The Saddest Medal of the 2008 Olympic Games

This Olympic Games was majestic, a coming out party for China with all of the bells and whistles. China won the most medals, including the most gold medals. China won a new respect for its status as a world power - confident, gleaming, and strong. Many view these Games as the best ever, a shiny superlative that masks what many thought were going to painful and controversial Games.

It saddens me to see the Olympic Games become the farce of 2008. It's distressing to see the media and the public placidly ignore China's remorseless oppression of civil, political and religious rights within its own borders and its Machiavellian support for dictators and genocidal regimes abroad (Sudan) in favor of focusing on the spectacle of Beijing and the "spirit of international cooperation".

One instance where Olympic glory is overshadowed by China's realpolitik is with the case of Sudanese track and field star Ismail Ahmed Ismail who took the country’s first medal, winning silver in the men’s 800 meters. In April, Reuters ran a story about a number of Sudanese athletes from Darfur with Olympic aspirations. Their inspiring story, of athletic determination and success in the face of a war-torn experience, is mitigated by the backdrop of the genocide going on in Darfur. Over 200,000 people have died since 2003 alongside the 2.5 million displaced by the conflict in the arid region of Western Sudan, an area the size of France with few roads, but many perils. Ismail fought his way out of this horrible existence to win silver in Beijing. Its an amazing accomplisment, but sad consolation to the millions of Darfuris who've died and been displaced by the stolid and fierce support China has offered the genocidal National Congress Party led by Omar al-Bashir.

The press coverage ahead of the Olympics was dominated by protests from human rights groups and Western leaders about China's economic, political, and military support for the Sudanese regime. People were supposed to use the "Genocide Games" as a medium to protest China's silence toward human rights both at home and abroad. These protests never materialized in any coherent form and were glossed over by the spectacle of the opening ceremonies and the glitter of gold medals and world records.

Ismail Ahmed Ismail's accomplishment is overshadowed by the genocide perpetrated against his people by the Sudanese government, and it must be. The country's longtime President Omar al-Bashir is facing charges of genocide from the International Criminal Court for the situation. Ismail was hailed as a national hero and his picture — wrapped in a Sudanese flag — was emblazoned across the front pages of the country's press. What should be a source of pride for Sudanese, and the world, is to me a sham and a shame.

U St Visibility Craziness and Virginia Canvassing

Last night I did visibility, in campaign terms that means standing at a street corner making noise and waving Obama signs, on U St with Andrew and Janice. We got lots of honks and waves, made lots of noise, tons of Yes We Can! chants.
There were three young black girls going nuts with yelling, they were fantastic. I chatted with a few Hillary voters trying to change their minds. I walked one lady across the street trying to change her vote. Hopefully I've influenced a couple of votes. We had an old Sikh cab driver say Vote for Hillary. We'll never crack that choke-hold she has on the Sikh taxi voting bloc.
I canvassed in Virginia today with Matt Merry. Its crazy to do this stuff with my friends, you get to see such interesting sides of people. He was a bit shy about it, weird for a guy like him, but I loved that he was pitching in and "walking the walk" as he called it. It took an hour and a half for us to get started because of our inability to follow directions or use our I-phones correctly. We got done really fast, we had a five person team for a small area.
The support was solid. We had won lady talk to us at length about how John Kerry would make a better running mate than Oprah, I couldn't help but agree with her tricky choice. Maryland tomorrow, DC on Tuesday! I'm so sick of primaries I could vomit.

OBAMA 08!

January 20th, 2009

I never knew what politics had to do with faith until a few days ago. I came to a realization in a strange bed in South Carolina, 500 miles from home, weary after a day of canvassing. What was I thinking coming down here to walk through mud and rain for a man I’d never met?

It was an act of faith really, though not the kind with altars or bibles. Yet, there's definitely prayer. I found myself praying in Mt. Prospect Baptist Church in Rock Hill, South Carolina. How did a faithless wretch like me find myself with the faithful? Two words: Barack Obama.

When I got up in front of all the elegantly dressed worshipers in church, wearing muddy jeans and a sweatshirt, I was surprised to find myself unabashed. I was happy and confident as introduced myself and my fellow volunteers to the crowd and spoke for two minutes about Senator Obama. I had never spoken in front of a church before. My voice carried through the church, up into the rafters, and hopefully to a few voters’ ears.

I joked with them about my silly attire, lamenting the red southern mud that we trudged through to knock on doors. They laughed and smiled, bemused by this pudgy Latino stumping for a candidate they couldn't definitively say was black. They were reluctant, but opening up and I understood because I felt the same way.

I didn’t realize I needed Barack Obama until I realized it. I didn’t think I needed change until he told me to imagine it and then it would be. I didn’t see that politics was personal until he showed me it was because when I thought about him as my leader, as our leader, I got chills. I got a feeling of rightness I'd never experienced before. Maybe this is what it feels like to be a sycophant, but then maybe this is what it feels like to have faith, to finally believe.

I’ve been a skeptic my whole life but I'll tell you what - this skeptic stood up in an all African-American Baptist Church and talked about faith. Faith placed in an imperfect man. At the end of the day he is no son of God, nor is he a spirit. Yet I have faith that he can change us and lead us to new places. I'm fascinated by the possibilities for policies and politics, but I'm astounded by the new possibilities of faith.

You have to understand how much of a godless heathen I am, but honest to goodness, hand to God; I prayed that God would grant people the wisdom to see that this man was right for them. I prayed that people would listen and imagine for one second a world without Clintons and Bushes or Republicans and Democrats and think about a world with Americans united in picking up the pieces of a shattered and broken nationality.

I talked about faith for two minutes. I talked about the letter that Senator Obama wrote to the pastors and reverends of churches all over South Carolina explaining his faith and how it made him a better man and how he understood these people better because of his faith. I believe he does. I said that his faith would allow him to connect with people all over this country. I believe it will because I understand faith a little bit better now.

I have to believe or I wouldn't have gone to New Hampshire or to South Carolina in the dead of winter. I’ve knocked on maybe 500 doors, been bitten by a dog, been yelled and cursed at, frozen and thawed, soaked, and for what? I believe I've taken personal responsibility to the future of my country by exhorting others to have faith - to have faith not in miracles, but in something miraculous. Not in saviors, but in someone that could help us save ourselves. Why bicker when we can talk? Why argue when we can listen? Why stagnate with the same old politics when we have something fresh and new and untainted right under our noses? Really - why be cynical when its so empowering and freeing to have faith?

This was not personal for me three weeks ago, it is now. In became personal in an old stone home in Gilmanton and a street corner at 7am in Tillton and dusk in Barnstead and rainy days in Chester and a cold morning in church in Rock Hill. I have spoken to so many people who are so tired of politics that it strains them to lift their eyes and see what's happening.

Something’s happening.

We are raising our heads from a dry oasis, breathing new air, and drinking clear water. Americans are waking up slowly to new possibilities. We'll all come around, hopefully by Election Day, but if not at least by 2012 or 2016. I can be patient because I know Barack Obama will be.

Americans are seeing finally, as I have seen that we are on the brink of something historic. Finally after years of an America in furious drift, showy with economic brilliance then mired in stagnation, wallowing in dirty politics followed by worse, there is a chance that next January 20th we will raise our heads high and be proud again to be Americans. We just have to have faith. I do.

That's why I stood up in church on a chilly Sunday in January 2008 and said, at ease, head held high, "Hello my name is Anthony Elmo and I am here on behalf of Senator Barack Obama".

You got to have faith.

National Intelligence Estimate on Iran

The latest national intelligence estimate on Iran severely undercuts the Bush administration's case for targeting Iran with increased sanctions or possibly military action. It refutes the conclusions in the 2005 NIE by saying with high confidence that Iran had stopped its nuclear weapons program in 2003. The debate over the NIE will be interesting to watch over the next few months and the rest of Bush's presidency, as he either attempts to 'massage' the NIE to fit his political purposes or backs off. Already conservative analysts are attacking the NIE and the intelligence-gathering process. Is there ire a product of their firm belief that Iran is an enemy dedicated to acquiring nuclear weapons or of an intellectual dissonance with the arguments in the NIE?

Rationality here is the crux of their problem. They regard Iran as an irrational actor with an imbalanced military, political, and religious structure. They see Ahmanijehad as another Islamic dictator, to be toppled like Saddam and the Taliban. Is the neoconservative and traditional conservative irascibility when it comes to Islam and dictators that stops them from objectively dealing with the NIE's findings? Liberal and moderate political analysts are applauding its findings and even congratulating Bush and the international community for having exerted the pressure on Iran that forced them to curtail their weapons program.

At the end of the day, this NIE is 180 degrees from the 2005 NIE. We are seeing a fundamental shift in the intelligence community's take on Iran. This new view must have an effect on policy, to the point that the factual impetus in the Bush administration for another UN Security Council Resolution sanctioning Iran or unilateral military strikes against its weapons facilities has dissipated.

Crime against humanity in Darfur right now

The Sudanese government has made it clear they intend to negotiate with one hand while crushing Darfur with the other. The Sudanese government, as the peace talks in Libya began, called a unilateral ceasefire. At the same time, they were forcibly relocating internally displaced persons from Otash camp in Southern Darfur, near Nyala. United Nations humanitarian chief, John Holmes:

"Given that security forces were threatening the displaced with sticks and rubber hoses at Otash camp, the involuntary nature of this relocation is clear…10 armed pickup trucks rounded up refugees at Otash on Sunday. U.N. and aid workers were initially barred from the camp, but eventually got in to see eight large commercial trucks being loaded with the belongings of women and children”.

The images conjured by what is happening in Otash are not pretty (please go to the link for more details). Women and children being separated from their male relatives, from their belongings, and being forcibly relocated to “safety” is reminiscent of the treatment received by Jewish women and children before they were loaded onto trains and sent to concentration camps during the Holocaust.

My purpose in making this allusion is neither to shock nor to shame, and not to minimize the gravity of the Holocaust, but to describe what is happening in Darfur. A semantic debate over genocide has no purpose other than to distract from the fact that innocent people are being forced from their temporary homes, rounded up into trucks, and driven off in the middle of the night by government troops brandishing semi-automatic weapons, sticks, and rubber hoses.

Deportation or forcible transfer of population is a crime against humanity according to the Rome statute of the International Criminal Court when it is committed as part of a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population. What happened in Otash on Sunday night and into Monday in October 2007 fits this definition. Please go to the Aegis Trust to learn more about this situation and what you can do.

President Carter came to my office to meet with my boss and a variety of Middle East experts. The Elders are considering a trip to the Middle East to bolster and support the peace process. I had the chance to sit in on these meetings and take notes. It was an incredible experience listening to history. President Carter is much maligned, unfairly at times, but in the few hours I got to spend with him I saw vitality, commitment, and honesty. Its strange that there are times in American history when we as citizens are graced with a leader that desperately cares about freedom and human rights. Now is not one of those times. President Carter was one of those leaders and still is, though history has written him off. He's not your average politician. He's really the epitome of an Elder. A strong, principled, wise person that I found a new respect for in a few short hours.

I spent all morning in meetings with President Carter.