The snow that seals the passes leading to Leh, Ladakh’s capital, is only one of many oppressors in the former kingdom’s eternal struggle to maintain its identity. From earliest times, the stoic, heroic inhabitants of this aerial island crushed between the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges in northern India have been assailed by invaders — geologic, political, climatic and touristic — that would have reduced a lesser people to penury or wiped them out altogether.

Even in good weather, one senses the region’s Shangri-la-like isolation, the tall ranges that hem it in. “An island in a sea of dust” is less a metaphor than a description of its remoteness, as well as a comment on its genesis. Geologists contend that when the earth’s jigsaw tectonic plates began to break apart, Ladakh was an isle caught between colliding continents. Sandwiched between India and Asia, Ladakh was lifted high into the air, and then rent by seismic upwelling that transformed sea bottom into towering ranges that, like honeycombs, embraced dozens of deep valleys.

To reach Leh, one must cross the 17,582-foot Taglangla Pass. Traveling to the next valley north, the Nubra, requires driving a wretched track through the Khardungla Pass — which, at 18,380 feet, ranks as the world’s highest motorable road.

Geologic upheavals also provided Ladakh with barren marine scrabble for farm land, while, its setting in the lee of the Himalaya deprived it of the monsoon rains that shower fertile India. Surveying the valley from the pass leading to Leh, it is hard to regard Ladakh as anything but an arid moonscape: tan soil rising to buff dirt mountains melding into the white snow, and from there into a cobalt sky unhazed by moisture. Leh’s squat, two-story, unpainted stone and mud buildings reflect their surroundings, seeming to rise from the dun landscape, rather than having been set upon it. Over the rooftops looms the craggy bluff crowned by the huge adobe-covered Leh Palace, visible from every point in the city and resembling more the hills surrounding it than a rustic Versailles.

Ladakh’s arid soil can support only a small populace: 130,000 people in an area of 38,680 square miles. Of that number, nearly 25,000, or 20 percent, live in Leh, which sits at an elevation of 11,000 feet.

Leh is a created town, the handiwork of farmers who have channeled the snowmelt coursing down the mountains, building dozens of canals that water the town before dropping into the Indus River. Walking the town’s dirt roads, one crosses a canal every hundred feet or so; without them, the town would cease to exist. This fact becomes apparent when one stands on the valley rim: Where the irrigation system’s reach ends, the desert begins.

Kunzang and her sisters farm a small plot surrounding their house, an acre separated from its neighbors by high walls of stacked stone that protect it from marauding cows and sheep. In the short growing season, they plant barley, which will be roasted and ground into tsampa, the staple grain of their diet. They also plant vegetables for their own use and for sale in Leh’s markets. Because the harvests barely feed them, they supplement their income by turning their three-story stone and wood home into a guesthouse for the hundreds of backpackers who flow into the valley once the passes have been opened at the end of June. For a few dollars, guests have a bare room looking out on fruit orchards and a bed with a thin mattress. The shared bathroom features a “dry toilet” that requires no water, an attempt by the ecologically minded Ladakhis to stretch limited resources even farther. Hot shower water is provided by the bucket.

Ladakh’s diverse population is the result of several waves of immigrants to its desolate valleys over the past two millennia. First to arrive were the nomadic Khampas from eastern Tibet, who each season pitched tents on stream banks to watch their yak herds. They shared the valleys with Drukpas (or Dards), pockets of whom still exist in some of the lesser valleys. Their Mediterranean features and bacchanalian fertility festivals suggest possible descent from soldiers who deserted Alexander’s Macedonian army and marched to the banks of the Indus in the third century. Discouraged by the prospect of re-crossing the Persian deserts, many of these elected to stay and farm. Ladakh’s isolated valleys must have seemed much like the city-states compartmentalized by the mountains of their native Greece.

It was the Mons from India who, in the eighth century, established permanent settlements. Professing the Lamanist form of Buddhism, they enjoyed a close association with Tibet until the middle of this century. Kunzang and her friends look Tibetan and inhabit a culture heavily influenced by its neighbor. Scores of gompas (Tibetan monasteries) hug the hillsides and house purple-robed monks; even the local language and gur-gur — the “yak butter tea” concocted from green tea, salt, yak butter and boiling water mixed in a churn — show evidence of Tibetan influence.

Ladakh’s early wealth came from its position astride the trade routes branching from the Silk Road. Indian goods were carried by yak from Leh over the Karakoram Pass to Yarkand and Kashgar in far western China, a trade that ceased only in 1947, when India closed its northern borders. These early arrivals were succeeded by waves of peoples intent not on trade, but on occupation. The brooding fortress looking down from Leh’s Peak of Victory was built in the 16th century to commemorate the successful repulsion of Balti-Kashmir armies. But Ladakh’s wealth lured them back time and again until, in the 1840s, the Kashmiris defeated Ladakh’s army and deposed its royal family, sending it into exile at Stok, just south of the Indus. In 1846, Ladakh was officially incorporated into the princely state of Kashmir.

Today, it is still a political pawn. When the Chinese invaded Tibet in 1951, and again in 1959, they simply cut off a chunk of Ladakh for themselves, billeting troops to make it a fait accompli. To defend against a possible Chinese invasion or incursions by terrorists caught up in India’s struggle with Pakistan over who should rule Kashmir, several battalions of Indian troops are stationed in Ladakh, an occupation that has cost the New Delhi government $1 million a day since 1988. India’s military presence is understated but omnipresent. Each day, one can hear soldiers shouting in cadence as they maintain military preparedness. Live rounds shatter the peace of the valley as soldiers practice marksmanship.

The second large contingent of outsiders are the Kashmiri Muslim businessmen, who destroyed their own tourism industry through sectarian violence in Srinigar. Their shops line Leh’s two main streets, their fronts draped with Kashmiri shawls, carpets, papier-mâché boxes and leather purses. Merchants loll in front of their shops, calling out to tourists, their manner relaxed but insistent. On the sidewalks just down the street, Ladakhi women in traditional robes and peaked hats sell produce and gossip, occasionally flicking their scarves at sheep trying to supplement meager pasturage by darting in to steal a carrot or a cabbage from an unwary vendor.

With administration in the hands of the Indians and commerce controlled by the Kashmiris, the Buddhist Ladakhis have virtually ceded all control over their political and commercial affairs, leaving them to farm and operate tourist hostels. The presence of the two foreign forces is underscored each day before dawn, when the soldiers rend the air with reveille at 4:30 a.m., and the muezzin at the mosque that dominates the town square announces the day’s first prayers.

In the past few years, Ladakhis have begun to call for a measure of autonomy, focusing their ire on the fact that school lessons are taught in Hindi and English and children debate Indian politics rather than local issues. A Leh-based magazine, “Ladags Melong,” published in English and Ladakhi, has been outspoken in calling for greater local participation in the district’s affairs. In response, Indian authorities have begun relaxing some of the strictures and involving Ladakhis in political matters — but this is a long way from the independence many would like to see established.

Still, even control over local politics and commerce won’t help Ladakhis fend off the unrelenting attacks of the principal invader: the cold. The Ladakhi growing season is limited to a few summer months; for the rest of its food and fuel, it must rely on caravans of trucks trundling into the valleys from India. So severe is the winter cold that pigs, chickens, ducks, buffaloes and cows find it impossible to survive; eggs must be transported overland from India, and only in the summer. Like other Ladakhis, Kunzang owns several dremos — a hybrid of the cow and the hardier yak — to provide milk.

It is the latest set of invaders — tourists — who provide them the cash to pay for the imported goods they consume. These tourists, however, disrupt the local economy, corrupt the culture and threaten the carrying capacity of the land. To extend that capacity, a nonprofit Ecology Center has been established to experiment with environmentally friendly agricultural processes, such as greenhouses to grow winter crops.

Despite the difficulty of their lives, Ladakhis accept their lot with Buddhist detachment and smiles for the stranger. With everyone they meet, they exchange a cheery “Jule,” an all-purpose word meaning “hello,” “goodbye,” “please,” “thank you.” They are generous in their hospitality and gentle in their demeanor, factors that have endeared them to visitors from other lands.

But now the tourists and the Kashmiris are leaving, driven away by the bitter winter cold. Like Russians, Kunzang and her sisters will retreat floor by floor, room by room, driven back by the cold until they huddle around a fire in a single room. Here, they will enjoy a measure of autonomy and bind their cultural community together, unhindered by outsiders, until the hot July sun melts the walls and permits a fresh wave of intruders to flood their valley.

Appearing on state television, Musharraf stated: “Despite all my advice, they tried to interfere with the armed forces, the last remaining viable institution in which all of you take so much pride and look up to at all times for stability, unity and integrity of our beloved country.”

For the past 10 years, the country has been ineptly ruled by an alternating team of prime ministers — Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, the latter awaiting trial on corruption charges. During this time, Pakistan’s economy has declined drastically.

The downward spiral went out of control last year, after Sharif ordered nuclear weapons testing in what was widely interpreted as a challenge to neighboring India. Serious border disputes between the two countries have flared up anew in recent months, leading to the imposition of sanctions against Pakistan by Western governments. The International Monetary Fund and World Bank have temporarily stalled loans that had been keeping Pakistan’s sinking economy afloat.

Sharif initially supported a move by Pakistani infiltrators (now widely believed to have been Pakistani soldiers) into the disputed Kargil region of Kashmir last year, then ordered them back to Pakistan under pressure from the White House. The retreat outraged Pakistani military leaders and provided the context for Tuesday’s coup.

A number of experts discussed the coup in Pakistan and its implications for regional stability with Salon News.

Howard B. Schaffer is director of studies at the Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at Georgetown University and former U.S. ambassador to Bangladesh.

The overthrow of Sharif by the military did not come as a surprise.

There [was] an awareness on the part of the army that Sharif had failed in many primary areas of governance and had become unpopular, setting the stage for it to intervene without serious concern about adverse public reaction. Its hand was forced by Sharif himself, who sought to dismiss the army chief — a move which he had been successful at a year earlier when he dismissed Musharraf’s predecessor — which led to this army reaction. The most serious failure has been on the economic front.

Another failure has been on the law-and-order front. There’s been increasing sectarian violence between extreme shia and sunni groups. There have been allegations, which I fully credit, of considerable corruption. There has been tension between the majority state [the Punjab province and home of Sharif] and the four smaller provinces. This is a laundry list of failures.

There has been very little hope that there could be substantial change in any of these areas. Sharif has been unwilling to crack down on those of his supporters who have had their hand in the cookie jar. He’s been unwilling to take politically risky measures to improve the revenue situation. He failed at Kargil and he created a foreign policy situation where Pakistan has very few friends in the world.

We don’t know much about Musharraf except that he’s a professional military officer … He is considered a secular person — I’m sure he’s a faithful Muslim — but he is not seen [as some other generals have been] to be inclined to an Islamic view of things. Allegations that he may lead Pakistan to take a more Islamic-oriented policy, especially vis-a-vis the Afghanistan situation, seem ironic when you consider that the guy whom Sharif proposed to replace him [Gen. Khawaja Ziauddin, head of the military intelligence] has been seen to have strong Islamic ties.

It’s a blow to U.S. foreign policy. The attitude of the U.S. government toward the Pakistani regime is going to depend on what kind of polity emerges in the next day or so. The Pakistani generals are still consulting among themselves to decide what to do next. The [option] favored by Washington would keep the present parliament in place but remove Sharif and a few figures associated with him. And then create a new, duly elected government comprising parliament but excluding these figures. The second approach, most favored by Pakistani elites, would create a substitute government of technocrats — senior officials and retired figures — and have them serve as a caretaker government to clean up the messier elements in the three months leading up to elections. This follows the pattern used earlier in the decade.

Robert Hathaway is director of the Asia program at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars.

The real triggering event was Sharif’s decision in July to withdraw the Pakistani troops who had infiltrated Indian territory in Kashmir. What happened was Sharif saw Pakistan was taking a military beating in Kashmir, and an economic beating at home and in the international community. But the roots of the problem go back further than this summer.

The last military dictator of Pakistan was killed in 1988 in an as-yet-unexplained plane crash. Since then, Pakistan has had a succession of weak administrations, none of which finished out their constitutional lives.

The Pakistani military had become increasingly disillusioned … By any measure, the economy is going down the tubes. The social indicators are terrible. Whether you talk about literacy, infant mortality, people who live without electricity or health care, it’s staggering.

What Pakistan has had since 1988 is poor leaders. Sharif was prime minister twice, [Benazir] Bhutto twice. But neither demonstrated any real ability to govern or meet the needs of the people. Both surrounded themselves with corrupt officials.

I don’t want to overemphasis it, but another factor is the role that Islamic radicals have played or might play in the takeover. To many Islamic radicals, Kashmir was a holy war, and the pullout by Sharif was not only a betrayal of the nation, but a betrayal of a solemn religious obligation to help their Muslim brothers.

There are things the U.S. can do, has already done, and should do in the future. First, we need to recognize that our influence is limited … We should send a message that we have no intention of conducting business as usual with Pakistan. This means that we will vote in the World Bank against loans to Pakistan. It means we will use the United Nations and other international forums to highlight what has transpired. It means that we will not give them diplomatic support in the disputes with India or other countries. Not so long as the military is in power.

Marshall Bouton is executive vice president of the Asia Society.

A lot of attention has been paid to differences that emerged between the military and Sharif. There was growing tension between the military and the prime minister. The prime minister was looking to contain the influence of the military. He dismissed the previous military authority for remarks that were taken as a suggestion that the military should have more power. There was growing concern among the military about the stability of the government and economy in the country. Ultimately the army considers itself the guardian of the country’s stability and integrity.

The political institutions in Pakistan did not acquire the roots in the national body politic that would help them over time. There was always this tension and between the government and the military. You had a relationship of distrust that in turn undermined the development of a political elite.

Success of military coups in the history of Pakistan varies widely. There is a widespread expectation that this new regime will lay out some kind of phased plan that will go from something short of martial law to technocratic, non-elected civilian government to full democratic control.

It will be difficult because the political institutions and the elite are not strong enough to sustain such a plan, so there’s no one whom the military can look to, to carry out this plan.

The United States has to send a three-layered message to the new military leaders:

1. We don’t approve of extra-constitutional changes of government, period.

2. We expect them to lay out a plan for return to civilian authority and eventually some legitimate democratic process.

3. This is a message best sent privately: We would be strongly opposed to any steps that would raise tensions with India. We expect the new government to not do anything to raise tensions and actually to find a way to reduce them.

They must recognize — if their purpose is to safeguard the integrity of Pakistan — that the path to that does not run through conflict with India.

Stephen Solarz is a senior advisor on South Asia at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Considerable thought had been given to this [coup] for some time.

From the inception of Pakistan, the military assumed the dominant role in the affairs of the nation because the nation’s founder died not long after Pakistan became independent. In India, [Jawaharlal] Nehru served as prime minister for close to 20 years, and he was very committed to the principle of parliamentary democracy, and civilian supremacy played a critical role in institutionalizing these principles.

There was no comparably legitimizing figure in Pakistan.

Civilian lack of reaction to the coup has largely to do with the fact that the economy is in a shambles, and the regime was inept at dealing with the problems of the country. It was mired in corruption, as were previous administrations. Also, the decision of Sharif to pull troops out of Kargil was seen as humiliating.

It doesn’t have any profound implications for nuclear proliferation because Pakistan already had nuclear weapons under the control of the military and still has nuclear weapons under the control of the military. It does have profound implications for the future of democracy in Pakistan, for Pakistani relations with the United States, and for relations with India.

Andrew Koch is a reporter at Jane’s Defence Weekly and an expert in South Asian nuclear proliferation.

The coup came as a surprise to Sharif. He clearly thought he could get rid of Musharraf. But when he tried to fire him, it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Sharif was immensely unpopular. There have been signs for weeks that something might happen. The United States warned the Pakistani military recently not to do something like this, and Sharif expected the United States to save him. But in the end what could we do?

It’s too early to say what’s going to happen to the long-term government. Everybody’s in a wait-and-see mode to see what the army’s going to do. It doesn’t really affect their nuclear stockpile — it was already under the control of the military and now remains that way.

Musharraf might be a bit [hawkish] compared to past Pakistani generals, but typically it’s the political leadership that’s been causing the biggest problems. They tend to go for the demagogue rhetoric in Pakistan to whip up political support. Both Sharif and Bhutto have been guilty of lambasting India as a huge threat and said that their opposition hasn’t been doing anything to safeguard against that threat. A lot more so than the military. People are saying that Musharraf is hawkish because he was the guy behind the Kargil [Kashmir] attack this summer. But I would caution that he is not whipping up, nor has he ever to my knowledge, Pakistani concerns vis-a-vis India like the political leadership has.

In terms of security in the region, if Pakistan could return to democracy in a solid form, that would be an immense help in stabilizing relations. But that’s predicated on the economy. [The economy in Pakistan] is a disaster. It was in very bad shape before the nuclear tests, but sanctions really hurt them. The country has suffered through many years of very poor governance. Bhutto was incredibly corrupt, and now she’s under indictment. Sharif is by many accounts just as corrupt. The level of his corruption hasn’t come fully into light because he jailed journalists and successfully ousted judges and put them under his control. With him out, it will be revealed how corrupt his regime was. These two leaders have traded off — one had led and then the other and back and forth for at least 10 disastrous years. Pakistan went on a more precipitous slide after the nuclear tests with the international sanctions and the temporary withholding of World Bank and IMF loans.

– Nick Dennany

Kalamazoo, Mich.

Leonard touched a raw nerve. There is a bigger
underlying problem here in India: the growing difference between the info-haves and info-have-nots. The
action of VSNL raises further questions. Can we expect the Net to be a democratic medium or is
it going to consolidate the established powers? Is it true that he who owns the server (read “the
network”) controls the Net?

Fifty years ago India made a change from a feudal society to a “license
Raj” democracy. Organizations like the VSNL are one of the last pillars
of this license Raj. In the last few years we have been experimenting with a liberalized economy. I am an optimist. I believe what we are
experiencing today is a passing phase; and I envisage a free India based on freedom of expression and right to information.

– Hemant Adarkar

Bombay, India

India has also barred Web access to another Pakistani newspaper, the Nation, and has also stopped cable companies from showing Pakistan Television to the Indian public.

Despite putting in more than 30,000 troops, aided by war planes, India has failed to clear the Kargil mountaintops, held by a few hundred “intruders.” India claims to have killed more than 800 mujahideen and Pakistanis, against less than 350 Indian dead. How can that be? When someone attacks entrenched positions on top of mountains, the attacker is liable to suffer many more casualties than the defender. The disinformation put out by the Indian government is simply mind-boggling. That is why they want to shield their public form the media.

– Asaf Ali Shah,

Islamabad, Pakistan

The overtime stigma
BY ALICIA NEUMANN
(07/12/99)

There is a way to be paid overtime as a technology worker, of course: be
a contractor. Obviously, you don’t get employee benefits — although the
pay is higher, so you can buy your own, and it’s amazing how
much more respect you get.

But the problem with overtime is that it leads to a culture where quantity
of work matters more than quality. It’s very easy to get very little
real work done and yet work a 70-hour week; should that employee get
more credit than his co-worker who finishes the same amount of work in a
regular 40 hours? Of course not, and yet this is often the case.

“Putting in the hours” is generally more about proving dedication,
loyalty and effort than actually getting useful work done. Many studies
have been done that show that increasing the number of hours worked does
not increase productivity that much. Employees get tired. Employees
goof off. Employees compensate for not being given personal time at
home by taking personal time out of the work day.

Entrenched overtime week after week does little except get everyone
macho points for how tough and hard-working they are. The high-tech
industry would survive well without it.

– Matt Brown

I used to work for a company where you were required to submit a time card
stating that you had only worked eight hours a day, five days a week — even though
that was a joke, and everyone knows it. People routinely work 70, 80 hours a
week; friends of mine have gone days without even leaving the building.
When I submitted the hours I actually worked (when I first started
there), I was reprimanded and told not to do it again.

Are they in violation of labor laws for doing this?

– Mark Fischer

Los Gatos, Calif.

America’s most bitchin’ broadcaster
BY JENN SHREVE
(07/10/99)

Yes, Connie Chung is a bitch, but it would not be a liability if she actually was a journalist in the
best sense of the word. In recent years, Chung’s level of
journalism has reached new lows. She has consistently
twisted facts, stepped past the boundaries of polite society, and
lowered herself to be only one step away from the tabloid “journalists”
that she once pooh-poohed. I, for one, am grateful that her time in the
media has passed.

– Joseph C.T. Chen

Los Angeles

Nancy Chan: Diary of a Manhattan call girl
BY TRACY QUAN
(07/12/99)

How risqui, a regular column written by a (gasp!) working girl. What’s
most notable about your working girl’s writing is its mediocrity, yet
the show goes on. I suppose your readers want sex, sex and more
sex — what juicier way to dish it out, what more pseudo-progressive
“liberated” way, than to enlist the help of (how shocking!) a
prostitute. Unfortunately, what Salon has gained in notoriety it has lost in quality.

– Lawrence Weiner

Mexico City

Inside baseball
BY JOAN WALSH
(07/13/99)

In 1984, I was a reporter at the now-defunct
Sacramento Union, and Mays was at a nearby Holiday Inn doing an
autograph show. Now, this was at a time when selling one’s autograph (I think
Mays’ was going for $5) was still a story, so I went there to try to get an
interview. I never did get the one-on-one I
wanted, but about midway through his signing session, Mays suddenly got up
from his chair and announced to the semi-stunned crowd that he would take
questions. I stood there taking notes, then after several minutes I yelled
out a question of my own — something innocuous, like what he kind of
salary he thought he would be making now. Mays looked at me and asked, “Is that a notebook? Are you
a reporter?” When I said yes, I was, he launched into a long lecture
about how all reporters are liars, never quote him correctly, and are sneaks
besides. He then ended the Q&A, saying that since there was a treacherous
reporter in their midst, he couldn’t speak freely anymore. And that was the
end of that.

– Steve Martarano

Sacramento, Calif.

You can call me Al
BY KEITH MOORE
(07/09/99)

Keith Moore misses the point. Al Sharpton is not so much
an ally as a wedge against Rudy Giuliani.

The Clinton team, by having Sharpton there with the mother
of Amadou Diallo, sent a signal that Giuliani might have to
answer questions about race — and if any issue defines Giuliani, it is his inability to deal
with race. Years passed before he met with
the state’s controller, a man who directly controls
parts of New York City’s budget and has oversight
responsibility. This man — the highest-ranking black official
in the state — could not meet with the mayor until
after the Diallo shooting.

Any time the conversation moves to race, Giuliani
loses. It’s not just the widespread perception
that he dislikes blacks. It’s not just his blind support
of the largely white, suburban police department.
It’s also the looming possibility that the federal government
may want to appoint a monitor for the NYPD.
This would taint every aspect of Giuliani’s crime-fighting
record, turning his strength into a major liability.
The idea that the reduction in crime came about
because of a gross and systemic violation of the
basic civil rights of New Yorkers could lead
to catastrophic class-action suits.

Even the suburban boosters
of the mayor might have real problems in supporting
the modern-day Bull Connor. By being seen with Sharpton early, the Clinton team
is clearly showing Giuliani they’re going to play
hardball.

– Stephen Gilliard

New York

Al Sharpton is a racial opportunist, always seeking to acquire limelight
and attention. The Brawley affair illustrated his scruple-deficient style.
Tawdry and boorish, Sharpton will bring racial divisiveness, not unity to
Hillary’s campaign. That Hillary would kowtow to his vote-getting abilities
within blighted communities demonstrates an ability to pander to the lowest
common denominator in the voting block. This may establish a new watermark
in using people to achieve ones’ own political ends.

– Clarke Johnston

All you need is love — and a marriage license
BY JOAN OLECK
(07/09/99)

Gay and lesbian couples nationwide are required to jump
through all manner of hoops to attempt to adopt children. But while Jesse Helms wants to keep gays and lesbians from adopting children from foreign climes, key Republican operative Arthur Finkelstein — who has worked tirelessly for Helms and others — and Finkelstein’s lover found the way surprisingly smooth for their two adoptions. Sen. Helms has been curiously silent about this.

– David Ehrenstein

Los Angeles

As an international adoption worker, I cringe when I read stories “flaunting” people who
have cheated the system by posing as someone they were not.

While I agree with virtually everything you said, and also believe that a
family of any configuration is better than the very best of institutions, I
also strongly defend the right of any country to define the best
interests of their own children as they see fit. Not only because any other
position is one of cultural imperialism, but because flouting their rules can and does
result only in more stringent ones — such as the one you deplore, which would
exclude all single applicants.

The precedents are already there. El Salvador used to be one of the most
liberal countries in requirements for foreign adoption. But when it was reported
that as many as 60 percent of the children adopted out of El Salvador went to single
parents (and there was a strong insinuation that many were adopted by
lesbians posing as single heterosexual females), ensuing legislation
prohibited adoption by singles. In fact, it narrowed the field to allow only
couples married for five or more years to adopt. Certainly that was not in the best interests of children.

I believe that we should fight to allow the largest number of children
possible to be adopted by stable, loving families of any configuration,
rather than being raised in institutions or foster care. At the same time,
I strongly believe this has to be done within the framework of the law,
whether it be ours or theirs. Let us try to convince
them with the logic and experience of our arguments. Anything else is
antagonistic, imperialistic, fruitless and counterproductive.

– Martha Edwards

Cabin John, Md.

But the charge helped to reinforce the president’s claims that bin Laden is “perhaps the preeminent organizer and financier of international terrorism in the world today,” and that there was “compelling” — if unrevealable — evidence that a network of terrorist groups he controlled was planning “further attacks against Americans and other freedom-loving groups.”

At a time when presidential veracity is at an all-time low, one might have wished that the president and his national security advisors had laid out in detail just what was the “compelling evidence” that led the United States to launch some 75 missiles at two sovereign nations.

As it is, the public, both here in the United States and in the more critical world at large, is being asked to take a giant Kierkegaardian leap of faith in the president’s claims. Given Clinton’s recent track record in the “trust me” department, this is a lot to demand.

For while there is little doubt that bin Laden is a sworn enemy of the United States with the financial means to put some teeth in that enmity, his exact role in anti-American terrorism is unclear. The administration’s claims are based more on conjecture — mostly bin Laden’s own braggadocio and the bad company he apparently keeps — than hard and convincing evidence.

Clinton and his security staff have now blamed bin Laden for being behind almost every terrorist act in the past decade — from plotting the assassinations of the pope and the president of Egypt to the planned bombing of six U.S. jumbo jets over the Pacific, with massacres of German tourists at Luxor and the killings of U.S. troops in Somalia, fatal car bombings of U.S. military personnel in Saudi Arabia and this month’s truck bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam thrown in. Not since the ’70s heyday of the terrorist Carlos has there been such a Prince of Darkness, if the allegations are to be believed.

But so far, for all of the accusations, no government, not even that of the United States, has established enough credible evidence against bin Laden to conclusively prove his direct participation in, much less leadership of, any of the ugly plots and acts he stands accused of. To date no formal request for his extradition has ever been made, either to the Sudanese government that once housed him or to his current hosts, Afghanistan’s Taliban leaders.

Though it was suddenly leaked this week that a federal grand jury’s continuing investigation into the World Trade Center bombing in New York City in 1993 had belatedly handed up a sealed indictment against bin Laden in June, the indictment is understood to be only for “sedition,” that is, incitement to violence, not the violence itself. That is the same charge under which the Unites States previously convicted Egyptian cleric Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the Trade Center bomber’s spiritual leader.

The only link between bin Laden and the World Trade Center bombing seems to be the fact that the mastermind of the bombing, Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, was eventually detained by U.S. agents while living in a guest house in Pakistan reportedly rented by bin Laden. The Saudi was also implicated in a failed 1994 plan to blow up American jumbo jets over the Pacific because the plot mastermind, Wali Khan Amin Shah, reportedly was a “close friend” of bin Laden’s.

If bin Laden’s fingerprints were to be found on any terrorist acts of the last decade, they should have been on the two attacks against U.S. military personnel carried out in the years when he was still living in his Saudi Arabian homeland. Bin Laden, a wealthy Saudi engineering graduate who became a radical Muslim after joining the war against Russia’s occupation of Afghanistan in 1979, became virulently anti-American after U.S. troops were stationed in Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Gulf War.

To him the American presence in Saudi Arabia, home of the holy Islamic sites Mecca and Medina, is a sacrilege he has vowed to reverse, along with toppling the “corrupt” Saudi royal family that has allowed it. Thus, when a car bomb exploded at a Saudi National Guard office in Riyadh in 1995, killing five Americans, and another blew up at the Khobar Towers Barracks in Dhahran a year later, killing another 19, bin Laden seemed the most likely suspect.

But neither the FBI, the CIA nor the Saudi intelligence services has ever been able to establish bin Laden’s links to those crimes after years of trying. What evidence that has emerged from those ongoing investigations points the finger at dissident Saudi Shiites, perhaps with the logistic support of the Lebanese Hezbollah organization, or even Iran.

Though much has been made of the fact that from his safe-houses in Afghanistan bin Laden has forged a loose alliance with perhaps a dozen different Islamic groups in the Muslim world from Algeria to Bangladesh, he seems to be more of a spiritual leader and financier than the sort of terrorist mastermind being alleged.

“Bin Laden is a true believer and a funder of Islamic causes, rather than a planner and active participant,” says Professor Shibley Telhani, a Middle East scholar from the University of Maryland who has followed his career. “His real influence is not as a mastermind of terrorism but as a person who is using a personal fortune to encourage others to wage war against the American interests in the Middle East he finds so objectionable.”

Indeed the sealed federal indictment just handed up, it would appear, is not based on any evidence directly linking him to either of those plots or others. Instead, it seems to have been motivated by a public call to arms against Americans that bin Laden published in the London Arabic newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi last February. Issued as an Islamic Fatwa, or holy order, even though bin Laden has no religious authority whatsoever, the broadside by bin Laden and other signers from various Islamic groups called for Muslims to “kill Americans and their allies, civilians and military” wherever they find them.

These are strong words indeed. But they are words, not deeds. And though it is all too likely that those words have inspired others to such actions as the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam last month, bin Laden himself is unlikely to have personally ordered those bombings or carried them out.

Unless the Clinton administration can come up with some hard evidence that bin Laden is in fact calling the shots of a vast new anti-American terrorist network, all the present allegations and faceless intelligence-source leaks claiming facts too secret and explosive to be revealed should be taken with a grain of salt.

Bin Laden may be a dangerous anti-American zealot with a mouth as big as his bankroll. But the evidence so far does not support him being a cerebral Islamic Dr. No moving an army of terrorist troops on a vast world chessboard to checkmate the United States.

All eyes will be on the official welcoming ceremony next Thursday in Tiananmen Square, where Chinese soldiers butchered hundreds of pro-democracy demonstrators and seared the issue of human and political rights in China into the American consciousness. Human rights advocates and Clinton critics — Republicans and Democrats — expect him to address what happened there nine years ago this month — even if it means offending his Chinese hosts.

National Security Advisor Samuel Berger says Clinton will raise the human rights issue, although he won’t say if that will happen during the Tiananmen ceremony. Berger was also careful to mention that China’s human rights record had improved somewhat, noting that the administration’s continuing engagement with China had helped bring about the release of dissidents Wei Jingsheng and Wang Dan earlier this year.

Peter Rodman, a National Security Council member during the Reagan administration, says Clinton’s decision to be welcomed in Tiananmen Square, with all of its negative symbolism for Americans, only confirms how inept the administration is when it comes to handling foreign policy. “They’re tone-deaf,” says Rodman, now a foreign policy analyst at Georgetown University’s Center for Strategic and International Studies.

The summit, which was arranged months ago, also comes at an awkward moment for Clinton — just as Republicans in Congress are investigating his administration’s missile technology transfers to China and the impact of the transfers on U.S. national security. Congress also is probing the possibility that those transfers were influenced by illegal Chinese contributions to Clinton’s 1996 presidential campaign — a charge the administration vehemently denies. Some critics argue the issue was so serious that Clinton should have canceled the summit altogether.

White House officials scorned the suggestion, particularly in light of the strategic and economic developments that have rocked the region recently.

Earlier this month, India and Pakistan detonated nuclear test devices, plunging the volatile Asian subcontinent into a potential nuclear arms race. As justification for its tests, India singled out China, accusing it of helping rival Pakistan develop its own nuclear weapons and the long-range missiles to deliver them. China denies it played any role in helping Pakistan develop its nuclear and missile capabilities.

National Security Advisor Berger says Clinton will use the summit to press Chinese President Jiang Zemin on nuclear nonproliferation and missile control issues — not only with regard to Pakistan but also Iran. China reportedly is still discussing the sale of missile test equipment to Teheran, an act that would violate pledges the Chinese leader made to Clinton during his visit to Washington last fall. While noting improvements in China’s behavior, Berger says Clinton will “seek further steps by the Chinese to bring itself wholly in line with international [arms technology transfer] regimes.”

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More immediately important is what the U.S. and China can or should do about Asia’s worsening economic crisis, which has now embroiled the giant economy of Japan. Earlier this week, China demonstrated its clout by warning that unless action was taken to support the falling Japanese yen — sending Wall Street into a tailspin — Beijing would devalue its own currency, the yuan, to keep its exports competitive with those of Japan.

According to U.S. Treasury sources, it was China’s warnings, which prompted fears of more economic turmoil in Asia, that convinced Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin to spend some $2 billion to bolster the falling yen, reversing his earlier policy of nonintervention.
Clinton is expected to ask the Chinese to refrain from further threats of devaluation at least until after Japan’s July 12 elections, after which U.S. officials hope the Japanese government will take strong measures to resolve the country’s massive banking crisis.

Knowing that it needs China as a bulwark against further economic turmoil in Asia, the Clinton administration will argue forcefully
for another annual extension of China’s Most Favored Nation trade status. While Clinton already has granted China MFN status, it must pass Congress, where the issue is particularly contentious this year because of the controversies over the administration’s transfer of missile technology and allegations of Chinese interference in U.S. elections.

“It’s a very sensitive time,” Susan Esserman, an official with the U.S. Trade Representative’s Office told a congressional hearing Wednesday. “Revoking MFN would worsen the Asian financial crisis,” she said, warning that such a move would add 44 percent to the price of Chinese imports for U.S. consumers. Stanley Roth, the undersecretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told the same hearing that failure to approve MFN will “affect our relations with China across the board … eliminating the prospects for future progress.”

That argument resonates with Republicans whose business constituency
is becoming increasingly reliant on China trade. Rep. Bill Archer, R-Tex., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, compared any revocation of China’s trade status to “pouring gasoline on a four-alarm fire.” Rep. Jennifer Dunn, R-Wash., agrees with the administration about China’s role as an economic stabilizer. China trade is increasingly crucial to her Seattle-area district, and her defense of administration policy reflects the evolving political dynamic of the China question.

But the GOP is hardly united on the issue. Opponents such as Rep. Gerald Solomon, R-N.Y., insist China’s MFN status be revoked, charging it “has led directly to the bankruptcy of our proliferation policies.” And while Solomon’s remarks echo those Republicans who have been hammering the administration for compromising national security and violating campaign finance laws, opposition to renewing China’s MFN status is by no means a partisan affair. Rep. Pete Stark, D-Calif., whose Northern California district has a large number of Chinese-Americans, says bluntly: “The Chinese government is barbaric. They have no desire or intention to change. They release a few dissidents and put 10 more in jail. They laugh at us and mock us … They want us to buy their cheap sneakers and T-shirts.”

There are signs that critics of Clinton’s China policies are having an impact. On Thursday, administration officials confirmed a New York Times report that the White House was “rethinking” a $750 million sale of communications satellites to China. Clinton approved the sale — one of the biggest deals yet between the U.S. and China — in 1996, but Pentagon and State Department officials are now questioning it because of the satellites’ possible military application.

Such “rethinking,” on top of human rights and weapons proliferation concerns, could bring a distinct chill to Clinton’s summit with Chinese leaders. And that may be the price he will have to pay for his commerce-driven approach to U.S.-China relations.

“Every leader has to reexamine certain policies,” says Benjamin Schwartz, professor emeritus of Chinese government and history at Harvard University. “The fact is there has been too much of an emphasis on economic relations with China. Clinton has made a cult of business interests, and it has led to an emphasis on trade over everything else in our relationship. There are other considerations that have to be taken into account.”