Nicolas Sarkozy said France needed immigrants who brought new skills
The upper house of the French parliament has passed a tough new immigration bill, weeks after it was adopted by the lower chamber.

The bill makes it harder for unskilled migrants to settle in France and abolishes the rights of illegal immigrants to remain after 10 years.

Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who drafted the bill, says it will bring France into line with other countries.

Critics say it is racist and accuse Mr Sarkozy of pandering to the far-right.

Mr Sarkozy, who is seen as a potential contender in presidential elections next year, says France must be in control of immigration, rather than a passive recipient.

'System failing'

The proposed law also requires immigrants from outside the European Union to sign a contract agreeing to learn French and to respect the principles of the French Republic, and makes it more difficult for them to bring their families over to join them.

PROPOSED NEW RULES
Only the qualified get "skills and talents" residency permit
Foreigners only allowed in to work, not live off benefits
Foreign spouses to wait longer for residence cards
Migrants must agree to learn French
Migrants must sign 'contract' respecting French way of life
Scraps law on workers getting citizenship after 10 years

Mr Sarkozy has argued that riots by youths in immigrant suburbs across France last November showed the system of immigration and integration was failing.

He says France, like a number of other Western countries, needs to choose the immigrants it needs.

Most immigrants living in France come from its former African colonies.

The proposed law has been criticised by many in the region, including President Abdoulaye Wade of Senegal.

The role of Islam in Arab society; The Buddhist self-immolations in Vietnam. We face in Iraq, like we did in Vietnam, an enemy who refuses to play by our rules, and is clearly willing to die for their beliefs. But Iraq looks a lot like Vietnam: there was no real plan for victory in Vietnam, and there appears to be none for Iraq. Even the attempt at meaningful democratic reforms; to install democracy in Iraq or in the Middle East, will never work.

We face in Iraq, like we did in Vietnam, an enemy who refuses to play by our rules and are clearly willing to die for their beliefs. Iraq looks a lot like Vietnam.

Wars of Choice: Vietnam and Iraq were both wars of choice. They are also similar in that deceit and misrepresentation was employed by the U.S. government; first to engage U.S. forces, and then to keep them there. President Bush took us to war on the grounds that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and had ties to Al Qaeda. No weapons of mass destruction have been found and no ties to Al Qaeda have been discovered.

We were also told our troops would be greeted with open arms and flowers, which didn’t last long, and that Iraqi oil would pay for most of the reconstruction. Now we are told that we are in Iraq to nurture democratic self-government, political reconstruction, which is also going badly.

In retrospect, it is clear that we had no idea what we were getting into when we marched into Vietnam, and the same appears true in Iraq. In reference to Vietnam, President Johnson pledged in April 1965: “We will not withdraw, either openly or under the cloak of a meaningless agreement”. Four decades later, President Bush pledged: “We’ve got to stay the course and we will stay the course”, in Iraq.

The American people, the Iraqi people and the Middle Easterners deserve better than this. They are entitled to a well-thought-out, credible plan, detailing how the administration expects to achieve its objectives in Iraq. A realistic plan is also a prerequisite to engaging the international community fully in reconstruction efforts - a necessity the Bush administration has only belatedly come to recognize. Reviewing what went right–and wrong–in Vietnam might be a good place to start when creating such a plan.

Throughout the Vietnam War, especially in the early years, American officials deliberately misrepresented the enemy. Vietnamese nationalists were ignored with all opposition, labeled 'Communist', or with the delightfully pejorative phrase, “Viet Cong.” In Iraq, the Bush administration has once again written nationalists out of the script.

Insurgents are variously labeled “dead-enders”, “fanatics”,
“militants”, “terrorists”, or “outsiders”, despite growing evidence
that a large percentage of the Iraqi people are opposed to the U.S. occupation. Recent intelligence reports suggest that support for the insurgents is widespread and growing. In some areas, Sunni and Shiite groups are joining forces, at least temporarily, in a common cause – killing Americans.

There is also a failure in Iraq to understand and empathize with the local mores and culture, or the role of Islam in Arab society. The military has too few Arab language specialists, and those experts in government with a good knowledge of Iraq’s history and culture were marginalized from the Pentagon’s planning of the war and the peace, just as we failed to comprehend the Buddhist culture of Vietnam.

The bombing of a mosque in Fallujah in April 2004 is a recent case in point. Suicide bombers in the Middle East, like Buddhist self-immolations in Vietnam, are incomprehensible to the average American, nestled in a comfortable suburb with a good paying job. Plunging into a maelstrom of political and religious rivalries, we have too often depended in Iraq on the counsel of a few self-serving Iraqi exiles and Arab intellectuals, experienced in manipulating Western arrogance and ignorance.

There was no real plan for victory in Vietnam, and there appears to be none for Iraq. The June 30th date for the transfer of sovereignty back to the Iraqi people, in particular, makes no sense, except in the context of President Bush’s desire to be rid of Iraq before the U.S. elections in November. When asked why it is so important to pretend to return sovereignty to the Iraqis on June 30th, no one in the administration seems to have an answer.

What is clear is that no viable political body has been created or identified in Iraq in the last year with the domestic political support necessary to take charge and run the country after the turnover. Unless the White House adds credibility to the June 30th transfer, it is also clear that the other dates detailed by the president in his April 2004 press conference- dates leading to a permanent Iraqi government by December 2005, have no meaning whatsoever.

At the end of the Persian Gulf War, President George H. W. Bush, flanked by then Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell, proudly proclaimed we had finally licked the “Vietnam syndrome”. Is it any wonder then that President George W. Bush, surrounded by the same advisors, refuses to recognize that Iraq increasingly resembles that traumatic Asian conflict? Iraq today looks more and more like the Vietnam. You may see the resemblance now of an army intelligence officer more than three decades ago to one in this war.

Strategy and Tactics

First, there are the obvious strategic and tactical similarities. American troops are fighting a guerrilla war in Iraq. The terrain is difficult, and the insurgents know it better than we do. The enemy attacks at a time and place of its own choosing, avoiding troop concentrations where U.S. firepower can be brought to bear. Urban warfare has become the norm, with insurgents staying close to U.S. troops, often engaging civilians to support or shield their operations. As a result, the uncertain battleground of Iraq poses enormous challenges for American soldiers, seeking to separate combatants from civilians without alienating most Iraqis. We face in Iraq, like we did in Vietnam, an enemy who refuses to play by our rules and is clearly willing to die for their beliefs.

Before we finished in Vietnam, we had dropped more bombs on Indochina than had been dropped on the remainder of the world in all the wars of that time. The U.S. military continues to believe in the might of firepower. But it also wrestles with the difficult task of establishing an appropriate balance between winning hearts and minds with aid and reconstruction, and using force to root out insurgents. In Iraq, we have moved from “shock and awe” to building schools and hosting soccer games. We’re now back to block-to-block searches of cordoned cities.

In the process, the U.S. military has generally refused to account for civilian casualties in Iraq, in part because they are frequently exponential. As in Vietnam, 600 dead or dying Iraqis too often appear as 600 “insurgents” in army press accounts. The refusal to acknowledge civilian casualties, while meticulously accounting for our own, has another downside. It suggests to Iraqis that American lives are more important than those of the people we supposedly came to liberate.

Iraq’s Tet Offensive?

In this regard, the April 2004 insurrection in Iraq could well have a political impact on the Bush administration similar to the impact of the 1968 Tet offensive on the Johnson administration. The Tet offensive exposed the consistently positive U.S. message in Vietnam to be a lie. In turn, the savage attacks of Iraqi insurgents almost 40 years later dealt a heavy blow to the credibility of the Bush administration. In both cases, events on the ground suggested that the U.S. government, not only was not in control, but didn’t have a plan - and that is the truth.

A parallel can also be drawn to the now discredited domino theory, which suggested that the fall of Vietnam would lead to a Communist takeover of all of Asia. President Bush promised a similar domino effect in the Middle East, in which the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would lead to a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian dispute and the flowering of democracy throughout the region.

The failure to install democracy in Iraq will likely lead to a long winter of autocracy in the Middle East before other states even attempt meaningful democratic reforms that will never lead to the installation of democracy in Iraq or in the Middle East. The growing evidence of a large population of Islamic fanatics: Al Qaeda, Moslume Brother, Islamic militants, “fanatics", "militants”, “terrorists” or “outsiders” all over the whole middle East could lead to an Islamic Government. In additon the government of Iran is widespread and growing, and could lead to a religious civil war.

It is not the intention of the Unquiet Collective to hammer education in general, or teachers in particular. We like good educators. We recognize that training the little (or bigger) brats is usually a thankless job. I know teachers who make less money than does the big beefy guy who picks up my garbage once a week. (I do not have anything against sanitation engineers either so please sir, do not tear my Rubbermaid receptacle to shreds.)

Actually, it is because we do assume that the majority of educators are both competent and cognizant of where their responsibilities end, and the rights of their charges begin -- that the exceptions stand out. Perhaps that is why I have noticed a recent story in the news…

First, let us review some American history. It is pertinent to what follows.

Shameful past
From the late 1940s and into the 1950s, a jackass of a Senator from Wisconsin named Joseph McCarthy created a manic stir in the country. He and his permanent subcommittee 'investigated' -- a euphemism for 'harassed' -- members of the media, public figures, army officials and people in high government positions. He accused them of being Communists -- whatever that means. Not one of his imputations was ever proved and the Senate finally censured him in 1954.

A national suspicion developed over the idea of domestic Communism and it was egged on by this fascist's sensational -- but baseless -- attacks. One consequence of this paranoia was requiring loyalty oaths as a condition of employment for certain jobs -- including education. Most of these oaths included whatever a local administrator decided should be required of a good American citizen.

Historically, educators have been among the most open-minded and freedom loving of citizens. During McCarthy's era, many teachers were unwilling to sign a piece of paper that effectively denied them their basic First Amendment rights, including "freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble". Because of America's national hysteria, many good teachers lost their jobs for their refusal to take a loyalty oath. In one such case in July 1950, thirty-one faculty members of the Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses of the University of California were dismissed by a two-vote majority of the Board of Regents for refusing to sign the required loyalty oath. This oath required a specific denial of membership in the Communist party or belief in organizations advocating overthrow of the national government.

That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government…

-Declaration of Independence

It is about the only issue Israelis and Palestinians can agree upon.
The TV subscription rates to watch the football World Cup are too high.

In a region where disagreement is the norm between Israelis and Palestinians, the beautiful game has led to a degree of unity among the fans.

Furious Israeli football fans are staging a consumer rebellion that has prompted a parliamentary probe and already led to a reduction in prices.

Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza are fervently trying to circumvent charges of up to $600 (£325) and watch matches on pirate TV channels which are pledging to broadcast the games free of charge.

"Football is very far from politics," says Khaldoun al-Nadi, manager of the Olmonds Bar in the West Bank city of Ramallah, explaining the common ground between the fans. "For many people it's more important than politics."

In football they make a lot of money and it's the most popular sport in the world - I'm not going to pay Shay Nir , Engineer in Jerusalem

While neither Israel nor Palestine (as the team is designated, even if there is no state of that name) qualified for the World Cup in Germany, interest in the tournament is intense in this part of the world.

Some fans have donned Brazilian football tops - which seems to be the country with most support from both sides - shops are stocked with memorabilia, and bars in Israel are gearing up for a busy month of business.

Making light of the sporting unity, the Israeli daily newspaper Haaretz published a cartoon showing Israelis clambering over the West Bank security barrier to join Palestinian farmers to watch the tournament for free.

"We're all one family," says an Israeli in the sketch.

'Time to make friends'

Among some Israeli politicians the issue of TV subscription fees has become something of a cause celebre.

There have been calls for the Israeli treasury to subsidise fans wishing to tune in.

One politician, getting carried away with the football fever, said the issue could bring down the government.

Originally, Israeli fans were going to have to fork out more than $200 to watch the tournament but that has now fallen to around about $70.

But this has not been enough to placate the angry fans.

"In football they make a lot of money and it's the most popular sport in the world," says Shay Nir, 29, an engineer in Jerusalem. "I'm not going to pay."

But Israel and the Palestinian territories are not the only places where supporters are being asked to fork out to watch the World Cup.

Fans in Poland and Italy will need to pay to access some of the games. In the West Bank and Gaza territories viewers are being asked to cough up $600 to a Saudi-based satellite channel - too much for most Palestinians.

"It's a lot of money, especially when the situation is so bad," says carpenter Fadi Said, 25, referring to the economic sanctions that have been imposed on the Palestinians following Hamas' election victory in January.

While the football World Cup's official slogan may be "a time to make friends", most Israelis and Palestinians football fans agree that their newfound agreement will not last long - probably until the final whistle of the World Cup.