, presumably for his alleged unilateralism in foreign policy. Al Gore was the man Bush defeated for the White House and a prominent critic of U.S. policies under Bush on "global warming" (now styled "global climate change" since the average global temperature hasn't increased in eleven years!). Barack Obama has almost consistently portrayed himself as the "anti-Bush." In short, as many have pointed out, a case could be made that the decision to award Obama the Nobel Peace Prize was to some extent an expression of the widespread disdain for President Bush among many (Western) Europeans. In fact, in awarding the prize to President Obama, the committee could be said to be honoring him for being more like a European than a traditional American leader.

   Whatever the actual reasons for this award, in light of his obvious lack of actual accomplishments at this point, it would seem to me that the honorable thing for President Obama to do would be to decline the Nobel Peace Prize. Certainly among the many others who were nominated for this year's prize, there should be someone who is arguably more worthy of it. However, I think it highly unlikely that Obama will decline the honor. After all, isn't he such a symbol of hope for many in the world, at least in his own eyes? Besides, perhaps we should think of it as a consolation prize--for not winning the Olympics for his adopted hometown Chicago! 

   Readers of this blog (if any exist!) may have noticed that there has been a hiatus in my postings. This was largely due to the fact that I traveled to the U.S. during the first week of October and returned to China just a few days ago. Although the trip seemed too short (I only could stay a week since I only had a week off from my teaching duties in connection with the Chinese National Day holiday), I still feel it was worthwhile, particularily as it was the first time in three years that my wife, our daughter, and myself were able to return to the U.S. as a family (in the previous two years, my wife and I had gone back individually). My daughter was able to see the "American side" of her family, including her grandmother, uncles, aunts, and cousins, which I think was a good thing for everyone.
   In addition, it was nice to return to my hometown in Fairfax County, Virginia, just outside of Washington, D.C. There seemed to be such a contrast between the often noisy and dirty streets of Beijing and the quiet, clean, and tree-lined streets of our suburban neighborhood in Virginia. I appreciated the fact that there were no language or cultural barriers for me there, and that I could easily get the type of food I craved! I also enjoyed the opportunity to take my daughter to visit historic Mount Vernon and some of the well-known landmarks in D.C. 

   Returning to the U.S. really strengthened my appreciation for my home country. Life in China has its attractions, but I doubt I will ever see it as truly being "home," despite being a long-time student of Chinese language and history and being married to a Chinese. Nevertheless, I had to return, as I had work to do here in Beijing. Still, I am quite looking forward to my next trip back, even though I'll need to wait another year for it!

   The People's Republic of China (PRC) will be celebrating the sixtieth anniversary of its founding in a few days, on October 1. Living in Beijing it is hard not to be aware of this fact, given the proliferation of PRC flags on shops, slogans on billboards (and television), and the obvious increase in security, including the presence of paramilitary People's Armed Police personnel on pedestrian overpasses and elsewhere. Furthermore, at the university where I work students from the university (and other universities) have been practicing nearly every day for a massive military parade scheduled for the big day, which will travel down Beijing's main east-west artery, Chang-An Jie. All sorts of festivities are apparently being planned for the anniversary throughout the country. Even a number of movies are being released to commemorate the momentous events of 60 years ago.

   On October 1, 1949, Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong proclaimed the establishment of the PRC on the rostrum of the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Beijing, adding that "the Chinese people have stood up!" This was certainly a significant event in Chinese history. For many years afterwards, the establishment of the PRC was referred to as jiefang, "Liberation." This term seems to be used less these days; instead, what one hears a lot of these days, at least in the English language media, are references to "the founding of New China." With the establishment of this "New China" came the end of the "old" China of the Kuomingtang (Chinese Nationalist Party or KMT) regime. The KMT government had been notable for its tremendous corruption, its authoritarian rule, and abuses of power. In light of this, the Communist Party asserted that it had "liberated" the Chinese people from such a brutal and corrupt regime. Indeed, unlike the KMT, the Communists seemed to be genuinely concerned about the welfare of peasants, factory workers, and other ordinary people. It sought to do away with the evils of the "old society," like prostitution and opium addiction,  and promoted the equality of men and women. In the heady early years of the PRC, there seemed to be a great deal of enthusiasm and patriotic fervor among the population at large.

   So, sixty years later, is China "new" and improved? In some ways, it clearly is. Thanks to the "reform and opening up" policicies initiated by Deng Xiaoping in the late 1970s, millions of Chinese, including many peasants, have escaped the grinding poverty that was so prevalent in the 1940s. China has a rising middle class, able to afford many things--such as a home or an automobile--that would have been impossible to acquire a few decades ago. Thousands of Chinese can afford to travel overseas, even to study in prestigious universities in other countries. The PRC is a member of the select club of nations with a nuclear arsenal and is only the third country to have sent men into space. China is a major player in global trade and financial markets. Last year, China hosted the Olympic Games, only the third time an Asian country has done so.

   And yet, if one looks closer, it might seem that the "new China" isn't quite as "new" as advertised. Under the KMT, corruption was rampant, but corruption is still widespread in the "new China," as even the Communist Party has acknowledged. Furthermore, it is at least arguable that the Communist Party's style of governance, even if inspired by a different political ideology, bears a resemblance to that of the  KMT 60 years ago.

   In short, while there may many things to celebrate during this 60th anniversary, it could be argued that the "new China" has not yet completely emerged. The French have a saying: Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose ("The more things change, the more they stay the same."). Indeed, it is interesting to note that it wasn't the Communist Party that was first to call for a "new China." A "new China" was once the professed goal of the KMT.

   

   Working in a Chinese university has often proven to be an interesting experience. Prior to coming to China, my professional experiences in academia had been limited to working in a community college in the U.S. as an adjunct (part-time) faculty member. Obviously, working part-time in a two-year college is not the same as working full-time in a four-year university. Furthermore, the U.S. and China are in many ways very different countries. Nevertheless, I think I came here assuming that most things--like classes, students, academic administration--wouldn't be that different. To some extent this has been the case. For example, the actual process of teaching a class has been about the same, and here, as there, I have faced occasional challenges in grading students. 
   On the other hand, at times there have been some things that have reminded me that I'm "not in Kansas anymore" (actually Virginia). To give one clear example, from time to time I pass by the office of the Communist Party secretary for the school of foreign languages (in which I teach), right across from the dean's office. I have tried unsuccessfully to visualize the equivalent in an American context--the office of the Democratic Party or Republican Party committee chairman across the hall from the dean's office. Then there are the occasional bureaucratic inanities, like the insistence by the English department's chairman that all comments by teachers on students' final papers or exams must be in red ink (I'm sure she was just doing her job).

   However, I am happy (?) to report that there is at least one thing that American and Chinese universities have in common--affirmative action. I became particularly aware of this fact about two years ago, when a student of mine from the previous semester came to see me. This student had received a final grade of 44. He had come to see me to ask if I would be willing to change his grade to a 45. He explained that he was a member of an ethnic minority, and as such, he only needed a grade of 45 to pass the course. In the end, I agreed to do so, given the minimal difference between a 44 and a 45. Nevertheless, this episode caused some reflection on my part. For one thing, I felt it a little strange that a member of an ethnic minority  needed to score only a 45 to pass a course, considering the fact that for all other students (members of the Han Chinese majority) a passing grade is only a 60 (I don't know whether there is a problem with grade inflation in Chinese universities or not). Getting a 60 shouldn't be that difficult, one would think. Furthermore, I wondered how many employers were aware of this grading policy for minorities. If they were aware of it, did they then tend to discount the value of a diploma held by a prospective minority employee? Whatever one might think about the policy of many U.S. universities to give certain minority students "a leg up" in the admissions process, I believe most would agree that an explicit policy that allows minority students to pass with a lower grade than other students would be unacceptable.

   This matter of grading minority students naturally leads to the larger issue of how ethnic minorities are treated in China. Officially, members of ethnic minorities--like the Muslim Uighurs of Xinjiang Province in China's northwest, Tibetans, and Mongolians from the northern province of Inner Mongolia (all of which have been represented among my students)--are equal with the majority Han and their unique cultures and traditions respected and even celebrated by the government. Unofficially, at least some discrimination against minorities clearly still exists and even the government's apparently even-handed approach, some would say, contains a hint of paternalism. Nevertheless, it seems to me that overall the government's approach is well-intentioned. The question is, as in the United States, whether educational policies meant to benefit minority students might, in the end, actually bring them greater harm by not preparing them for the realities of life outside of school. Only time will tell.   

   The Obama Administration has decided to scrap deployment of a planned missile defense system in the Czech Republic and Poland. The so-called Third Site had been planned by the Bush Administration to counter a possible Iranian missile threat to Europe and to provide additional protection of the U.S. east coast from missile attack (two missile defense sites exist within the U.S., one in Alaska and one in California, if I recall correctly). The Russian government had strenously objected to the planned deployment, claiming that it threatened the viability of its offense missile forces.

   In a sense, I am not too surprised at this decision by President Obama. For one thing, Obama has \made it clear that he wants to "re-set" U.S.-Russian relations, which were strained under his predecesor. Furthermore, the president is a liberal Democrat, and liberal Democrats have always had an ideological prediliction to oppose missile defense. After all, it was the late, now-nearly-sainted Ted Kennedy who dubbed President Reagan's proposed Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) "Star Wars," implying that SDI belonged in the realm of fantasy. The Clinton Administration cut back (although did not eliminate) the Pentagon's missile defense program. Over the years, most "progressive" Democrats  have opposed missile defense as being a waste of money and/or unecessarily destabilizing to the nuclear balance (especially in the waning years of the Cold War).   

   The Russian government's objections to the planned missile defense system never seemed very believable. The plan called for the deployment of something like ten anti-ballistic missiles. How ten missiles could have stopped a Russian arsenal of hundreds of missiles is beyond me. It seems more likely that the objection was political--the Russians didn't like the prospect of their former (putative) allies, the Poles and the Czechs, hosting an American defense system. It would appear that many in the Russian government are  not reconciled to the demise of the Soviet Union (I recall reading that Putin called the collapse of the Soviet Union the "greatest tragedy of the 20th century"--hmm, I could think of some better candidates). Even if there is no intent to resurrect the Soviet Union per se, there appears to be an aspiration to create a Russian sphere-of-influence in the former republics of the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe, one in which Moscow would have a veto over the actions of nominally independent countries.

   To be fair, my understanding is that the planned missile defense sites were controversial within the Czech Republic and  Poland themselves. Nevertheless, the decision to scrap the deployment of the defense system puts both countries in an awkward position--having taken the heat for agreeing to accept the deployment of the missile defense system, now they have been in a way left exposed, possibly to face further Russian bullying. The Obama Administration has said that it will provide some sort of alternative to the originally planned system, but one wonders how effective such an alternative will be and whether it is just a figleaf to cover up the fact that Obama reversed an apparent promise, made as recently as April, to deploy the missile defense system.

   So is President Obama, as my title suggests, following in the footsteps of his less-than-illustrious predecessor, Neville Chamberlain--in effect sacrificing two small countries in order to curry favor with an aggressive and supposedly more important country? To be honest, I don't think that it is quite that dastardly--we are hardly on the verge of another world war and Obama is not contenancing the territorial dismemberment of a sovereign country. Nevertheless, I think it can be argued that Obama's decision may prove to be as equally unwise as Chamberlain's, as it may very well lead to further demands by Russia, rather than gaining Russian acquiescence in something that Washington wants.

   Indeed, it has been widely speculated that the reason for this decision was to set up a quid pro quo--the U.S. would give up the planned missile defense system in return for Russian cooperation in putting pressure on Iran to abandon its nuclear ambitions. However, at this point at least, there is no sign of any such deal being in the works. Furthermore, if the idea was to use the missile defense sites in Eastern Europe as bargaining chips, shouldn't the Obama Administration waited until it was clear that the Russians were willing to make such a deal? For now, at least, it seems that both Moscow and Tehran have gotten something they wanted, without having to pay a price for it.

   Certainly, the timing of the announcement of the president's decision couldn't have been worse--coming as it did on the 70th anniversary of the Soviet invasion of Poland in World War II. Is there such a lack of historical awareness in the Administration?

   As a long-time student of international relations (I have my B.A. in the subject), it would be very easy to become depressed in light of this development. However, we need to remember that ultimately the security of nations and the peace of the world do not depend on alliances or defensive systems, but on the one who determines the rise and fall of nations and their rulers. In the end, there shall be a lasting global peace, but not as a result of the machinations of generals and/or diplomats.

   Republican Congressman Joe Wilson of South Carolina has been censured by the U.S. House of Representatives for shouting "You lie!" during a recent address to Congress by President Barack Obama pushing his so-called health care reforms. Wilson had apologized to the president soon after the event and the president had accepted the apology. However, it appears that many House Democrats felt that wasn't enough, thus the move to censure Wilson. Without a doubt, what Wilson did was inappropriate--it would have been inappropriate regardless of who the speaker had been, but especially in the case of the President of the United States, whose office, I believe, should always be afforded a certain basic level of respect (except under extraordinary circumstances).

   So what's the problem with this action by the House? The problem, as many have pointed out, is the inconsistency displayed by House Democrats. Back in 2007, Democratic Congressman Pete Stark called the Republicans liars (as well as making some other rather nasty comments) during a House debate. He later did apologize for his remarks, but he was not censured by the House. Earlier, in 2005, Democrats booed President Bush while he was giving an address to Congress. Again, no formal action was taken by the House, despite the fact that at the time the Republicans were in control of the House (perhaps it would have been impractical to censure so many Congressmen?) If acting in a disrespectful way towards the President or calling one's political opponent a liar is inconsistent with the behavior expected of a House member, why should have Wilson be censured and not those Democrats who engaged in similar acts?

   It has become commonplace to complain about the growing incivility in American political debate. I agree that this is an unwelcome phenomenon. The problem though, is that some of those who complain about incivility--whether Republican or Democrat--only complain about incivility by their political opponents. They would gain much more credibility if they were to apply the same standard to their own side. Those who said that "Bush lied" about the reasons for the Iraq War are hardly in a position to complain about someone asserting that Obama is lying about health care reform legislation.

   Nevertheless, I suppose we shouldn't be surprised by this, given human nature. Too often we all need to remember something that was said some two thousand years ago: before trying to take the speck out of your brother's (opponent's?) eye, you should first take the board out of your own.

   The Chinese government recently called for the return to China of several Uighur men who were formerly held at the Guantamano Bay detention camp for suspected terrorists. The Obama Adminnistration decided the men should be released from Guantamano, apparently due to a lack of clear evidence that they had engaged in terrorist activities, even though they reportedly received some sort of training from Al Qaeda. The men, who are members of the Muslim ethnic minority living in China's northwestern province of Xinjiang, are now in the British territory of Bermuda. The government of Palau, a tiny island nation in the Pacific (near the Philippines) is considering a U.S. request that the men be allowed to stay there.

   It seems unlikely to me that the these Uighurs will be sent back to China, as the U.S. government apparently is opposed to their return for fear of what might happen to them. Furthermore, China lacks diplomatic ties with Palau (Palau has official relations with Taiwn), so it cannot formally request the extradition of the men. However, while the Chinese government expresses its concerns about these putative terrorists, it might reconsider the way it has portrayed another group of men--the so-called "Boxers"--who, over a century ago, played a role in the emergence of modern China, and who in the national mythology developed by the current government, are viewed as heroes of a sort.  

   First, for those of you who are not familiar with modern Chinese history, a brief history lesson. From the mid 17th century until the early 20th century,. China was ruled by foreigners, the Manchus, who ruled as the Qing Dynasty. By the 19th century, the Qing Dynasty's rule was rather weak, and foreign powers, primarily the Europeans, Americans, and Japanese, took advantage of this weakness by creating "spheres of influence" in different parts of China, in some cases (as in Hong Kong), actually gaining control of Chinese territory. This situation created a great deal of resentment among many Chinese, as did the activities of Christian missionaries. This resentment led in 1898 to the emergence of the so-called Boxers, who were called this due to their  practice of "shadow boxing"--a form of Chinese martial arts--which they believed made them impervious to bullets. They were known in Chinese as yihetuan. The Boxers were virulently xenophobic and anti-Christian. They begain to kill foreigners, including a large number of missionaries and their families, as well as Chinese converts to Christianity. They murdered a German diplomat in the capital Beijing, and eventually (in 1900) beseiged the diplomatic quarter in Beijing, seeking to kill all the foreigners there. The Qing government vacillated in its approach towards the Boxers, at first viewing them as mere rebels, but later recognizing them as allies in the regime's fight against foreign influence in China. The Empress Dowager, the de facto ruler of the country, even went so far as to declare war on the countries whose diplomats were under siege. The result was an invasion by a joint force including Germans, Britons, Americans, Italians, Russians, and Japanese, which stormed Beijing and lifted the siege. This allied force also engaged in some considerable looting of its own in response to the depredations of the Boxers. In the end, the Qing government was forced to agree to pay an indemnity to the allied powers, which saddled the country with a large debt and further weakened the regime, until its collapse in 1911.

   All of this came to mind when I recently visited one of the old guard towers that were once part of old Beijing's city walls. The walls came down more than a half-century ago, but some of its towers remain. The one I visited was located at the southeastern corner of the so-called Inner City--a city within a city where only members of the ruling Manchu minority were allowed to live. A sign below one of the walls of the guard tower noted the presence of grafitti made by some of the allied soldiers after they captured the tower from a force of Qing soldiers and Boxers. The sign spoke of the grafitti as "criminal evidence" of the invaders' deeds. In other words, the allied soldiers were criminals.

   This was not the first time I had seen this sign, as I had visited this site a year before, during the time of the Olympics, when China was rolling out its red carpet for all of those foreign visitors. It made me once again reflect how strange it was that a China that claimed to be a country open to the world could portray such bloodthirsty figures as the Boxers as national heroes for resisting foreigners. This is not to excuse the arrogant actions of many foreigners in China a century ago, but it seems to me that the Boxers' response to those actions--the murder of unarmed men, women, and children, simply because they were foreigners or because they had converted to a "foreign" religion--can never be justified. As a the cliche goes, two wrongs don't make a right. In a sense, it could be argued that the Boxers were forerunners of modern terrorists. The Chinese government has expressed it strong opposition to terrorism. Is it really appropriate then to honor the Boxers as heroes? Couldn't there be a little more honesty about what sort of people the Boxers really were? Does the Chinese government really want to be seen as condoning xenophobia?

   According to author David Quammen, in an interview in the October 2009 issue of The Beijinger magazine (an English language publication oriented towards foreign residents of the city), 44% of Americans are "intellectually lazy." Why, you ask? Is it because they believe TV "reality shows" are actually based on reality? No, it's because they profess disbelief in the notion of human evolution. In a similar vein, in an on-line column that appeared a year or so ago, regular National Review contributor John Derbyshire essentially pronounced all "creationists"--the scare quotes are his--to be idiots.

   Alas, I suppose I've now revealed  myself to be among the mentally flabby. I had thought that I had done a pretty good job of building up my mental muscles by reading books on history, linguistics, the history of science, etc., but apparently it has all been for naught. Somehow I just can't make the mental effort to grasp the "fact" that humans and chimpanzees clearly had a common ancestor given the great similarity in their genes, despite the rather obvious physical differences between the two.

   To be somewhat more serious, I should clarify my views on this perennial "hot topic." I would say that I considered myself to be a "creationist" with a small "c". In other words, as a Christian I believe most firmly that God is the one ultimately responsible for the existence of all life and that life developed according to His plan, not by mere chance. On the other hand, I am somewhat agnostic about the exact means by which God brought the various forms of life into existence or how long the process took. Since God is by His very nature able to do anything (except, as the theologians point out, what is contrary to His nature, so that God can never be unloving, unjust, etc.), I certainly think it is possible that He created all life in six solar days. At the same time, I am also open to the possibility that the opening chapters of Genesis were meant to interpreted in a less-than-literal manner. For example, my understanding is that the Hebrew word yom, which is translated as "day," does not always mean a literal 24-hour day. Furthermore, I  recall reading that many earlier Jewish and Christian scholars did not adhere to a literal interpretation of the creation account (although perhaps this is a matter of debate). I think there is enough ambiguity in the biblical account that we need to exercise some humility in this matter. It seems to me that the six-day creation theory is plausible theologically, but faces some challenges from a scientific perspective. In contrast, theistic evolution (the idea that life evolved, but under God's ultimate control), seems to fit more with current thinking in biology, but it is problemmatic from a theological perspective.

   One reason for my skepticism about neo-Darwinian macroevolution (to use somewhat more precise phrasing) is that as someone who has studied language, the Darwinian explanation of the origin of human language--that it is merely a more sophisticated version of the communication systems used by putatively less advanced forms of life--seems rather unlikely. Human language, in its complexity and difficult-to-fathom relationship to human thought, is qualitatively different from the songs of birds or whales, I would argue.

   Regardless, whatever one's view on this issue, I would argue that denigrating the intelligence of those who disbelieve in "evolution" is not a particularly effective means of convincing them otherwise, nor is it a particularly strong line of argument-if one thinks about it. Consider: nearly all of the great figures in the early history of modern science--such as Copernicus, Galileo, and Newton--were "creationists"; they all believed that the natural world was the work of a supreme intelligence. Would we really like to argue that these men were all stupid? "Ah," you might say, "but they just didn't have the knowledge of the natural world that later figures like Darwin had due to the numerous advances in scientific knowledge in the following centuries." Or, one might argue that such men, despite their innovative thinking in some areas of scientific inquiry, were just too bound to the common beliefs of their time in other areas. Well then, what of Darwin's contemporaries? Louis Agassiz, one of the most celebrated biologists of the 19th century, rejected Darwin's ideas. So did Georges Cuvier, who was the founder of modern paleontology. Were they ignoramuses? Even two of Darwin's most famous supporters, the botanist Asa Gray and the "co-discoverer" of evolution, William Russell Wallace, while accepting much of Darwin's theory, could not agree with him that life had developed purely by chance. In the 20th century, Vladimir Nabokov, a highly-regarded novelist in Russian and English and a self-trained expert on butterflies, also expressed doubt about Darwin's theory. Could it really be that this was due to some mental deficiency?

   In short, whatever one's views on this topic, I would hope that we could all agree that resorting to such ad hominem argumentation should be out-of-bounds. Let the debate be conducted on the basis of the evidence and the clearest thinking, not by stooping to the intellectual equivalent of schoolboy taunting.

   According to a story I noticed on the Internet, Noam Chomsky, the famed (infamous?) linguistic theorist and acerbic critic of U.S. foreign policy, recently paid a visit to Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Given the similarity of the two men's political views, I suspect that their meeting was something of a love-feast. In a sense, Chomsky's meeting with a virulently anti-U.S. strongman isn't really news--it seems there has never been an anti-U.S. government that Chomsky hasn't liked or at least sympathesized with (with the exception, perhaps, of the former Soviet Union--but even there my impression is that Chomsky felt the Soviet Union was the lesser of two evils during the Cold War).

   Chomsky, of course, is a darling of much of the political left. As a graduate student in linguistics in the mid 1990s, I couldn't help avoiding him as it seemed all of my professors were ardent Chomskyans, not only in the field of linguistics, but also--I had the feeling--in politics. Whenever Chomsky came to give a talk in the Washington, D.C. area, they would always encourage us to go hear him speak. However, since he was always programmed to speak on politics, I had no interest in going. If he had been going to talk on linguistics, I think I would have been more interested in hearing what he had to say.

   Indeed, to be fair, I must acknowledge that Chomsky has been a very influential figure in the development of modern linguistics. Having studied his ideas about linguistics, I must say that he has had some interesting things to say about human language. I'm not sure that he has always been right in his theorizing about language, but at least he has had demonstrated genuine expertise in the field of linguistics.

   On the other hand, when it comes to his higher-profile role as a critic of U.S. foreign policy, I find Chomsky to be a less compelling figure. To be sure, I would certainly never argue that U.S. foreign policy should never be criticized. Furthermore, I am quite willing to admit that at times during the Cold War the U.S. government took actions that were morally indefensible--that at times the end was allowed to justify the means. Nevertheless, despite those sometimes morally dubious policies or actions, I cannot accept Chomsky's notion that the U.S. is some sort of global monster; in fact, some U.S. policies (such as the Marshall Plan in Europe after World War II or recent efforts to combat AIDS in Africa) have been arguably beneficial to many.

   In addition to the fact that the record of U.S. foreign policy is not as baleful as Chomsky would have us believe, there is also the problem that Chomsky lacks credibility, to a large degree, if we look at his own record. Perhaps most notoriously, Chomsky essentially white-washed the brutalities committed by the communist Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia (of the "killing fields" fame) in the 1970s. Long after it became apparent that something terrible was happening in Cambodia, Chomsky characterized reports of Khmer Rouge atrocities as anti-Communist propaganda or trivalized the events by suggesting the killings in Cambodia weren't any worst than those that occurred in post-World War II France, when some Frenchmen took revenge on former collaborators with the Nazis. To this day, to the best of my knowledge, Chomsky has never admitted he was wrong about his defense of the Khmer Rouge.

   More recently, during the 2001 U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in response to the de facto Taliban regime's support for Al-Qaeda, Chomsky alleged that the U.S. was deliberately cutting off food supplies to refugees within the country. In fact, food aid to Afghan refugees was held back for a while by the fighting, but not for long. Futhermore, in the course of the war the U.S. military was air-dropping food supplies to Afghanis and the massive starvation Chomsky seemed to be predicting did not occur. Yet I'm not aware Chomsky has ever acknowleged this.

   Sometimes Chomsky can't even get his history right. A number of years ago, a journalist writing an article about Chomsky observed one of his classes at MIT. During the class, Chomsky claimed that the U.S. had supported a pro-Nazi military force made up of anti-Soviet Ukrainians and that this force had delayed the liberation of some Nazi death-camps (to the best of my recollection of the story). Another author read about this, did some research, and concluded that Chomsky had confused a pro-Nazi Ukrainian force that had been defeated by the Soviet Red Army near the end of the war with a U.S.-supported guerilla force made up of anti-Soviet Ukrainians in the early years of the Cold War. When questioned about this, Chomsky was unwilling to acknowledge his mistake.

   Perhaps the thing I find the least admirable about Chomsky is his unwillingness to apply the same moral standards he applies to the government of his own country to the governments of other countries that oppose the U.S. Even if all or even most of his criticisms of U.S. foreign policy were valid, does that mean that automatically that the actions of anti-American regimes are above criticism? In the past. Chomsky has seemed to be sympathetic towards the governments of (the then) North Vietnam, Sandanista Nicaragua (in the 1980s), and Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge. Were these countries exemplars of human rights? For that matter, is Hugo Chavez, who has strong-armed his political opponents and seems to hold anti-Semitic sentiments, a figure worthy of the admiration of someone like Chomsky, who presumably considers himself a champion of human rights? My understanding is that in the past, when questioned why he didn't condemn the abuses of other governments, Chomsky replied that there were others doing that, that his role was to reveal the evils committed by the U.S. government. It seems to me, though, that Chomsky's silence  about or downplaying of the abuses of anti-American regimes suggests he is applying an indefensible double-standard. As it appears he is unwilling to talk about the abuses of those governments he is sympathetic to, he appears to me to be much less the heroic figure that his fans imagine him to be.

   Certainly, given his fame and his large number of avid admirers, Chomsky's pronouncements will continue to hold the attention of many. Nevertheless, whether such pronouncements should be taken seriously by the fair-minded is another matter. (Incidently, some of the information in this posting is taken from a book I read a few years ago called The Anti-Chomsky Reader. On the whole, I would recommend this book to anyone interested in reading something about Chomsky that is not marred by excessive hero-worship.)

   Edward Kennedy, U.S. senator from Massachusetts, has died of brain cancer. The news is not totally unexpected, but none the less sad for friends and family. As I suspect many have or will note, it is ironic that Kennedy passed away just as serious debate was beginning over one of his biggest legislative priorities--so-called health care reform. How his death will affect the passage of any health care legislation remains to be seen.

   As someone who tends toward the conservative side of the political spectrum, I have to say that I was never a fan of Senator Kennedy. I would have to say that many of the policies he pushed for I would have opposed. There is also the matter of his problematic personal life (although I understand he did try to make some amends for that in his later years). Nevertheless, I do believe he was animated by a genuine desire to better his country, and I think we must acknowledge that it could not have been easy for him to deal with the tragic deaths of his brothers John F. Kennedy and Robert Kennedy at the hands of assassins.

   It is a cliche, but arguably Kennedy's passing does represent the end of an era. At the very least, it probably ends the prominent role of the Kennedy family in Democratic Party politics. Although, obviously, there remain a number of Kennedy family members involved in American political life, it seems unlikely to me that any of them will ever reach the national stature of John, Robert, or Edward Kennedy. Of course, Senator Kennedy in effect anointed Barack Obama as the one to carry on the Kennedy legacy, but President Obama still isn't a Kennedy. Given the political fates of George W. Bush and Hillary Clinton, I wonder how keen Americans will be in the future for political dynasties.

   Whatever one thinks of him, Edward Kennedy certainly played a major role in American political life for some four decades. What will happen to his political legacy is hard to foretell.