Top ten myths about the Libya war
By Juan Cole The opinions expressed are his own.
The Libyan Revolution has largely succeeded, and this is a moment of celebration, not only for Libyans but for a youth generation in the Arab world that has pursued a political opening across the region. The secret of the uprising’s final days of success lay in a popular revolt in the working-class districts of the capital, which did most of the hard work of throwing off the rule of secret police and military cliques. It succeeded so well that when revolutionary brigades entered the city from the west, many encountered little or no resistance, and they walked right into the center of the capital. Muammar Qaddafi was in hiding as I went to press, and three of his sons were in custody. Saif al-Islam Qaddafi had apparently been the de facto ruler of the country in recent years, so his capture signaled a checkmate. (Checkmate is a corruption of the Persian “shah maat,” the “king is confounded,” since chess came west from India via Iran). Checkmate.
The end game, wherein the people of Tripoli overthrew the Qaddafis and joined the opposition Transitional National Council, is the best case scenario that I had suggested was the most likely denouement for the revolution. I have been making this argument for some time, and it evoked a certain amount of incredulity when I said it in a lecture in the Netherlands in mid-June, but it has all along been my best guess that things would end the way they have. I got it right where others did not because my premises turned out to be sounder, i.e., that Qaddafi had lost popular support across the board and was in power only through main force. Once enough of his heavy weapons capability was disrupted, and his fuel and ammunition supplies blocked, the underlying hostility of the common people to the regime could again manifest itself, as it had in February. I was moreover convinced that the generality of Libyans were attracted by the revolution and by the idea of a political opening, and that there was no great danger to national unity here.
I do not mean to underestimate the challenges that still lie ahead– mopping up operations against regime loyalists, reestablishing law and order in cities that have seen popular revolutions, reconstituting police and the national army, moving the Transitional National Council to Tripoli, founding political parties, and building a new, parliamentary regime. Even in much more institutionalized and less clan-based societies such as Tunisia and Egypt, these tasks have proved anything but easy. But it would be wrong, in this moment of triumph for the Libyan Second Republic, to dwell on the difficulties to come. Libyans deserve a moment of exultation.
I have taken a lot of heat for my support of the revolution and of the United Nations-authorized intervention by the Arab League and NATO that kept it from being crushed. I haven’t taken nearly as much heat as the youth of Misrata who fought off Qaddafi’s tank barrages, though, so it is OK. I hate war, having actually lived through one in Lebanon, and I hate the idea of people being killed. My critics who imagined me thrilling at NATO bombing raids were just being cruel. But here I agree with President Obama and his citation of Reinhold Niebuhr. You can’t protect all victims of mass murder everywhere all the time. But where you can do some good, you should do it, even if you cannot do all good. I mourn the deaths of all the people who died in this revolution, especially since many of the Qaddafi brigades were clearly coerced (they deserted in large numbers as soon as they felt it safe). But it was clear to me that Qaddafi was not a man to compromise, and that his military machine would mow down the revolutionaries if it were allowed to.
Moreover, those who question whether there were US interests in Libya seem to me a little blind. The US has an interest in there not being massacres of people for merely exercising their right to free assembly. The US has an interest in a lawful world order, and therefore in the United Nations Security Council resolution demanding that Libyans be protected from their murderous government. The US has an interest in its NATO alliance, and NATO allies France and Britain felt strongly about this intervention. The US has a deep interest in the fate of Egypt, and what happened in Libya would have affected Egypt (Qaddafi allegedly had high Egyptian officials on his payroll).
Given the controversies about the revolution, it is worthwhile reviewing the myths about the Libyan Revolution that led so many observers to make so many fantastic or just mistaken assertions about it.
The parents: the force that can’t be beat
By Joel Klein The opinions expressed are his own.
Reuters invited leading educators to reply to Steven Brill’s op-ed on the school reform deniers. We will be publishing the responses here. Below is Klein’s reply. Here are responses from Diane Ravitch and Deborah Meier as well.
Like Ronald Reagan, Steven Brill believes “facts are stubborn things.” That’s why he found his two-year immersion in the world of edu-politics enormously frustrating. There, ideology and spin often matter most. As Brill puts it, the world of public education “give[s] new meaning to the notion that if you repeat something that is plainly untrue enough times it starts to seem true, or at least become part of the debate.” It’s maddening but, sadly, as Brill demonstrates, even the mainstream media often go along for the ride.
In Brill’s essay above, as well as his just-released book, “Class Warfare”, he doggedly chases down the facts and repeatedly punches holes in the current protagonists’ talking points, especially those of the “school reform deniers” — i.e., the unions and their academic supporters — though he takes a few shots at the reformers as well. When he says the facts show that “public education is failing our children,” and “[t]his is not a matter of money,” or “not about class size as much as it is about who is in front of the class,” he’s demonstrably correct but, rest assured, that won’t stop the deniers from attacking him with cherry-picked data and flawed analyses.
Because of his commitment to ferreting out the facts through tough and thorough reporting, Brill’s a brilliant diagnostician. No one has previously brought the education debate to life the way he has. And not a moment too soon. This is the most important issue our nation faces and, unfortunately, most Americans either don’t know or don’t care much about it. But if they read Brill they will see that the depressing picture he paints of the current state of public education is (unfortunately) accurate and that, in no small measure, this is because the unions effectively promote their own and their members’ self-interests, even when doing so hurts kids.
Having diagnosed the problem well, Brill spends much less time proposing a solution. He says that his “prescription for how we turn around public schools” is “not by abolishing the unions but by persuading or forcing them to engage in real reforms.” As to just how we either “persuade” or “force” the unions to do this, Brill mentions a couple of ideas that I discuss below. His suggestion in his new book that Randi Weingarten be appointed to run the NYC school system is provocative but, as he has acknowledged, not going to happen. Back to the real world.
Let’s first look at his view that we should “persuad[e] [the unions] to engage in real reform.” Nice idea, but Brill’s own analysis shows that doing so would be entirely against the unions’ own self-interest. Indeed, he goes so far as to say that it’s “obvious that union leaders have a basic conflict of interest with their own members in [the reform] debate,” because treating teachers as professionals, rather than trade-unionists, makes the union far less important to them. And, as Brill also observes, all of the union’s sweet-sounding, reform-minded rhetoric “fades when you read the over-the-top lawsuits they have filed to block reforms, or when you cull through their financial records or their campaign finance filings and see how they continue to sponsor the politicians who take the most hard line anti-reform positions and punish those who stray and support even the mild reforms they claim to support.”
Its interesting to see Klein claim that “facts are stubborn things” and then provide an entire article void of any relevant statistics. How about the facts that Klein’s biggest success was simply closing down schools. He always states how he closed down so many failing schools yet he never states how many schools he turned into higher performing schools. It is like a basketball player lauding how many shots he took during a game while not telling people how many of those shots he actually made. It also should be noted that Fenty in Washington was voted out by the people, that became upset with his education policies that led to further segregation of schools and communities. Over Fenty’s and Rhee’s tenure the gap between the wealthy and the poor and white and black students on standardized tests actually increased. How funny this fact is rarely discussed on TV. (It is absurd that Klein actually thinks the media is backing unions in this whole debate, simply watching five minutes of NBC’s Education Nation or CNN’s reports would prove otherwise). It is also funny that Klein forgot to mention his own and Rhee’s testing controversies. And finally unions do have a conflict of interest in the debate but so do Klein and reformers who make millions from these “reform” movements. Klein gets book deals, and now works in the private sector for his “reform” movements while at the same time gets to be labeled as this altruistic individual trying to “save our children.” Others like him (Rhee, Canada) also receive upper 6-7 digit salaries, while parading in front of cameras. This is the same conflict of interest as the unions, however, somehow these few individuals are louder and more vocal on tv and in the news than the all the teachers and unions.
If only the unions were the problem
By Deborah Meier The opinions expressed are her own.
Reuters invited leading educators to reply to Steven Brill’s op-ed on the school reform deniers. We will be publishing the responses here. Below is Meier’s reply. Here are responses from Joel Klein and Diane Ravitch as well.
As I read Brill’s opening paragraphs I was cheering. Aha, he’s going to apologize for his New Yorker attack on the teacher unions! He’s going to acknowledge the difficulty of finding honest data for his students to use when it comes to education.
I’ve become such a habitual skeptic about virtually all school data for over 30 years. But democracy depends on us trusting some common sources of data. Yet, Brill’s attack on teachers and unions, and his defense of the new “reformers,” rests largely on anecdotes.
Yes, like doctors, lawyers or bankers, teachers need to pool their resources to protect their collective interests as others do as well. The AFT and NEA are their vehicle for doing this. But their collective self-interests often overlap with what’s good for students.
Now, a response to just a few of Brill’s points:
1. Rubber Rooms. I happen to know some terrific teachers and principals who were sent to the Rubber Room. They left 30-40 years of extraordinary work in despair and dishonor. It wasn’t the union that created the Rubber Room—but former schools chancellor Joel Klein.The fact that many never get charged with any crime, much less given the opportunity for a hearing, is not the union’s fault either. Brill might acknowledge that the contract was created by two groups, and that both the original decision to remove the teacher and the subsequent investigation and final appeal are part of management’s responsibility. I don’t blame my lawyer if the prosecutor delays an investigation or hearing.
Editor’s Note: Below is a response to comments by the author of this post, Deborah Meier.
I had only 1,000 words–so I didn’t answer everything. But LIFO has nothing to do with keeping bad teachers over good ones. If principals are doing their job bad teachers are people who have been and can be fired with or without tenure or LIFO–ad believe me, many are. (Some are convinced to resign–as is the case in many other jobs.) Re: poverty. Many studies suggest that poverty hurts most when it’s “relative” poverty. The USA not only has more poverty but the gap is greater. When we talk free vs reduced lunch we also obfuscate the difference between low income and serious deep poverty–and confuse ourselves about who is serving which group. Both categories are growing, as the gap between top and bottom becomes a chasm. And social mobility in the US also is comparatively low!!! It’s not a climate that motivates those left behind. And schools alone won’t solve it. But schools can make things better, can open up children to potential pleasures and possibilities that add to life–even if they don’t therefore catch up to the increasingly advantaged advantaged.
Better schools will take serious and real reform–led by teachers. Catching up to their advantaged peers will take reforms in our economy, tax structure, job market, etc.
A well done article, I would have liked to see the myth of the revolutions Islamic motives. Over all you did a good job cutting to the heart of the issues.