Michael Gerson

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Michael Gerson con su perra, Latte. Murió en 2021. (Michael Gerson)

ReflexionesSocial

Todas las personas deberían tomarse unas vacaciones de la implacable negatividad de las noticias, las cuales, desafortunadamente, reflejan la implacable negatividad de la realidad. Así que permítanme presentarles a Jack.

Jack es un cachorro que recogí la semana pasada, ocho meses después de la muerte de mi amada perra bichón habanero, Latte. Apenas traje a Jack —una mota de algodón blanco y negro que se revuelve en el césped y que es puro pelo y rabieta juguetona— a la casa, recordé el dilema y la pregunta que reciben todos los dueños de perros: ¿por qué aceptamos nuevos perros en nuestras vidas, sabiendo que quedaremos devastados por sus muertes?…  Seguir leyendo »

Bodies are exhumed from a mass grave in Bucha, Ukraine, on April 8.(Heidi Levine for The Washington Post).

Europa, , , ,

It is an obscene irony of the war in Ukraine that Russian leaders use the charge that Ukrainians are “Nazis” to dehumanize them, just as the Nazis used dehumanizing accusations against their own enemies. While ostensibly attacking fascists, Russian propagandists use methods that pay tribute to German fascism. In the process, Russian officials have become the spitting image of what they pretend to condemn.

Russian President Vladimir Putin is among the most prolific practitioners of this strategy. The Ukrainian government, he has said, is “pro-Nazi” and controlled by “little Nazis”. The stated goal of his “special operation” is to “denazify” Ukraine.…  Seguir leyendo »

Europa, , , ,

I was with President George W. Bush when he visited Lithuania in 2002, just after the Baltic states had been offered membership in NATO. Bush had been one of the strongest advocates for the inclusion of Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia in the alliance, which would establish the obligation of mutual defense.

At the celebration ceremony, Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus presented Bush with the Cross of the Order of Vytautas the Great, his country’s highest honor. Bush presented Adamkus with a basketball signed by Michael Jordan, revealing a different set of cultural priorities. But Bush’s speech that day (which I helped produce) highlighted a greater gift: “Anyone who would choose Lithuania as an enemy”, he said, “has also made an enemy of the United States of America.…  Seguir leyendo »

A Ukrainian serviceman shoots with an assault rifle from a trench at the front line east of Kharkiv on March 31. (Fadel Senna/AFP/Getty Images)

Europa, , ,

Some commentators on the Ukraine war — generally in the class of foreign policy realists — are ready for the denouement before the full story is played out.

In the beginning was a failure of deterrence. After years of passive Western reaction to his adventurism — in Georgia, Crimea, Syria and elsewhere — Vladimir Putin thought he could pursue a relatively costless invasion of Ukraine. It was a miscalculation, but not an irrational one. A swift and steely reaction by President Biden was probably not the outcome Putin’s intelligence services ranked as most likely. After having championed the abandonment of both Syria (as vice president) and Afghanistan (as president) to terrible fates, Biden’s fortitude would not have been assumed.…  Seguir leyendo »

Taliban fighters in Kabul on Aug. 16. (Stringer/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)

MundoAmérica, ,

Can it be that Donald Trump really didn’t leave the presidency? And if he did, why are we left with his foreign policy?

It was Trump’s fondest hope — or dangerous obsession — in his final days in office to withdraw the last U.S. troops from Afghanistan, as the fulfillment of his “America First” ideals. In November 2020, as Trump fought his flailing battle to void the results of a presidential election, he signed an executive order mandating that U.S. troops leave Afghanistan by Jan. 15, 2021.

In an Oval Office meeting with Trump, acting Defense Secretary Christopher Miller, national security adviser Robert C.…  Seguir leyendo »

Una instalación designada por el gobierno para cumplir cuarentena en Nairobi, Kenia, el 24 de marzo de 2020. (AFP via Getty Images) (-/Afp Via Getty Images)

ReflexionesSocial, , ,

Cuando Blaise Pascal dijo “todos los problemas de la humanidad provienen de la incapacidad del hombre para sentarse solo y en silencio en una habitación”, evidentemente no previó el coronavirus. Pero una complicación del virus, y el distanciamiento social necesario para frenar su propagación, es una nación donde las habitaciones silenciosas son más comunes. Con la obvia excepción de las habitaciones que también confinan niños pequeños, muchos estadounidenses están experimentando una extraña quietud en lugares donde sus vidas alguna vez se desarrollaron ruidosamente.

Este silencio puede sentirse opresivo, por lo que acudimos a Netflix, pódcast, noticias por cable y otras estimulaciones distractoras.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalSalud Pública, , ,

Meanwhile, on the other side of the Earth, there have been more than 75,000 cases of coronavirus and more than 2,000 deaths. This leaves U.S. health experts hoping that the number of infections has been dramatically underreported.

That is not a typo. If the current numbers are close to accurate, it indicates a coronavirus mortality rate upward of 2 percent. The mortality rate for the seasonal flu is generally 0.1 percent. The mortality rate for pandemic flu is 0.3 to 0.5 percent. The particularly deadly flu pandemic of 1918 — which took the lives of 50 million people around the world — had a mortality rate of about 2 percent.…  Seguir leyendo »

Refugees from Venezuela cross the Simón BolívarInternational Bridge into Colombia on June 10. (Juan Pablo Bayona/Reuters)

MundoAmérica

The walkers come in a steady flow, individually and in small groups, through most of the day. The serpentine mountain road they take often has little room at the sides, leaving refugees in the path of traffic. The 350-mile journey to Bogota is part forced march and part pilgrimage — impelled by hunger and desperation in Venezuela, but also drawn toward a new start in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru or beyond.

At this point in the Venezuelan crisis, many of the men have already gone ahead in search of work. Their families now follow. Children drag luggage behind them. Mothers carry babies or cranky toddlers.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalEconomía

Tras décadas de comodidad en el Estado del Bienestar y años de gasto de estímulo keynesiano, Europa contempla la alarmante llegada de políticas de austeridad. Ofendidos deudores como Grecia, España o Portugal se están viendo obligados a implantar subidas tributarias y recortes del gasto dolorosos e impopulares -y que son sólo el principio-. Sus ciudadanos echan pestes y a veces piedras contra las fuerzas del orden.

A su vez, ofendidos acreedores como Alemania extienden rescates al tiempo que se preguntan por qué se les ocurriría unir su destino (y el valor de su divisa) a gobiernos tan irresponsables.

Y los que no están resentidos, están aterrados.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica,

La sentencia más importante que se puede dictaminar sobre un presidente de EEUU no es si se trata de izquierdista o conservador, sino si es fuerte o débil. El veredicto de debilidad tiende a reforzarse solo. Cada tropiezo avala la narrativa, mientras que los logros que contradigan esta narrativa son minimizados o ignorados (véase Jimmy Carter). Pero lo contrario también es cierto. La fuerza tiene una dinámica propia.

Obama posee un cierto tipo de fuerza que yo había subestimado. Su reserva no carece de pasión. Durante el debate sobre la reforma sanitaria el presidente ha sido tenaz, incluso cruel. Después de la victoria republicana de Massachussets en el Senado, reaccionó con ira y ambición, no con conciliación.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoOriente Próximo,

Being an educated, professional woman in Afghanistan could not have been easy at any time during the last few decades. I recently met with a group of female government officials, brought to Washington by USAID and the U.S.-Afghan Women's Council. One, during the Taliban years, had run an underground school in her home for the criminal purpose of teaching girls. Another had built a community development program employing 25,000 Afghan women before she was put under close guard by the Taliban. Her home was looted, and her children were threatened with kidnapping.

Afghanistan is a country where women have made significant progress -- but only compared with a comprehensively oppressive past.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesDemocraciaMundoOriente Próximo

In early 2005, the advance of freedom in the Middle East had an air of inevitability. Hundreds of thousands demonstrated in Beirut to demand an end to Syrian occupation. Eight and a half million Iraqis voted with purpled fingers. Even Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak permitted a multiparty election. People talked of an "Arab spring."

By 2006, what had seemed inevitable was dismissed as incredible. Iraq had descended into civil strife, apparently aided by elections that reinforced sectarian divides. Voting in the Palestinian territories brought Hamas to power. Mubarak, the old angler, reeled back most of the freedoms he had granted.

Some American conservatives found Burkean lessons in the fading freedom agenda, asserting that democracy is a fragile flower that grows only in a rich cultural soil tended by Jeffersons and Hamiltons.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica

Zimbabwean Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai is attempting something rare and difficult -- sharing power with the man who tried to murder him.

Every Monday morning, Tsvangirai conducts public business across the table from Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe's president, founder and oppressor. During a recent interview in Washington, Tsvangirai told me that the 85-year-old Mugabe "is someone who can be charming when he wants. I am on guard when he becomes charming. It is when I'm most suspicious of his intentions."

Mugabe has a long history of co-opting his political opponents -- or killing them. "He has not co-opted me," says Tsvangirai. The killing part is not for want of trying.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial

It so happened that this week, on the day I wrote about Holocaust denial in the Middle East, a homegrown denier took a rifle into the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum -- an institution where I sit on the governing board. The museum counts about 1.7 million visitors each year who learn about the history of murderous racism -- and now one who decided to add to that history.

That day, out of curiosity, I did something I rarely do. I read the comments on my column on a number of Web sites that publish it. In addition to the normal political vituperation, the level of anti-Jewish feeling was appalling.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesSocial

It is President Obama's defining rhetorical strategy. For every contending thesis and antithesis -- Islam vs. the West, Iran vs. America, Palestinians vs. Israel -- he is the synthesis. All sides possess a shiny shard of the truth. Obama assembles the mosaic.

Discounting for gush and swoon, the reaction of Newsweek's Evan Thomas to the Cairo speech was revealing: "I mean, in a way, Obama's standing above the country, above -- above the world, he's sort of God." Here is an American president so Olympian in his perspective that he is "above the country." Obama seldom chooses to be a participant in ideological struggles.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoAmérica

El explosivo debate sobre la política antiterrorista de Bush entre el presidente de EEUU, Barack Obama, y el ex vicepresidente Dick Cheney, que tuvo lugar la semana pasada, acabó con acuerdos sobre la continuidad de las comisiones militares, la necesidad de detener indefinidamente a algunos terroristas y la insensatez manifiesta de crear una comisión de la verdad. Y lo cierto es que pese a las disputas acaloradas, con Obama en la Casa Blanca se siguen practicando asesinatos selectivos de terroristas -por ejemplo, en Pakistán-, y se entregan terroristas a países amigos nada quisquillosos con la aplicación de la Convención de Ginebra.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

It is not every day that one dines with the Sultan of Sokoto -- a direct descendant of Usman dan Fodio, who was declared "Commander of the Faithful" in 1804 and founded a caliphate that reached from what is now Burkina Faso to Cameroon.

His Eminence Alhaji Muhammad Sa'adu Abubakar III is a thoroughly modern man of military bearing -- and perhaps the most influential religious figure you have never heard of. The sultan is spiritual leader to 70 million Nigerian Muslims. At home, he points out, a dinner at a restaurant is "quite impossible," because he would be mobbed by coreligionists.…  Seguir leyendo »

ReflexionesPensamiento, Cultura y Ciencia

Religion has often unintentionally enabled scientific skepticism. The faithful will issue a challenge to science: Ha, you can't explain the development of life, or the moral sense, or the nearly universal persistence of religion. To which the materialist responds: Can too. It is all biology and chemistry, thus disproving your God hypothesis.

To this musty debate, Andrew Newberg, perhaps America's leading expert on the neurological basis of religion, brings a fresh perspective. His new book, "How God Changes Your Brain," co-authored with Mark Robert Waldman, summarizes several years of groundbreaking research on the biological basis of religious experience. And it offers plenty to challenge skeptics and believers alike.…  Seguir leyendo »

MundoÁfrica,

Durante años, el régimen sudanés encabezado por el presidente Omar Hasán al-Bashir ha actuado como un grupo terrorista, tomando rehenes a millones de refugiados en campamentos en Darfur y advirtiendo al mundo de que no hiciera ninguna maniobra agresiva. Ahora el mundo se enfrenta a una duda: ¿qué hacer cuando los captores empiezan a matar a sus cautivos? Después de que el Tribunal Penal Internacional dictara una orden de detención bajo la acusación de crímenes contra la humanidad, Bashir respondía expulsando a 13 grupos internacionales de ayuda humanitaria, incluyendo a cuatro importantes socios del Programa Mundial de Alimentos responsables de distribuir comida entre los 1,1 millones de habitantes de Darfur.…  Seguir leyendo »

InternacionalIglesia Católica

I recall sitting at a Kigali restaurant with a Tutsi woman who described the death of her younger sister, a university student, during the Rwandan genocide. The girl had been given up for murder by one of her own teachers, who was a nun. The survivor across from me, previously a Catholic, had never attended church again. In the sacrifice of the Mass, she could see only the sacrifice of her sister.

Many items on the list of horribles laid at the door of religion are libels or exaggerations. But this charge -- the indifference or complicity of many Christians during the great genocides of modern history -- is one of the genuine scandals.…  Seguir leyendo »