If another nation-state were to down the power grid, would that constitute an act of war? It seems so. But what if a lone operative were able to distribute the wrong user manual to electronic company employees? It hardly seems to meet the definition of “war,” yet could have expansive results. In Georgia and in Estonia, targeted cyber attacks crippled the national government; in Mumbai, cyber attacks accompanied bombings to impair the emergency response and perpetuate panic.

Yet cyber attacks do not elicit the same emotional reaction as bombs, and January’s attacks are another manifestation. Our reactions to China’s (allegedly) aggressive infiltration work against the US government, from Titan Rain to the East Asia Bureau and the Commerce Department attacks, are not the same as if they had sent tanks or hijacked a plane. If our concern were purely economic (measuring the loss), then one might expect our reactions to cyber attack-related damage to be the same as any other terrorist-related damage. But they don’t seem to be.

Harvard negotiation professor Robert Mnookin’s new book explores the ways in which emotional and moral aspects of a decision can affect our cognitive process: when we ask whether to bargain with a “devil,” purely economic rationale is not always the method we invoke to answer the question. Where we feel an inherent sense of evil– 9/11 and Al Qaeda; the Holocaust and the Nazis, for example– there is an extra layer in the decision-making process.

In the same vein, Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman has written on the reasons our cognitive economics of reaction are not according to rational choice theory. “Rational” or not, cyber attacks seem to have a degree of sanitation that a bomb lacks. The backroom with a computer is layers away from the explosions and blood, even if the keystrokes result in the same destructive, even fatal, effects.

Our perception of the gravity of a situation seems tuned to our degree of visceral reaction– having a “face” to the threat is crucial (as recognized by psychologist Daniel Gilbert in his evolutionary-psychology hypothesis that global warming does not push our buttons like terrorism and other threats “with a mustache” do). Each time Osama bin Laden releases a new video, as he did last week, he stirs an emotional maelstrom. Consider too our national concern for one Natalie Holloway, as compared to the vast number of hunger- or cancer-related deaths in the world. We rationally recognize hunger and cancer as problems, but we spend irrational amounts of money to salvage one life because we have a face for both the victim and her alleged aggressor.

In fact, this seems to be one of the reasons why terrorists haven’t historically chosen to launch cyberattacks (any lack of technical savvy seems reconcilable if they contracted out, Bin Laden is a millionaire after all): with an eye towards getting under our skin, terrorists prefer to blow things up than hire a computer hacker to inflict an attack. But the latest news on the China Google hackings suggests the attacks may have been conducted by a Google insider, and if there were a showy way to use cyber weapons to effect death in the “kinetic” (physical) world, then terrorists–or other actors– may harness it.

The stakes soon will be as high online as they are offline. Most attacks so far have focused on accruing money (such as the $9M ATM scam the FBI uncovered last year) or aggressive social commentary (like the Estonia attacks following the removal of the Bronze Soldier of Talinn statue)– but war-scale damage to objects and people is a continuing prospect. Moreover, the cyber attacker may be uniquely freed of retribution to the extent that they can successfully anonymize themselves against forensic traces back to the “smoking keyboard.”

And of course we must hold ourselves accountable as well. As our reactions to cyberaggression are tempered by the sanitizing factor, our willingness to execute cyber attacks may be freed. A few days ago, the Pentagon called for a high-tech “Office of Deception” [PDF link] of sorts, to barely a raised eyebrow. In offensive cyber activities, the laws are cloudy and the work is classified–the Department of Defense acknowledges they are happening but releases no information.

Our sense of Internet rights must keep up with our sense of human rights, and when using or responding to cyber weapons, we ought to be cognizant regarding the effects of hard-wired perceptions of ethical distance upon our willingness to engage.

Merritt Baer is a Harvard Law School student in Cambridge, MA.

The military and police have responded with shocking brutality, Determined to keep Zelaya out of power, they have killed at least one protestor, beaten several others, and shut down news outlets that gave Zelaya an outlet to speak. With Brazil willing to host Zelaya indefinitely, the potential for violence remains high.

The Obama Administration has had difficulty dealing with the Honduras situation. Certainly Central America is not high on Obama’s foreign policy priority list. Ever since George W. Bush decided to remake the Middle East, Latin America has played a secondary role in American foreign policy.

U.S. troops have not invaded a Latin American nation since Haiti in 1994, which is by far the longest span of time without American military intervention in the region since the nineteenth century. This space has allowed Latin American nations to flex their muscles like never before. Strong regional leaders have emerged in the last decade.

The American media focuses on Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez, but arguably more important is Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who has led his nation into international prominence and served as a progressive and democratic force in the region while avoiding Chavez’s bombast. Other nations including Chile, Paraguay, Bolivia, Argentina, and Ecuador have all elected progressive leaders in free and fair elections without U.S. interference.

For the first time since the 1980s however, antidemocratic forces have taken power in a Latin American country. Costa Rican president Oscar Arias took the lead on negotiations between Zelaya and the coup leaders, but the Nobel Peace Prize winner faced iron opposition to Zelaya’s return to power. Micheletti and his supporters have discovered the power of no. With the United States more than occupied in Afghanistan and Iraq, the coup leaders challenge the world to do something about their actions. They know other nations will not invade. They have no respect for Honduras’ fragile democratic traditions. They do not care about sanctions. The suffering of the impoverished Honduran people has never worried the nation’s ruling class, at least not before Zelaya.

In the end, Honduras represents the greatest Latin American foreign policy challenge the United States has faced since the end of the Cold War. While other nations almost immediately cut all aid to Honduras after the coup, the U.S. demurred, rightfully claiming this desperately poor country needed foreign aid to survive. The U.S. has since moved closer to withholding aid, citing the coup leaders’ intransigence. But it’s clear that this will not move the coup leaders, who care far more about their own power than the fate of Honduras’ poor.

The international community has responded with unified condemnation of the coup. A stern international response is important because of the potential for right-wing coups throughout Latin America. Particularly in Bolivia, the traditional elite loathe Evo Morales with white-hot passion. They would like nothing more than the clock to return to 1982 and the Reagan Administration to send in troops to kill Morales. Given the circumstances, I have no doubt that the Bolivian military and wealthy elite are closely monitoring the international response to Honduras to see what reaction their own coup might engender.

The U.S., working with Brazil, the European Union, and other major international entities, must step up and provide strong resistance to the Honduran coup leaders. Moreover, it must ignore Republican Party leaders who want the U.S. to recognize Micheletti’s government. Republicans see every left of center Latin American leader as the next Fidel Castro. They would love to restore the Cold War relationship with Latin America. This is unacceptable in the twenty-first century. Instead, Obama and Secretary of State Clinton must continue to stand strongly for democracy in the region, giving no recognition to the coup and demanding Zelaya’s return to the presidency.

Most importantly, the United States must not recognize Honduras’ November presidential elections in the face of military repression and the closing of important media outlets. The elections end Zelaya’s presidential term, but his followers do not have a fair playing field to elect another leader. Continued pressure on the coup leaders represents the only card the U.S. has to play at this time. It seems to be having a positive effect. Honduran business leaders have begun suggesting solutions to the impasse because the U.S. has revoked their visas. Not being able to travel to Miami for luxury weekend vacations moves these people in ways no amount of poverty among the nation’s poor ever would.

I would like to see the United States and Europe go farther and freeze the international bank accounts of anyone involved in the coup. Given that military intervention is a terrible idea and that sanctions will not work, making the lives of the coup leaders as uncomfortable as possible might be the best way to end the greatest threat to Central American political stability in the last decade.

Erik Loomis is a visiting assistant professor of history at Southwestern University. He blogs at Alterdestiny.

Obama’s promise to remove American troops from Iraq and refocus on Afghanistan was a major talking point during his campaign. Using rhetoric and bravado, he vowed to refocus on capturing Osama Bin Laden and challenging Pakistan to end their status as a haven for so-called terrorists. While this may seem at first glance as decreasing the responsibility of the military, the scale of the operation that he has planned is just as large as fighting a war on two fronts.

Afghanistan may be a challenge for the US, however. Americans are dealing with a people that have history of resisting occupation forcefully. From Alexander the Great to the Soviets, many have had to make a bitter retreat after entering and losing an extended war of attrition. Simply announcing itself as a saviour on a mission to usher in peace will not bring about submission in a region that passionately demands the right to determine its own destiny.

Even with all of the efforts poured into Afghanistan by western countries since September 11, Karzai continues to be the president of Kabul rather than the nation. Canadians, who have been largely responsible for the boots on the ground in the region since the US invasion of Iraq, recognize all too well a conflict that cannot be won by traditional means and have started to demand the withdrawal of troops.

The military is very well aware that if there is to be any hope of victory in this region, it is going to be necessary to overwhelm Afghanistan with manpower and it is to this end that they are offering immigrants accelerated U.S. citizenship for agreeing to serve in the military.

America is understood as the land of milk and honey but only because it has secured its prosperity at the cost of millions of lives. People do not flock to the United States because they have a love for all things American, but in a bid to secure housing, jobs, education, and food. Had these same opportunities been available in their country of origin, I daresay many would not choose to immigrate.

The IMF and the World Bank are not benign organizations. They work in tandem to secure American economic hegemony thus creating what has become known as neo-colonialism. The world is no longer controlled by standing armies, but through threat of economic terrorism. Third world countries are purposefully impoverished so that Americans can maintain their cheap consumer lifestyle. Consider that the debts that these nations owe have been repaid several times and yet due to an increase in interest rates they still continue to owe billions of dollars. These spurious debts are no different than the debts that were incurred that created the mortgage crises and yet a nation cannot declare bankruptcy, or fail to service its debt at any time.

To ensure continued instability the U.S. supplies weapons and encourages feuds between factions. By involving groups in internal strife the U.S. has managed to take the focus off of its global exploitation thus maintaining a unipolar world. It is not an accident that the US is the world’s largest arms supplier. War between nation states has reduced, however global violence certainly has not.

At each turn the U.S. has sought to exploit third world bodies and this latest offer of citizenship is only the newest extension of power. American sons and daughters are deemed far too precious to die on foreign soil. It is far better to watch as brown bodies slaughter other brown bodies. Already the news focuses on American deaths and largely ignores the deaths of Afghanis and Iraqis.

Ironically, even if these new recruits do manage to serve and attain citizenship, they will not necessarily achieve a life of success in their new homes. The INS has on several occasions raided homes of American citizens with no evidence that they were illegal based solely on the colour of skin. It has further detained individuals of Middle Eastern descent, who were in full compliance with the law. America is still largely understood to be a white nation even though the current birth rate indicates that whites will soon become a minority.

The ruling elite can safely manage to put aside their xenophobia and fear of the brown hordes with the knowledge that these new citizens will not all live long enough to achieve their dreams. The cycle will continue and third world citizens will continue to pay with their lives to maintain our unipolar world. At the end of the Cold War, global citizens were told that we had moved into a new unprecedented era of peace, only to have the shadow of communism replaced by the threat of global jihad. One enemy replaced another and we continue to live in an imbalance because a constant state of fear is necessary to justify the exploitation that enriches the ruling elite.

Obama uses the rhetoric of empire to justify an escalation of U.S. activities in Afghanistan and just as in all conflicts since the end of world war two; it is third world citizens that will pay. It is their blood that will flow as propaganda about bringing democracy is repeated over and over until it is internalized.

Security at the end of a rifle is can never be maintained indefinitely. Whether through corruption or over extension, all empires have met their end, and one day Americans will find themselves joining the Ottomans, and the Romans as a footnote in history.

Her muscular posturing and hawkish Senate record drove much of the leftist, pro-peace wing of the Democratic party into the waiting arms of Barack Obama, and eventually won him the nomination.

During the general election, though, Obama’s cooler, pro-diplomacy approach and McCain’s attempt to echo and even ramp up Clinton’s militarism were overshadowed quickly by domestic issues. Bailouts and calls for a “new New Deal” outweigh foreign concerns on the front pages.

But when Clinton entered the State Department on Wednesday, having been confirmed 94-2 as the new Secretary of State, all eyes were on her, and on Obama’s decision to appear first at that department, not the Treasury or Defense.

“I believe with all my heart that this is a new era for America,” Clinton said, and Obama followed her words with the quip, “I’ve given you an early gift: Hillary Clinton.”

I wrote before of the cover that Obama’s foreign policy advisers could provide for his plans, and after Hillary Clinton’s confirmation hearings, I still believe that I was right. Obama and Clinton’s words on her first day in office have only cemented that belief.

Hillary Clinton’s best quote from her confirmation hearings was, of course, “America cannot solve the most pressing problems on our own, and the world cannot solve them without America. The best way to advance America’s interest in reducing global threats and seizing global opportunities is to design and implement global solutions. This isn’t a philosophical point. This is our reality.”

She called for “working aggressively” to meet the Millennium Development Goals, endorsed a “bottom-up” approach to ending poverty, and gave a shout-out to Barack Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, who she called a “pioneer in microfinance in Indonesia.”

On the negative side, she also conflated Iran’s enrichment of uranium to a nuclear weapons program, despite intelligence to the contrary, and though she didn’t mention the “war on terror” specifically, did repeatedly mention “terror” as a major concern.

Clinton didn’t go out on a limb for Palestine, but she did mention “independence, economic progress and security to the Palestinians in their own state.” Obama echoed this concern on his second day in office, saying, “Our hearts go out to the Palestinian civilians who are in need of food, clean water and basic medical care.”

Obama followed these words with the appointment of George Mitchell, the former Senate majority leader who helped broker peace in Northern Ireland, as special envoy for Arab/Israeli affairs, in a sign that his administration is actually serious about peace.

Obama also appointed Richard Holbrooke to be special representative, responsible for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The choice of such high-level diplomats so early in the administration, working with the highest-profile cabinet appointment, bodes well for Obama’s seriousness about dealing diplomatically with the rest of the world, as did his phone calls on his first day in office not to traditional allies, but to President Abbas of the Palestinian Authority, President Mubarak of Egypt, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, and King Abdullah of Jordan.

Of course Clinton agrees with Obama’s stated goals of diplomacy first–what ambitious person wouldn’t want more support and attention for her own department?

I’ve never been one of those who criticized Clinton for being ambitious. The world needs more ambitious women who are ready and willing to lead on the global stage, not fewer. I faulted her instead for being willing to go along with militarism for its own sake when that was popular in America, and her unwillingness to say that her pro-Iraq War vote was wrong.

But as I wrote before, the best way to get Clinton on board with a policy of diplomacy first is to put her in charge of diplomacy.

She’s not going to change the name of her department to the Department of Peace, nor is she going to assert solidarity with the people of Gaza against Israel. Expectations of such things were unrealistic at best. But I remain optimistic about Clinton’s ability to lead and to engage the world, and in the face of more bad news about Obama’s economic team, I’d like to think that she’ll be a voice for progressive causes around the world.

Here’s to hope, I suppose.

This is unfortunate. Because when the President addresses “The Muslim World” as a monolith, this being the same President you voted for because he inspired you to put your cynicism down for a second and really imagine a push for actual justice, nationally and internationally – when you hear him lump an embarrassment of diverse cultures into a single entity, you have to wonder how inflated that balloon of hope can get before it bursts.

He said that the U.S. is at war – so the rhetoric of the War on Terror will live on. He seeks with this Muslim World a “new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect,” and this comes right before he says that “those leaders around the globe who seek to sow conflict…or blame their society’s ills on the West – know that your people will judge you on what you build.”

Damn. That’s so true and yet I can’t help but feel that the Muslims are being rhetorically rounded up and taught to behave, or else.

Gaza is on everyone’s mind but it wasn’t on the agenda for the speech. War metaphors abounded, but there was no notion of what to do with Israel and Palestine.

Maybe it’s good. Maybe Obama will act before he talks and not pollute the field with rhetoric. That would be fine. But you’ll be hard pressed to hear in a country like Pakistan, for example, anyone expressing the Hope™ that was the word of the Obama campaign and now the Obama administration.

CNN is saying that the new President going to get to the Mid-East crisis tomorrow if not today. I hope that’s true. And I hope it makes better sense than just saying that Israel has the right to defend its borders, because that is a necessary, but insufficient condition for lasting peace. Decimating a population is insufficient for lasting peace, in fact.

As an American, I’m looking forward with hope to the Obama administration. As a Pakistani, I’m worried by the call to be what Mahmood Mamdani calls a “good Muslim”, who likes democracy, freedom, French fries and the US of A, and not a bad Muslim. We all know what bad Muslims look like.

Steve LeVine has worked as a freelance journalist for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Financial Times, and Newsweek – in places such as the former Soviet Union, Pakistan, and the Philippines. Drawing on his considerable journalistic experience, he sets out to chronicle the history of the Caspian Sea.

Different characters intersect in the book: Nobel family of Sweden, American middlemen acting on behalf of the Soviet Union to make deals with American and British petroleum companies, oil executives begging their government to pressure Soviet leaders to allow drilling, and Central Asian leaders resisting pressure from Moscow to allow Moscow-supported companies to open the oil fields.

However, the central character of the book is oil. It is, perhaps, the only thing (after changes in regimes in ex-Soviet Union republics) that makes Moscow so determined to reclaim its influence in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, even threatening the destructions of oil drilling sites in these countries if they do not seek the opinion of Moscow before signing deals with Western companies.

LeVine describes Russia as a troublemaker, which has tried to use pipelines built in the Soviet era as leverage to force its former colonies to submit to the former master. However, the Russian attempt to rebuild influence is contained by the Clinton administration, whose policy on Caspian Sea and oil in Central Asia was shaped by Rosemarie Forsythe – who served as the Director of Russian, Ukrainian and Eurasian Affairs of the National Security Council, and Bill White- the Deputy Secretary of Energy.

The struggle between Russia and the United States for more influence in Central Asia is familiarized by the invocation of the struggle between Britain and Russia in the nineteenth century, when both sides were lobbying Iran, Armenia and Azerbaijan to consolidate the supply of oil to the West or to the Russian empire. The competition between two superpowers is a re-play of an old game. It is only natural for Russia to struggle to secure its backyards against the ex-colonies, who are full of hatred on Moscow due to forced abandonment of nomadic lives and migration imposed by Stalin and subsequent leaders and are therefore siding with another major power in the world, LeVine argues.

LeVine questions whether the United States is genuinely interested in bringing freedom and democracy to the region, and whether it is interested in actually monitoring the business practices of American oil firms in Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan. He believes that the United States helped mobilize support for pro-Western politicians to launch the “color revolutions” in Ukraine and Georgia to overthrow pro-Russia governments. However, when it comes to pro-America allies in Central Asia, the commitment to expanding freedom and democracy becomes secondary to strategic interests, LeVine argues. The book exposes the common practice of paying bribes to despotic leaders in the newly independent republics. Yet the book also urges readers to re-examine what constitutes corruption: Should lobbying of American oil companies such as Chevron and Exxon and Mobil in the Congress and Senate on behalf of Azerbaijan or Kazakhstan be considered as offering bribes to Baku and Almaty?

The book relies on several hundred interviews conducted between 1992 and 2007, as well as autobiographical writings of key political players from the United States, the Soviet Union and ex-Soviet republics. The combination of these primary sources provides first-hand views of officials and businessmen going about their deals, and offering their opinions of the future of the Caspian Sea. However, the lack of sources originating in Russian and Central Asian languages greatly limits LeVine’s scope.

On the whole, the book illustrates the history and importance of Caspian Sea through a series of dramas whose character include oilmen, dictatorial leaders of ex-Soviet republics, Russian politicians who have tried to maintain their influence among their neighbors, and government officials of the United States who have worked to expand their influence in the region since the collapse of the communist party in Moscow. The result is the fascinating account of the region, a region which will continue to become increasingly crucial when it comes to the global supply of oil.

This is a review of Power, Faith, and Fantasy: America in the Middle East 1776 to the Present by Michael Oren. W.W. Norton, 2007

Soldier film

It is believed that America only began to get involved in the affairs of the Middle East after the Suez Crisis in 1956, which caused the decline of the influence of the British in the region. For most people, America intensified its influence after the Yom Kippur war, when Richard Nixon agreed to export American weapons to help Israel defeat Egypt and Syria.

Michael Oren has some different ideas wherein America’s role in the region is concerned. Oren is a historian and author whose latest book aims to help readers understand the motives driving American politicians, Christian leaders, and members of the media, to get involved in Middle Eastern affairs. He also concerns himself with the eternal question of whether or not American involvement is positive or negative.

Modern scholars suggest that the first direct conflict between America and the Islamic world, barring the Hizbollah attack that killed 240 American troops in 1983, was the attack against Saddam Hussein in 1993. Oren challenges this notion. The first conflict between the two civilizations took place from 1776-1815, he asserts. Barbary pirates from Morocco, Libya, and Algeria attacked American business ships and held sailors captive. Oren believes that the decision of James Madison to send dispatches to attack ports in North Africa affirmed American status as a global power. Success in stopping the attacks also boosted American confidence in using force to protect overseas commerce, Oren claims.

The book also rebukes what Oren calls “the myth of the Israel lobby”, which has become a much-debated issue. Oren believes that the American support for Israel is not simply tied to Jewish lobbies, which have been accused of using millions of dollars to influence Washington D.C to establish a pro-Israel policy. Neither, he says, is America pro-Israel due to the work of John Hagee, Pat Roberston, and other right-wing Christians.

The influences of the above preachers and lobbyists are real and cannot be ignored. Yet Oren ultimately offers a different explanation for the seemingly unconditional American support to the Jewish state: which is what Oren describes as a grown-up, realist view of the right of Israel to exist, stemming from American desire to protect Jews from persecution following the pogroms and the Holocaust.

The Wild Geese dvd

Oren also suggests that the Arab attacks against Jews, militarily or rhetorical, further serve Israeli interests on the ground. Arab assaults, Oren says, are portrayed as a fundamentalist Islamic jihad against people of different faiths and civilizations, creating an image of Arabs as a people who do not desire peace.

Oren only devotes one section to the history of American attachment to the Middle East after the Second World War. He focuses on a general interpretation on the nature of the U.S – Middle East relations. He is right to predict that the United States will have much more challenges ahead, especially from Iran, as well as the al-Qaeda terrorist network. Overall, Oren finds years of American involvement positive in that modern education and health care are funded and/or encouraged in the region, and in the belief that America is a nation that strives for peace and security for the Middle East.

Barbie in the 12 Dancing Princesses ipod Praise for America’s good intentions is obviously Oren’s most controversial statement. America’s intentions may be as good as Oren claims, but so far, the results are rather mixed (as evidenced by poor political, economical, and educational conditions in many Muslim countries); Oren could have done a better job addressing the present situation.

The Mouse That Roared trailer This book drew upon a wealth of materials from various archives and literature. However, these materials were all written in English, which may have limited the author’s scope. In addition, the book suffers from a lack of source materials on more recent events. Oren claims that it would have been difficult to obtain diverse resources, but the book would provide a more multi-dimensional view of how people in the Middle East perceive American involvement if at least secondhand resources in French, Arabic, or Hebrew were consulted.

Despite such shortcomings, my ultimate pronouncement is that this book is terrific. It is a must-read manual for diplomats and peacemakers who have been puzzled by the “seemingly irrational actions” successive American governments have displayed when Israel-related issues appear at the UN Security Council. It provides a great deal of explanations for the continuous American vetoes on resolutions demanding Israeli withdrawal from West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.

Oren’s highlighting of the fact that American involvement in the Middle East can be traced back to 1776 is by itself an invaluable reminder of how short our memory can be wherein American foreign policy is concerned. People interested in a refresher course would do well to pick up Oren’s book.

• Night of the Running Man divx