By William Fisher
Since Eleanor Roosevelt presented the International Declaration of Human Rights to the United Nations for ratification 37 years ago next week, the world has witnessed – and often ignored -- some of the most egregious rights violations in modern history.
Racial segregation and injustice toward people of color in the United States, Australia and the apartheid regime of South Africa. The Gulags of Russia.
Chemical warfare in Vietnam. Attempted genocide in Rwanda, by Idi Amin in Uganda, Pol Pot's "killing fields" in Cambodia, Sudan’s campaign against the people of Darfur, and the attempted genocide of Kurds in Iraq. Ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and militia violence in Timor. Child labor. Gender discrimination. Denial of universal suffrage. Increasingly repressive governments from the Middle East and North Africa to Latin America to Asia restricting rights of press freedom and peaceful assembly. Failure to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute. Gross violations of the Geneva Conventions by the American military and ‘rendition’ of ‘ghost prisoners’ by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to countries known to torture prisoners. Widespread religious and economic discrimination.
The U.N. has also come under fierce criticism regarding its Human Rights Committee, whose members have often included countries known to be gross violators of basic rights.
But when Mrs. Roosevelt, wife of the then-American president, Franklin D. Roosevelt, presented the draft Declaration to the U.N. membership, she said it “is based upon the spiritual fact that man must have freedom in which to develop his full stature and through common effort to raise the level of human dignity. We have much to do to fully achieve and to assure the rights set forth in this declaration. But having them put before us with the moral backing of 58 nations will be a great step forward.”
The non-binding Declaration of 1948 identified many rights: life, liberty and security of person, freedom from slavery and servitude, freedom from torture, or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, equality before the law, not being subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile, freedom of movement and residence, the right to marriage and to found a family, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, peaceful assembly and association, work, health and education.
But, since its signing, an estimated 60 million people have died or been maimed by war and human rights abuses. And the number of victims continues to climb.
Some human rights observers examine this record and conclude that the United Nations is a toothless tiger, incapable – or unwilling – to move from rhetoric to action.
Others see the glass as half full and claim the historic declaration has made a major contribution toward focusing the world’s attention on the preservation of human rights, despite the failings of so many nations.
Among them is Dr. Omid Safi of Colgate University. He told IPS that the Declaration “has had a major worldwide impact on conversations about human rights. One of the best indications of the impact it has had on Muslims is the involvement of the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize winner, Shirin Ebadi, who has worked extensively on harmonizing Islam and international human rights discourse.”
Rev. Tim Simpson of the Christian Alliance agrees. He told IPS, “The declaration is an important symbol. In itself it has not ameliorated human rights around the world, but it has given every member of the family of nations a standard by which to judge their own society's efforts. First World democracies could say to the developing world, ‘This is the direction in which you should strive to take your politics’, while Third World countries could remind the West whenever it strayed, ‘Don't forget the values that made your nations great’. Clearly, there is still much to do in the world to better human rights, but we have moved a great deal since the middle of the last century and the Declaration is part of the reason for that change.”
Also seeing the half-full glass is Chip Pitts, President of the Board of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee (BORDC), immediate past Chair of Amnesty International USA, and a professor of international human rights at the Stanford Law School. He told IPS, “The Declaration gave human rights traction; what we now need is action… A new global scrutiny exists as a result of modern communications, 24-hour media, and the explosion of nongovernmental organizations and global and regional enforcement mechanisms” since 1948.
He adds: “The Declaration worked incredibly well to establish and proliferate standards…The Declaration also offered an integrated view of civil and political rights, on one hand, and economic, social, and cultural rights, on the other. That integrated view was challenged during the Cold War, when the U.S. supported the former rights and the Soviet Union supported only the latter. Space for a newly integrated view opened up briefly during the 90s, but has been closed again just when it is most needed -- during this new century, when the cracks and fissures from globalization are newly apparent.”
But Dr. Jack N. Behrman, professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina who served as an official in the Kennedy Administration, takes a far less optimistic view.
He told IPS, “If human rights include non-discrimination and human dignity, it is not possible to have any measure of whether they are better now than before. Exposure of each is still not at all full, and what we do read and hear in the media does not give encouragement that we have improved. In fact, the U.S. practice of torture displays the opposite.”
Behrman says “One reason for not extending human rights is the continuing view that ‘I and My People’ deserve more than others do, and if they get it my way, they should be pushed down or aside. A second is fear -- of others and loss of ‘my’ position and prestige.
IPS asked commentators for this article to identify the major problems facing the U.N. and what the body could do to overcome them.
BORDC’s Pitts notes that “The international legal mechanisms remain weak -- e.g. the state-to-state complaint mechanisms of the UN treaty bodies, and the limited rights of individual petition operating there and in the regional human rights bodies (e.g. the Inter-American and European procedures). And these limited mechanisms have been weakened by powerful nations lately, especially the United States. For the United States to actively encourage so many nations to undermine fundamental human rights by adopting principles like those at the heart of its own ‘Patriot Act’ -- e.g. by condoning arbitrary and secret detention, disappearances, discrimination, reversal of the presumption of innocence and the right to fair trials, of the right to confront your accusers and the evidence against you, of the right to be free from cruel and inhuman treatment -- is a tragic setback to global peace, prosperity, and true security.”
His recommendation: “We need to move from standard setting to enforcement and implementation via application to non-state actors (e.g. corporations, al Qaeda) as well as states, and on the basis of a newly integrated vision of a world in which all human rights are respected and protected; but this is difficult without leadership of the sort that resulted in the Declaration, and political will to overcome narrow interests and recognize the immense practical importance of human rights.”
Dr. Safi thinks “more work can and should be done” in “working with religious reformers who want to find a religious voice for engaging universal human rights discourse, establishing international organizations for the monitoring and when necessary persecution of crimes against humanity, and considering issues such as poverty as central to help translate human rights discourse into a meaningful reality for the lives of the one billion human beings who live on a dollar a day, and for whom human rights discourse sounds like an elitist concern without a meaningful impact on their lives.”
But, according to Dr. Behrman: “The U.N. cannot possibly do enough, for it is composed of countries that do not ‘buy into’ the Declaration even if they have signed it. The basic obstacle to doing more is the attitude of individuals, ethnic groups, communities, and nations that supports separation instead of a willingness to embrace humanity. The Declaration itself cannot work at all; it depends on each country's implementation. And I have not read in the media that any country has shown the way in protecting human rights, particularly of minorities and immigrants.”
Professor Abdullahi An-Na'im of the Emory School of Law in Atlanta, voices a similar view. He told IPS, "Upholding and protecting human rights is the responsibility of every government, state, and their citizens, and not of the UN as an abstract entity. The UN is what its member states make of it, or fail to make of it. Every decision to act or fail to act, allocation of resources, and follow through, etc. is taken by government delegates."
He continued: "Human rights are always violated or protected on the ground, in real time and space, which is always within the jurisdiction of a state, not the UN as such. A violation can only happen when some human being does or fails to do something to another human being. That can only be done by the citizens of one state or another, and also within the territory of a state. The protection of human rights will not improve until we all accept our responsibility for this, and stop blaming the UN for our failures."
Monday, December 05, 2005
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
FORUM FOR THE (DISTANT) FUTURE
By William Fisher
A key pillar of the much-vaunted Middle East democracy initiative of President George W. Bush has collapsed – brought down by Egypt’s insistence that Arab governments should have more control over grants from a new fund designed to help indigenous pro-democracy organizations.
At an international conference attended by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and designed to strengthen local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society in the Middle East, Egyptian officials pressed for language stipulating that only organizations legally registered with their governments were covered by the new fund, known as the Foundation for the Future.
Egypt’s law governing NGOs places numerous restrictions on these organizations.
The U.S. characterized the Egyptian position as inappropriate. "In our view and in the view of other delegations, this would have circumscribed NGO activity," said a senior U.S. official, who briefed reporters traveling with Rice.
The U.S. delegation expressed disappointment with Egypt, which has been a major American ally on key issues, including the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Bush administration's international fight against terrorism. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit reportedly left before the conference ended
The foundation has commitments of over $50 million to help
nongovernmental organizations, academic institutions and professional associations foster freedom and democracy in the Middle East and North Africa. The United States has pledged $35 million.
Saudi Arabia and Oman initially supported the Egyptian position, but ultimately all the governments except Egypt agreed to remove language that would have given them control over foreign resources going to groups in their countries.
Several Arab delegates reportedly saw the language of the U.S. draft as another indication that the Bush Administration was attempting to impose democracy “from the outside”. Several delegations said that Arabs want more say in crafting criteria for change.
Egypt is the second-largest recipient of U.S. aid, after Israel; it receives roughly $2 billion in U.S. military and economic assistance annually. Since it made peace with Israel more than 25 years ago, it has received tens of billions of dollars from the U.S. It is home to more than half the Arab world's population.
The conference, known as the Forum for the Future, was held in Bahrain and brought together dozens of nations -- including 22 Arab countries and members of the G-8 industrialized countries.
The Forum is a joint U.S.-European initiative launched at the 2004 G-8 summit hosted by President Bush at Sea Island, Georgia. It is a key part of the
Bush Aministration’s Broader Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Initiative. The first Forum for the Future conference was held last year in Morocco.
Because of the Egyptian action, this year’s Forum ended without an official communiqué. Its planned final declaration would have committed MENA countries to "expand democratic practices, to enlarge participation in
political and public life, to foster the roles of civil society, including NGOs,
and to widen women's participation in the political, economic, social, cultural
and education fields and to reinforce their rights and status in society while
understanding that each country is unique."
Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, an Egyptian democracy activist who attended the conference, was quoted by The Washington Post as charging that the government of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was holding the region "hostage to its despotism. By so doing," he said, "they leave the field clear for the theocrats . . .The theocrats still have the mosque," a reference to the fact that Egypt's proposed restriction would have limited funds available to secular democracy activists and nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs.
Ibrahim directs a research and advocacy institute in Cairo that monitors elections, conducts voter education projects, and at times criticizes the Egyptian government. In the summer of 2000, he and 27 of his colleagues were arrested and tried before a state security court on several charges allegedly connected to their work. All 28 defendants were found guilty on some of these charges and several were sent to jail. Ibrahim was sentenced to a seven-year term. His conviction was overturned by the Egyptian Supreme Court and he was ultimately acquitted of all charges in a second trial and released in 2003.
Ibrahim heads the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies and is a professor of sociology at the American University in Cairo.
Dr. Omid Safi of Colgate University believes that "The failure of the Forum for the Future yet again brings to light the failure of the Bush administration to grasp that the majority of people in the Middle East will continue to judge U.S. actions not by fancy rhetoric and multi-million-dollar initiatives, but rather by the changing of our foreign policy to one that abides by international human rights agreements and empowers self-determination."
Chili Mallet, a prominent Lebanese law professor and currently a candidate for president of that country, takes a perhaps more fundamental view. Mallet, who played a key role in organizing MENA civil society groups to make their needs known to the G-8, said, “It is disappointing to see declarations going nowhere, when there was so much investment and work with civil society leaders in the countries involved. This only underlines what we described in New York in 2004, and in Rabat earlier this year, that only leaders that resemble the better side of society should be at the helm. This what we call the democratic imperative. The rest, including funding of groups, is secondary and trivial.”
Egypt’s Mubarak – the longest-serving leader in his country’s history – was elected in September to his fifth six-year term as president in the first election in which opposition candidates were allowed to compete. The Constitutional amendment allowing the more open polling was hailed by the Bush Administration as an important step in Egypt’s journey to democracy, but was widely criticized for placing improper restrictions on opposition freedom to field candidates. Mubarak won 88.6% of the votes cast.
But one authoritative observer, Prof. Ed Herman of the University of Pennsylvania, takes a decidedly skeptical and somewhat sinister view of the Forum and similar efforts to introduce democracy by strengthening local civil society.
“I’m afraid I can’t sympathize with what would appear to be the ‘democratic’ position on this, even while I think Mubarak’s and his allies’ behavior is outrageous. I wouldn’t let (George) Soros or The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) into my country if I was head of state as they are agents of an agenda that goes far beyond ‘democracy’, and amounts to a form of subversion.”
George Soros is a Hungarian-born American billionaire whose foundations have funded numerous pro-democracy programs in Central and Eastern Europe and elsewhere, as well as a not-for-profit group known as MoveOn.org, which was a major player in support of Presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 election.
The National Endowment for Democracy is a U.S. Government-chartered private corporation whose programs are designed to assist pro-democracy forces in developing countries. Its funding comes largely from the U.S. Government.
Herman’s point of view: “Instead of CIA intervention sub rosa, we now use open methods of intervention aiming toward the same ends: the establishment of an amenable regime that will open its doors to foreign investment and align with the West. This is not giving people freedom or free choice, even though it may use that nominal language and even some degree of real choice in special circumstances. This program is not used in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia or Indonesia, but is pushed aggressively in places like Yugoslavia and Venezuela, and not for reasons that have anything to do with democracy in a positive sense.”
He adds: “The definition of an indigenous NGO is a bit tricky, as quite a few of them in contested terrain came into existence with external inspiration and money; and even apart from this it is dangerous to allow foreign resources to influence domestic choices. I can imagine a market savvy indigenous thinking—gee, if I do X I’ll be able to get big bucks from abroad.”
He asks: “Why can’t (Middle East governments and their NGOs) simply be allowed to work things out for themselves? Rotten governments very often are thrown out by their own people, and sometimes foreign intervention helps them preserve their power as they can appeal to national pride. If I had to choose between total non-intervention and real world intervention such as we see emanating from the US and Britain, I wouldn’t hesitate to choose non-intervention. Don’t we have enough of our own problems to keep our hands away from those of distant countries?”
Certainly, the U.S. and other G-8 countries have more than enough problems to deal with. And there is no doubt that all money comes with some strings attached, however subtle they may be. On the other hand, the problems facing civil society organizations under authoritarian governments are simply overwhelming. With state control of media, they have no voice. With restrictions on the contributions they can accept, they have few resources. With state security police watching their every move, they cannot expand their memberships.
We are not talking here about the G-8 invading these countries. We are not talking about the CIA infiltrating NGOs’ memberships. We are talking about modest financial support to strengthen civil society.
It seems to me that the over-arching question is that if wealthy democracies fail to reach out to help struggling reform movements in poorer countries, then who will?
In my view, nobody is not an option.
A key pillar of the much-vaunted Middle East democracy initiative of President George W. Bush has collapsed – brought down by Egypt’s insistence that Arab governments should have more control over grants from a new fund designed to help indigenous pro-democracy organizations.
At an international conference attended by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and designed to strengthen local non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and civil society in the Middle East, Egyptian officials pressed for language stipulating that only organizations legally registered with their governments were covered by the new fund, known as the Foundation for the Future.
Egypt’s law governing NGOs places numerous restrictions on these organizations.
The U.S. characterized the Egyptian position as inappropriate. "In our view and in the view of other delegations, this would have circumscribed NGO activity," said a senior U.S. official, who briefed reporters traveling with Rice.
The U.S. delegation expressed disappointment with Egypt, which has been a major American ally on key issues, including the Arab-Israeli conflict and the Bush administration's international fight against terrorism. Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit reportedly left before the conference ended
The foundation has commitments of over $50 million to help
nongovernmental organizations, academic institutions and professional associations foster freedom and democracy in the Middle East and North Africa. The United States has pledged $35 million.
Saudi Arabia and Oman initially supported the Egyptian position, but ultimately all the governments except Egypt agreed to remove language that would have given them control over foreign resources going to groups in their countries.
Several Arab delegates reportedly saw the language of the U.S. draft as another indication that the Bush Administration was attempting to impose democracy “from the outside”. Several delegations said that Arabs want more say in crafting criteria for change.
Egypt is the second-largest recipient of U.S. aid, after Israel; it receives roughly $2 billion in U.S. military and economic assistance annually. Since it made peace with Israel more than 25 years ago, it has received tens of billions of dollars from the U.S. It is home to more than half the Arab world's population.
The conference, known as the Forum for the Future, was held in Bahrain and brought together dozens of nations -- including 22 Arab countries and members of the G-8 industrialized countries.
The Forum is a joint U.S.-European initiative launched at the 2004 G-8 summit hosted by President Bush at Sea Island, Georgia. It is a key part of the
Bush Aministration’s Broader Middle East and North Africa (MENA) Initiative. The first Forum for the Future conference was held last year in Morocco.
Because of the Egyptian action, this year’s Forum ended without an official communiqué. Its planned final declaration would have committed MENA countries to "expand democratic practices, to enlarge participation in
political and public life, to foster the roles of civil society, including NGOs,
and to widen women's participation in the political, economic, social, cultural
and education fields and to reinforce their rights and status in society while
understanding that each country is unique."
Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, an Egyptian democracy activist who attended the conference, was quoted by The Washington Post as charging that the government of President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt was holding the region "hostage to its despotism. By so doing," he said, "they leave the field clear for the theocrats . . .The theocrats still have the mosque," a reference to the fact that Egypt's proposed restriction would have limited funds available to secular democracy activists and nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs.
Ibrahim directs a research and advocacy institute in Cairo that monitors elections, conducts voter education projects, and at times criticizes the Egyptian government. In the summer of 2000, he and 27 of his colleagues were arrested and tried before a state security court on several charges allegedly connected to their work. All 28 defendants were found guilty on some of these charges and several were sent to jail. Ibrahim was sentenced to a seven-year term. His conviction was overturned by the Egyptian Supreme Court and he was ultimately acquitted of all charges in a second trial and released in 2003.
Ibrahim heads the Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies and is a professor of sociology at the American University in Cairo.
Dr. Omid Safi of Colgate University believes that "The failure of the Forum for the Future yet again brings to light the failure of the Bush administration to grasp that the majority of people in the Middle East will continue to judge U.S. actions not by fancy rhetoric and multi-million-dollar initiatives, but rather by the changing of our foreign policy to one that abides by international human rights agreements and empowers self-determination."
Chili Mallet, a prominent Lebanese law professor and currently a candidate for president of that country, takes a perhaps more fundamental view. Mallet, who played a key role in organizing MENA civil society groups to make their needs known to the G-8, said, “It is disappointing to see declarations going nowhere, when there was so much investment and work with civil society leaders in the countries involved. This only underlines what we described in New York in 2004, and in Rabat earlier this year, that only leaders that resemble the better side of society should be at the helm. This what we call the democratic imperative. The rest, including funding of groups, is secondary and trivial.”
Egypt’s Mubarak – the longest-serving leader in his country’s history – was elected in September to his fifth six-year term as president in the first election in which opposition candidates were allowed to compete. The Constitutional amendment allowing the more open polling was hailed by the Bush Administration as an important step in Egypt’s journey to democracy, but was widely criticized for placing improper restrictions on opposition freedom to field candidates. Mubarak won 88.6% of the votes cast.
But one authoritative observer, Prof. Ed Herman of the University of Pennsylvania, takes a decidedly skeptical and somewhat sinister view of the Forum and similar efforts to introduce democracy by strengthening local civil society.
“I’m afraid I can’t sympathize with what would appear to be the ‘democratic’ position on this, even while I think Mubarak’s and his allies’ behavior is outrageous. I wouldn’t let (George) Soros or The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) into my country if I was head of state as they are agents of an agenda that goes far beyond ‘democracy’, and amounts to a form of subversion.”
George Soros is a Hungarian-born American billionaire whose foundations have funded numerous pro-democracy programs in Central and Eastern Europe and elsewhere, as well as a not-for-profit group known as MoveOn.org, which was a major player in support of Presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry in the 2004 election.
The National Endowment for Democracy is a U.S. Government-chartered private corporation whose programs are designed to assist pro-democracy forces in developing countries. Its funding comes largely from the U.S. Government.
Herman’s point of view: “Instead of CIA intervention sub rosa, we now use open methods of intervention aiming toward the same ends: the establishment of an amenable regime that will open its doors to foreign investment and align with the West. This is not giving people freedom or free choice, even though it may use that nominal language and even some degree of real choice in special circumstances. This program is not used in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia or Indonesia, but is pushed aggressively in places like Yugoslavia and Venezuela, and not for reasons that have anything to do with democracy in a positive sense.”
He adds: “The definition of an indigenous NGO is a bit tricky, as quite a few of them in contested terrain came into existence with external inspiration and money; and even apart from this it is dangerous to allow foreign resources to influence domestic choices. I can imagine a market savvy indigenous thinking—gee, if I do X I’ll be able to get big bucks from abroad.”
He asks: “Why can’t (Middle East governments and their NGOs) simply be allowed to work things out for themselves? Rotten governments very often are thrown out by their own people, and sometimes foreign intervention helps them preserve their power as they can appeal to national pride. If I had to choose between total non-intervention and real world intervention such as we see emanating from the US and Britain, I wouldn’t hesitate to choose non-intervention. Don’t we have enough of our own problems to keep our hands away from those of distant countries?”
Certainly, the U.S. and other G-8 countries have more than enough problems to deal with. And there is no doubt that all money comes with some strings attached, however subtle they may be. On the other hand, the problems facing civil society organizations under authoritarian governments are simply overwhelming. With state control of media, they have no voice. With restrictions on the contributions they can accept, they have few resources. With state security police watching their every move, they cannot expand their memberships.
We are not talking here about the G-8 invading these countries. We are not talking about the CIA infiltrating NGOs’ memberships. We are talking about modest financial support to strengthen civil society.
It seems to me that the over-arching question is that if wealthy democracies fail to reach out to help struggling reform movements in poorer countries, then who will?
In my view, nobody is not an option.
Sunday, November 27, 2005
America's Corporatocracy Says "No MAS"
by Jason Miller
While he may be dead in the corporal sense, the spirit of Simon Bolivar continues to wage the struggle for freedom from oppression. Hugo Chavez is perhaps the most familiar incarnation of Bolivar's élan vital as he defies the neocolonial policies of the United States, a nation which has supplanted the European colonial empires as looters of Latin American bounty. Bolivar's spiritual essence also burns brightly in Evo Morales, another leader of the poor and oppressed in Latin America. Barring a CIA-orchestrated assasination or sabotage of the election process, in December Morales will be the next democratically-elected president of Bolivia. And deservedly so.
The only thing they have to fear is fear itself....or is there something more?
As they have with Chavez, the United States government and its lapdogs in the mainstream media have vilified Morales. Morales and Chavez are both portrayed as "threats" to the United States and have been characterized as "enemies". It is mind-boggling that the leaders of the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the history of humanity can view these men or their tiny nations (neither of which have the military might to overpower the state of Rhode Island) as legitimate threats. Is the US power elite suffering from delusional paranoia? Actually, their fears are well-founded, but one needs to analyze the situation a bit more closely to discern the root cause of their trepidations.
The "Least of my Brethren"
Hugo Chavez has publicly castigated the United States (and Bush II in particular) on several occasions. Drawing calls for his assasination from "respected US Christian leader" Pat Robertson, Chavez has clearly stated his intention to use his vast petroleum resources as a geopolitical weapon against the United States. He drew thunderous applause at the UN for his speech in which he maligned the United States government and its policies. As the democratically-elected president of Venezuela, a member of the indigenous population, a survivor of a US-sponsored coup in 2002, and the winner of a recall referendum in 2004, Chavez has utilized his nation's rich oil reserves to wage a war on poverty. He has used oil revenues to provide schools, medical care, and basic necessities at subsidized prices to the 80% of Venezuelans who live below the poverty line. He has also instituted land reforms to provide impoverished farmers an opportunity at ownership.
Aligning himself closely with Fidel Castro, a man who has been a thorn in the collective sides of the United States ruling elite for years, Chavez has drawn further ire from US leaders. Since 1959, Castro has bedeviled the US government as the Cuban leader who deposed Fulgencio Batista, a ruthless dictator whom the US government supported. While ruling Cuba, Batista widened the wealth gap to a chasm (sound familiar?) and dispatched his death squads, which captured, tortured, and murdered thousands of "Leftists". Castro is certainly no saint, but Cuba was not exactly a paradise under America's proxy either.
Trading oil for the use of many of Cuba's superbly-trained physicians, Chavez has parlayed his relationship with Castro to an advantage for the poor of his nation. Ironically, the infinitely benevolent and wise leaders of the United States rejected offers of help from both Chavez and Castro during Hurricane Katrina. While the Bush regime spurned overtures of help from our "enemies", over a thousand Americans died in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as a result of criminal neglect and incompetence on the part of a US government now geared almost solely to represent and sustain the interests of the wealthy, corporations and the military industrial complex.
Chavez is not alone as the revolution gains momentum
Meanwhile, in Bolivia, a man named Evo Morales represents another incarnation of the spirit of Simon Bolivar as he fights to squelch US imperial interests in his nation. Standing on the brink of winning the presidency in the elections scheduled for December of 2005, Morales represents the next link in the chain of fierce Latin American resistance to US exploitation of their people and resources.
Juan Evo Morales Ayma was born in 1959 in Orinco to a family of indigenous Quechuans, but moved to Chapare province in the 1980's to cultivate coca leaf. Growing coca leaf is a practice dating back to the Incan Empire. While the Indigenous people of Bolivia, who comprise over 50% of the population, chew coca leaves to ease hunger and make folk medicines, coca leaf is also the primary ingredient in cocaine. As part of its "War on Drugs", the United States began a program in the 1990's to eradicate coca production. In 1998, Plan Dignity, a barbaric and violent US-sponsored effort, resulted in the elimination of nearly 80% of coca production and left the campesinos in Bolivia with no economically viable alternative crops to cultivate. Supplied and supported by the United States, the Expeditionary Task Force, a paramilitary unit which the locals called "America's Mercenaries", reportedly engaged in violence and murder. Just imagine if Canada financed paramilitary forces in the United States which wiped out 80% of the production of Sudafed and Iodine because they are used in the manufacture of crystal meth. How long would Americans stand for that?
In response to the intrusive, oppressive policies of the United States and its puppet Bolivian president, Hugo Banzer, Evo Morales emerged as a leader of the Cocaleros, an opposition movement comprised primarily of coca growers. His support in Chapare and Carrasco de Cochabamba was strong enough that he was elected to the national Congress in Bolivia in 1997 by the widest margin amongst the 68 Congresspeople who won in that election.
In the words of Morales:
'There is a unanimous defence of coca because the coca leaf is becoming the banner for national unity, a symbol of national unity in defence of our dignity. Since coca is a victim of the United States, as coca growers we are also victims of the United States, but then we rise up to question these policies to eradicate coca.
'Now is the moment to see the defence of coca as the defence of all natural resources, just like hydrocarbon, oil, gas; and this consciousness is growing. That is why it is an issue of national unity.'
As a leader with widespread popular support, and a powerful force within the Movement to Socialism (MAS) party, Morales began to broaden his agenda beyond that of supporting the cultivation of coca. Like Chavez in Venezuela, Morales has emerged as a champion of the poor and oppressed, and by default, a fierce opponent of the blatantly corrupt plutocracy in Washington DC.
The (Corporate) "American Way"
In early 2000, Morales began intense efforts to stymie the imperial policies of the United States, which enable multinational corporations to engage in obscene exploitation of other nations. Demonstrating the depths of the cruelty of the "free market", neoliberal economic policies which the corporatocracy of the United States imposes on other nations, a large multi-national corporation called Aguas de Tanari was on the verge of purchasing the water works in Cochabamba, a Morales strong-hold. Under their business plan, 65% of the locals would not have been able to afford drinking water. Supporting Aguas de Tanari's dreams of imposing nightmares on the people, local laws were passed which criminalized catching and using rain water. Morales and his allies led powerful protests, which included road-blocks, and eventually crushed the despicable effort to inflict misery and suffering to generate profit.
Down, but definitely not out
In early 2002, the Bolivian government issued Supreme Decree 26415, which essentially prohibited the sale of coca-leaf. Riots broke out in Sacaba, which was home to a legal coca market. Four campesinos and three Bolivian soldiers were killed. Pressure from the US embassy led to the removal of Morales from his Congressional seat for his involvement in so called "terrorism" in Sacaba. His removal was later determined to be unconstitutional.
The next round of elections in Bolivia in June of 2002 whisked Morales back into office. In pre-election polling, MAS barely registered with a paltry 4%. However, thanks to powerful opposition to US presence and influence in their nation, 20.94% of Bolivians supported MAS in the election. MAS came in only slightly behind the winning party. Unfortunately for the Bolivian people, they traded one proponent of US policies for another. Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada replaced Jorge Quiroga.
Leave our hydrocarbons alone!
Lozada's allegiance to US interests eventually cost him his presidency. Bolivia possesses vast natural gas reserves, which until the Bolivian Gas War in 2003, were exploited by multi-nationals through neoliberal policies instituted by the United States. In October of 2003, the Bolivian military killed nearly one hundred members of the poor and working class who participated in strikes and created road blocks in opposition to the theft of their nation's precious resources. Lozada resigned and fled the country, leaving his vice-president, Carlos Mesa, to rule Bolivia.
More protests against Bolivian government-enabled exploitation of the nation's hydrocarbon resources erupted in mid-2005. Morales was instrumental in the protests and in the subsequent ouster of Mesa as president. Attacking from yet another angle, Morales (and his increasingly powerful MAS party) also called for the indictments of Mesa, Quiroga, and Lozada for their complicity in partnering with multi-national corporations in plundering Bolivian oil and natural gas (without the approval of the Bolivian Congress).
Take another moment to empathize here
Envision LUKoil of Russia seizing control of the oil industry in Alaska. In return for paying small royalties and minimal taxes, LUKoil gets to pump, keep, and sell as much American oil as it chooses. LUKoil profits handsomely while consuming our resources with minimal return to the United States. Somehow, I do not think that would fly with the American public. Yet our government enables powerful corporations to treat Bolivians in this manner. Maybe that is why they are called free market policies. Hypocrisy be thy name.
As Morales gears up for the impending presidential election in December, his commitment to economic justice and human rights in the face of the oppressive, malevolent agenda of the United States government and its proxies in Bolivia remains clear and strong.
Summarizing his position succinctly, Morales stated,
"The worst enemy of humanity is capitalism. That is what provokes uprisings like our own, a rebellion against a system, against a neoliberal model, which is the representation of a savage capitalism. If the entire world doesn't acknowledge this reality, that the national states are not providing even minimally for health, education and nourishment, then each day the most fundamental human rights are being violated."
To what conclusion do the facts lead?
After careful consideration of the facts, it becomes quite clear why the corporate interests and incredibly wealthy hijackers of our constitutional republic in the United States are so desperate to convince their "electorate" that men like Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales are our "enemies". These men do pose a grave threat. If they maintain their hold on power and continue to advance the Bolivarian Revolution throughout Central and South America, powerful corporations will lose their capacity to commit legal larceny by plundering resources (a practice which leaves much of the Latin American population living in abject poverty). Morales is undermining the charade our government calls the "War on Drugs", which is simply another means of employing military intervention in the region and supporting ruthless leaders who implement policies favorable to the interests of the wealthy elite of the United States.
Yes, Morales is a dangerous man indeed. Like Chavez, he is rising like an ominous storm on the horizon, poised to strike powerful bolts of lightening through the fat wallets of the proponents of neoliberal economic policies (which are modern means of non-violent colonization). The Bush regime has legitimate reasons for fearing these men. They are imminent threats to the health of US cash cows throughout the Latin American region.
Based on the fact that the US government and media are defining Morales and Chavez as our "enemies" because they champion human rights and economic equality for their people in the face of American neocolonialism, I conclude that the Bush regime and many members of our Fourth Estate are morally bankrupt. What is even more distressing about their persistent efforts to convince Americans that Morales and Chavez are Antichrists is the fact that those who stand to "suffer" from this Bolivarian "diabolical scheme" to end US economic exploitation and oppression in Latin America represent a small fraction of the US population.
Who will "feel the pain" if multi-nationals can no longer steal from Latin Americans?
Members of the Bush regime....do you really care?
The 1% of Americans who own 33% of the wealth....yawn
Executives and major share-holders of large corporations.....oh, the pain, the pain
Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez are friends to the majority of Americans, and to most of humanity. Each step of success for the Bolivarian Revolution will be a step in the evolution of humanity toward the fulfillment of the teachings and dreams of Christ, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and other great spiritual leaders throughout human history. Progress for the Bolivarians means regression for the cancer on humanity referred to as neoliberalism, or more appropriately, economic imperial conquest.
So the next time Fox or CNN portrays Morales and Chavez as enemies of the United States, remember that sometimes rooting for the "bad guys" can be a good thing.
While he may be dead in the corporal sense, the spirit of Simon Bolivar continues to wage the struggle for freedom from oppression. Hugo Chavez is perhaps the most familiar incarnation of Bolivar's élan vital as he defies the neocolonial policies of the United States, a nation which has supplanted the European colonial empires as looters of Latin American bounty. Bolivar's spiritual essence also burns brightly in Evo Morales, another leader of the poor and oppressed in Latin America. Barring a CIA-orchestrated assasination or sabotage of the election process, in December Morales will be the next democratically-elected president of Bolivia. And deservedly so.
The only thing they have to fear is fear itself....or is there something more?
As they have with Chavez, the United States government and its lapdogs in the mainstream media have vilified Morales. Morales and Chavez are both portrayed as "threats" to the United States and have been characterized as "enemies". It is mind-boggling that the leaders of the wealthiest and most powerful nation in the history of humanity can view these men or their tiny nations (neither of which have the military might to overpower the state of Rhode Island) as legitimate threats. Is the US power elite suffering from delusional paranoia? Actually, their fears are well-founded, but one needs to analyze the situation a bit more closely to discern the root cause of their trepidations.
The "Least of my Brethren"
Hugo Chavez has publicly castigated the United States (and Bush II in particular) on several occasions. Drawing calls for his assasination from "respected US Christian leader" Pat Robertson, Chavez has clearly stated his intention to use his vast petroleum resources as a geopolitical weapon against the United States. He drew thunderous applause at the UN for his speech in which he maligned the United States government and its policies. As the democratically-elected president of Venezuela, a member of the indigenous population, a survivor of a US-sponsored coup in 2002, and the winner of a recall referendum in 2004, Chavez has utilized his nation's rich oil reserves to wage a war on poverty. He has used oil revenues to provide schools, medical care, and basic necessities at subsidized prices to the 80% of Venezuelans who live below the poverty line. He has also instituted land reforms to provide impoverished farmers an opportunity at ownership.
Aligning himself closely with Fidel Castro, a man who has been a thorn in the collective sides of the United States ruling elite for years, Chavez has drawn further ire from US leaders. Since 1959, Castro has bedeviled the US government as the Cuban leader who deposed Fulgencio Batista, a ruthless dictator whom the US government supported. While ruling Cuba, Batista widened the wealth gap to a chasm (sound familiar?) and dispatched his death squads, which captured, tortured, and murdered thousands of "Leftists". Castro is certainly no saint, but Cuba was not exactly a paradise under America's proxy either.
Trading oil for the use of many of Cuba's superbly-trained physicians, Chavez has parlayed his relationship with Castro to an advantage for the poor of his nation. Ironically, the infinitely benevolent and wise leaders of the United States rejected offers of help from both Chavez and Castro during Hurricane Katrina. While the Bush regime spurned overtures of help from our "enemies", over a thousand Americans died in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina as a result of criminal neglect and incompetence on the part of a US government now geared almost solely to represent and sustain the interests of the wealthy, corporations and the military industrial complex.
Chavez is not alone as the revolution gains momentum
Meanwhile, in Bolivia, a man named Evo Morales represents another incarnation of the spirit of Simon Bolivar as he fights to squelch US imperial interests in his nation. Standing on the brink of winning the presidency in the elections scheduled for December of 2005, Morales represents the next link in the chain of fierce Latin American resistance to US exploitation of their people and resources.
Juan Evo Morales Ayma was born in 1959 in Orinco to a family of indigenous Quechuans, but moved to Chapare province in the 1980's to cultivate coca leaf. Growing coca leaf is a practice dating back to the Incan Empire. While the Indigenous people of Bolivia, who comprise over 50% of the population, chew coca leaves to ease hunger and make folk medicines, coca leaf is also the primary ingredient in cocaine. As part of its "War on Drugs", the United States began a program in the 1990's to eradicate coca production. In 1998, Plan Dignity, a barbaric and violent US-sponsored effort, resulted in the elimination of nearly 80% of coca production and left the campesinos in Bolivia with no economically viable alternative crops to cultivate. Supplied and supported by the United States, the Expeditionary Task Force, a paramilitary unit which the locals called "America's Mercenaries", reportedly engaged in violence and murder. Just imagine if Canada financed paramilitary forces in the United States which wiped out 80% of the production of Sudafed and Iodine because they are used in the manufacture of crystal meth. How long would Americans stand for that?
In response to the intrusive, oppressive policies of the United States and its puppet Bolivian president, Hugo Banzer, Evo Morales emerged as a leader of the Cocaleros, an opposition movement comprised primarily of coca growers. His support in Chapare and Carrasco de Cochabamba was strong enough that he was elected to the national Congress in Bolivia in 1997 by the widest margin amongst the 68 Congresspeople who won in that election.
In the words of Morales:
'There is a unanimous defence of coca because the coca leaf is becoming the banner for national unity, a symbol of national unity in defence of our dignity. Since coca is a victim of the United States, as coca growers we are also victims of the United States, but then we rise up to question these policies to eradicate coca.
'Now is the moment to see the defence of coca as the defence of all natural resources, just like hydrocarbon, oil, gas; and this consciousness is growing. That is why it is an issue of national unity.'
As a leader with widespread popular support, and a powerful force within the Movement to Socialism (MAS) party, Morales began to broaden his agenda beyond that of supporting the cultivation of coca. Like Chavez in Venezuela, Morales has emerged as a champion of the poor and oppressed, and by default, a fierce opponent of the blatantly corrupt plutocracy in Washington DC.
The (Corporate) "American Way"
In early 2000, Morales began intense efforts to stymie the imperial policies of the United States, which enable multinational corporations to engage in obscene exploitation of other nations. Demonstrating the depths of the cruelty of the "free market", neoliberal economic policies which the corporatocracy of the United States imposes on other nations, a large multi-national corporation called Aguas de Tanari was on the verge of purchasing the water works in Cochabamba, a Morales strong-hold. Under their business plan, 65% of the locals would not have been able to afford drinking water. Supporting Aguas de Tanari's dreams of imposing nightmares on the people, local laws were passed which criminalized catching and using rain water. Morales and his allies led powerful protests, which included road-blocks, and eventually crushed the despicable effort to inflict misery and suffering to generate profit.
Down, but definitely not out
In early 2002, the Bolivian government issued Supreme Decree 26415, which essentially prohibited the sale of coca-leaf. Riots broke out in Sacaba, which was home to a legal coca market. Four campesinos and three Bolivian soldiers were killed. Pressure from the US embassy led to the removal of Morales from his Congressional seat for his involvement in so called "terrorism" in Sacaba. His removal was later determined to be unconstitutional.
The next round of elections in Bolivia in June of 2002 whisked Morales back into office. In pre-election polling, MAS barely registered with a paltry 4%. However, thanks to powerful opposition to US presence and influence in their nation, 20.94% of Bolivians supported MAS in the election. MAS came in only slightly behind the winning party. Unfortunately for the Bolivian people, they traded one proponent of US policies for another. Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada replaced Jorge Quiroga.
Leave our hydrocarbons alone!
Lozada's allegiance to US interests eventually cost him his presidency. Bolivia possesses vast natural gas reserves, which until the Bolivian Gas War in 2003, were exploited by multi-nationals through neoliberal policies instituted by the United States. In October of 2003, the Bolivian military killed nearly one hundred members of the poor and working class who participated in strikes and created road blocks in opposition to the theft of their nation's precious resources. Lozada resigned and fled the country, leaving his vice-president, Carlos Mesa, to rule Bolivia.
More protests against Bolivian government-enabled exploitation of the nation's hydrocarbon resources erupted in mid-2005. Morales was instrumental in the protests and in the subsequent ouster of Mesa as president. Attacking from yet another angle, Morales (and his increasingly powerful MAS party) also called for the indictments of Mesa, Quiroga, and Lozada for their complicity in partnering with multi-national corporations in plundering Bolivian oil and natural gas (without the approval of the Bolivian Congress).
Take another moment to empathize here
Envision LUKoil of Russia seizing control of the oil industry in Alaska. In return for paying small royalties and minimal taxes, LUKoil gets to pump, keep, and sell as much American oil as it chooses. LUKoil profits handsomely while consuming our resources with minimal return to the United States. Somehow, I do not think that would fly with the American public. Yet our government enables powerful corporations to treat Bolivians in this manner. Maybe that is why they are called free market policies. Hypocrisy be thy name.
As Morales gears up for the impending presidential election in December, his commitment to economic justice and human rights in the face of the oppressive, malevolent agenda of the United States government and its proxies in Bolivia remains clear and strong.
Summarizing his position succinctly, Morales stated,
"The worst enemy of humanity is capitalism. That is what provokes uprisings like our own, a rebellion against a system, against a neoliberal model, which is the representation of a savage capitalism. If the entire world doesn't acknowledge this reality, that the national states are not providing even minimally for health, education and nourishment, then each day the most fundamental human rights are being violated."
To what conclusion do the facts lead?
After careful consideration of the facts, it becomes quite clear why the corporate interests and incredibly wealthy hijackers of our constitutional republic in the United States are so desperate to convince their "electorate" that men like Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales are our "enemies". These men do pose a grave threat. If they maintain their hold on power and continue to advance the Bolivarian Revolution throughout Central and South America, powerful corporations will lose their capacity to commit legal larceny by plundering resources (a practice which leaves much of the Latin American population living in abject poverty). Morales is undermining the charade our government calls the "War on Drugs", which is simply another means of employing military intervention in the region and supporting ruthless leaders who implement policies favorable to the interests of the wealthy elite of the United States.
Yes, Morales is a dangerous man indeed. Like Chavez, he is rising like an ominous storm on the horizon, poised to strike powerful bolts of lightening through the fat wallets of the proponents of neoliberal economic policies (which are modern means of non-violent colonization). The Bush regime has legitimate reasons for fearing these men. They are imminent threats to the health of US cash cows throughout the Latin American region.
Based on the fact that the US government and media are defining Morales and Chavez as our "enemies" because they champion human rights and economic equality for their people in the face of American neocolonialism, I conclude that the Bush regime and many members of our Fourth Estate are morally bankrupt. What is even more distressing about their persistent efforts to convince Americans that Morales and Chavez are Antichrists is the fact that those who stand to "suffer" from this Bolivarian "diabolical scheme" to end US economic exploitation and oppression in Latin America represent a small fraction of the US population.
Who will "feel the pain" if multi-nationals can no longer steal from Latin Americans?
Members of the Bush regime....do you really care?
The 1% of Americans who own 33% of the wealth....yawn
Executives and major share-holders of large corporations.....oh, the pain, the pain
Evo Morales and Hugo Chavez are friends to the majority of Americans, and to most of humanity. Each step of success for the Bolivarian Revolution will be a step in the evolution of humanity toward the fulfillment of the teachings and dreams of Christ, Gandhi, Martin Luther King, and other great spiritual leaders throughout human history. Progress for the Bolivarians means regression for the cancer on humanity referred to as neoliberalism, or more appropriately, economic imperial conquest.
So the next time Fox or CNN portrays Morales and Chavez as enemies of the United States, remember that sometimes rooting for the "bad guys" can be a good thing.
Saturday, November 26, 2005
DANGEROUS DENIAL
By William Fisher
America’s newest public diplomacy czarina, Karen Hughes, is in dangerous denial and needs professional help.
She believes that how we treat prisoners in the ‘global war on terror’ is unlikely to have a serious adverse affect on how people think of the United States.
Ms. Hughes, longtime Bush confidante and now Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, told the House of Representatives International Relations Committee that the United States treats detainees humanely and in compliance with US laws and values.
In response to a question from Rep. Gary Ackerman, a Democrat from New York, she added, "We were sickened as the rest of the world was by the pictures from Abu Ghraib. Democracies are not perfect, but we do hold people responsible."
She was, of course, referring to the convictions of a number of low-level enlisted personnel and reprimands issued to a few higher-ranking officers. And she felt compelled to tell the Committee about the good food and the Korans at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
One of the Congressmen reminded Ms. Hughes that the people of the Arab Street are smart – they know when they’re being conned. They should; they’ve been being conned for years by their own repressive and authoritarian governments. And, despite the self-serving propaganda of government-owned media, they also know that their governments rarely hold anyone responsible or accountable for mistreating prisoners, much less sending them to jail.
But this is a phony comparison. We are not supposed to be them. We are supposed to be us. We are supposed to act to a higher standard.
It should not come as a surprise to Karen Hughes that, thanks largely to the Internet, an awful lot of people in the Middle East and elsewhere know that the Justice Department lawyer, Jay Bybee, who wrote the now-famous memo justifying torture, got promoted to a lifetime appointment as a Federal judge. Or that then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, who sold that memo to President Bush, was elevated to Attorney General of the United States. Or that some of the more egregious prisoner interrogation practices were approved by none other than our Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Or that others were okayed by General Ricardo Sanchez, our top Army field commander in Iraq, who is now awaiting his fourth star. Or that General Geoffrey Miller, our commandant at Guantanamo, was sent to Iraq to “migrate” GITMO’s interrogation methods to Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan – and that a top Army general overruled a military investigator’s recommendation that he be reprimanded. Or that Vice President Dick Cheney has been lobbying Congress to exempt the Central Intelligence Agency from Senator John McCain’s anti-torture proposal. Or that the Bush Administration will neither confirm nor deny press reports that the United States runs a network of ‘black site’ prisons in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia.
When people have access to that kind of information, it gets harder and harder to con them.
Yet the best Congress could get from Ms. Hughes was that “We heard a lot more about the crimes than about the punishment” and the assertion that “We treat people humanely” and that getting them to understand that was “a challenge”.
It would be a challenge even if we told the truth – unvarnished and un-politicized. But if we continue to deny that what happened really happened, then the millions we spend on so-called Public Diplomacy will be a shameless waste.
Furthermore, the impact is not only on foreigners. What our country does affects Americans as well.
Nobody has made that case more poignantly than David Ignatius, the columnist for the Washington Post. Here’s what he wrote just before Thanksgiving:
“When I lived abroad, Thanksgiving was always my favorite holiday. It was a
chance to scrounge up a turkey, gather foreign and American friends, and
celebrate what America represented to the world. I liked to give a sentimental
toast when the turkey arrived at the table, and more than once I had my foreign
guests in tears. They loved the American dream as much as I did. I don't think Americans realize how much we have tarnished those ideals in the eyes of the rest of the world these past few years.
“The public opinion polls tell us that America isn't just disliked or feared overseas -- it is reviled. We are seen as hypocrites who boast of our democratic values but who behave lawlessly and with contempt for others.
“I hate this America-bashing, but when I try to defend the United States and its values in my travels abroad, I find foreigners increasingly are dismissive. How do you deny the reality of Abu Ghraib, they ask, when the vice president of the United States is actively lobbying against rules that would ban torture? Of all the reversals the United States has suffered in recent years, this may be the worst.
“We are slowly shredding the fabric that defines what it means to be an American.”
David’s dilemma has particular resonance for me. In more than twenty years of managing programs abroad for the U.S. aid agency and the State Department – including many Thanksgivings in the company of non-Americans – I heard many criticisms of my country – not its people but its policies. In Egypt, Jordan and Morocco, people talked to me about America’s too-cozy relationships with kings and other authoritarian leaders and about our support for Israel and their cruel treatment of Palestinians. In Latin America, they reminded me of CIA-supported death squads and of our support for ruthless dictators. In Africa, I heard about our own country’s history of racial injustice.
But I was always able to explain and often to defend my country’s actions, beginning by acknowledging the truth of much of what I was hearing. In the process, I always felt I was able to make a small contribution to what Mark Brzezinksi recently called America’s “credibility as a standard-setter for human rights and the rule of law.”
Making that small contribution today is a lot tougher. Because our Public Diplomacy seems to begin – and end – with denial. Which turns our Public Diplomacy into Party-in-Power-Diplomacy. I can’t think of a quicker way to kill off The American Dream altogether.
Perhaps I’m simply being naïve, but I don’t want my country’s story told by either Democrats or Republicans. I want it told by Americans. And I want it told straight – not spun.
There are parts of our Public Diplomacy efforts that still work. Exchange programs for students, business people and scholars. And the Voice of America, which does a pretty good job of clearly labeling news and opinion and separating fact from spin. These programs existed long before the ascendancy of Karen Hughes. I’m happy to know she supports expanding them.
But I think it’s time to question whether public diplomacy should be the exclusive province of government at all. Maybe there are better models. PBS, our Public Broadcasting System (pre-Kenneth Tomlinson) comes to mind. So does the 9/11 Commission.
In both cases, Congress provides the money, but – with a few lamentable lapses – keeps its hands off the execution. It transfers responsibility from the party in power to the people in power.
If you believe in The People, this may be a good time to think about empowering them to keep The American Dream alive.
America’s newest public diplomacy czarina, Karen Hughes, is in dangerous denial and needs professional help.
She believes that how we treat prisoners in the ‘global war on terror’ is unlikely to have a serious adverse affect on how people think of the United States.
Ms. Hughes, longtime Bush confidante and now Undersecretary of State for Public Diplomacy, told the House of Representatives International Relations Committee that the United States treats detainees humanely and in compliance with US laws and values.
In response to a question from Rep. Gary Ackerman, a Democrat from New York, she added, "We were sickened as the rest of the world was by the pictures from Abu Ghraib. Democracies are not perfect, but we do hold people responsible."
She was, of course, referring to the convictions of a number of low-level enlisted personnel and reprimands issued to a few higher-ranking officers. And she felt compelled to tell the Committee about the good food and the Korans at the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
One of the Congressmen reminded Ms. Hughes that the people of the Arab Street are smart – they know when they’re being conned. They should; they’ve been being conned for years by their own repressive and authoritarian governments. And, despite the self-serving propaganda of government-owned media, they also know that their governments rarely hold anyone responsible or accountable for mistreating prisoners, much less sending them to jail.
But this is a phony comparison. We are not supposed to be them. We are supposed to be us. We are supposed to act to a higher standard.
It should not come as a surprise to Karen Hughes that, thanks largely to the Internet, an awful lot of people in the Middle East and elsewhere know that the Justice Department lawyer, Jay Bybee, who wrote the now-famous memo justifying torture, got promoted to a lifetime appointment as a Federal judge. Or that then-White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, who sold that memo to President Bush, was elevated to Attorney General of the United States. Or that some of the more egregious prisoner interrogation practices were approved by none other than our Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld. Or that others were okayed by General Ricardo Sanchez, our top Army field commander in Iraq, who is now awaiting his fourth star. Or that General Geoffrey Miller, our commandant at Guantanamo, was sent to Iraq to “migrate” GITMO’s interrogation methods to Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan – and that a top Army general overruled a military investigator’s recommendation that he be reprimanded. Or that Vice President Dick Cheney has been lobbying Congress to exempt the Central Intelligence Agency from Senator John McCain’s anti-torture proposal. Or that the Bush Administration will neither confirm nor deny press reports that the United States runs a network of ‘black site’ prisons in Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia.
When people have access to that kind of information, it gets harder and harder to con them.
Yet the best Congress could get from Ms. Hughes was that “We heard a lot more about the crimes than about the punishment” and the assertion that “We treat people humanely” and that getting them to understand that was “a challenge”.
It would be a challenge even if we told the truth – unvarnished and un-politicized. But if we continue to deny that what happened really happened, then the millions we spend on so-called Public Diplomacy will be a shameless waste.
Furthermore, the impact is not only on foreigners. What our country does affects Americans as well.
Nobody has made that case more poignantly than David Ignatius, the columnist for the Washington Post. Here’s what he wrote just before Thanksgiving:
“When I lived abroad, Thanksgiving was always my favorite holiday. It was a
chance to scrounge up a turkey, gather foreign and American friends, and
celebrate what America represented to the world. I liked to give a sentimental
toast when the turkey arrived at the table, and more than once I had my foreign
guests in tears. They loved the American dream as much as I did. I don't think Americans realize how much we have tarnished those ideals in the eyes of the rest of the world these past few years.
“The public opinion polls tell us that America isn't just disliked or feared overseas -- it is reviled. We are seen as hypocrites who boast of our democratic values but who behave lawlessly and with contempt for others.
“I hate this America-bashing, but when I try to defend the United States and its values in my travels abroad, I find foreigners increasingly are dismissive. How do you deny the reality of Abu Ghraib, they ask, when the vice president of the United States is actively lobbying against rules that would ban torture? Of all the reversals the United States has suffered in recent years, this may be the worst.
“We are slowly shredding the fabric that defines what it means to be an American.”
David’s dilemma has particular resonance for me. In more than twenty years of managing programs abroad for the U.S. aid agency and the State Department – including many Thanksgivings in the company of non-Americans – I heard many criticisms of my country – not its people but its policies. In Egypt, Jordan and Morocco, people talked to me about America’s too-cozy relationships with kings and other authoritarian leaders and about our support for Israel and their cruel treatment of Palestinians. In Latin America, they reminded me of CIA-supported death squads and of our support for ruthless dictators. In Africa, I heard about our own country’s history of racial injustice.
But I was always able to explain and often to defend my country’s actions, beginning by acknowledging the truth of much of what I was hearing. In the process, I always felt I was able to make a small contribution to what Mark Brzezinksi recently called America’s “credibility as a standard-setter for human rights and the rule of law.”
Making that small contribution today is a lot tougher. Because our Public Diplomacy seems to begin – and end – with denial. Which turns our Public Diplomacy into Party-in-Power-Diplomacy. I can’t think of a quicker way to kill off The American Dream altogether.
Perhaps I’m simply being naïve, but I don’t want my country’s story told by either Democrats or Republicans. I want it told by Americans. And I want it told straight – not spun.
There are parts of our Public Diplomacy efforts that still work. Exchange programs for students, business people and scholars. And the Voice of America, which does a pretty good job of clearly labeling news and opinion and separating fact from spin. These programs existed long before the ascendancy of Karen Hughes. I’m happy to know she supports expanding them.
But I think it’s time to question whether public diplomacy should be the exclusive province of government at all. Maybe there are better models. PBS, our Public Broadcasting System (pre-Kenneth Tomlinson) comes to mind. So does the 9/11 Commission.
In both cases, Congress provides the money, but – with a few lamentable lapses – keeps its hands off the execution. It transfers responsibility from the party in power to the people in power.
If you believe in The People, this may be a good time to think about empowering them to keep The American Dream alive.
WELCOME TO BARZANI-VILLE
The email below comes from a friend in Iraq. It refers to corruption and the general state of chaos there.
The corruption here in Barzani-ville has only gotten worse since I have been here. But, the good news is the people of Arbil are starting to fight back. There is a movement called the Street Parliament - mostly young people who are fed up and are in the nascent stages of a protest movement. It is good.
The world of Iraq is a disaster - it is worse than mainstream media
portrays it. Michael's comparison of corruption to a car bomb is entirely
inappropriate. Saddam was corrupt, and the streets were safe. Now, Iraqis
do not know if they will survive the next minute. The despair is
noticeable on the faces of my friends. With dismay we watch the country
fall apart, and it seems that none is in a position to turn it around. I
have even heard people advocate an immediate civil war, to get it over
with.
The corruption here in Barzani-ville has only gotten worse since I have been here. But, the good news is the people of Arbil are starting to fight back. There is a movement called the Street Parliament - mostly young people who are fed up and are in the nascent stages of a protest movement. It is good.
The world of Iraq is a disaster - it is worse than mainstream media
portrays it. Michael's comparison of corruption to a car bomb is entirely
inappropriate. Saddam was corrupt, and the streets were safe. Now, Iraqis
do not know if they will survive the next minute. The despair is
noticeable on the faces of my friends. With dismay we watch the country
fall apart, and it seems that none is in a position to turn it around. I
have even heard people advocate an immediate civil war, to get it over
with.
Sunday, November 20, 2005
Open Letter to Dick Cheney
By Mark A. Goldman
Dear Mr. Cheney:
You said in a speech the other day that,
"The suggestion that's been made by some US senators that the President or any member of this Administration purposely misled the American people on prewar intelligence is one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city."
Well, Mr. Cheney, let me tell you that it's not only US Senators who are suggesting such a thing... I'm suggesting it too... suggesting that you are a liar and a deceiver and the prewar intelligence is only part of it.
I understand that you believe that a strong offense is the best defense, so your well written comments and demeanor were expected and are consistent with your usual methodology. But by now you must understand, that in the wake of your nefarious policies, too many innocent men, women, and children are now dead, limbless, blind, burned, tortured, or grieving for me to sympathize with your discomfort or forget what you did to them. It's not that I can't forgive you... it's just that justice and the safety of America's children come first. It serves no purpose for me to wait for you to admit to what you've done... I have to stand up now and say, enough is enough.
You deserve a fair trial--something you would deny to others, I'm sure--but there's no question that you deserve to be tried. I am not a member of Congress or an elected representative, but I have access to enough evidence to justify a warrant for your arrest. And I am not the only one with this evidence. My evidence are the pictures, the articles, the books, the reports, the published first hand accounts of the many ways that you lied and betrayed the innocent people of Afghanistan and Iraq, not to say anything of how you betrayed your own country and the world at large. I see it as treason, and the only thing that allows you to walk free is the fact that most Americans have not taken the time to discover information that is readily available to them... that, and the fact that too many members of Congress and the public are more loyal to their party than they are to the Constitution and the rule of law, while others are simply afraid of losing their jobs (and perhaps rightly so) if they spoke up and told the truth.
The greatest danger the American people face now are not terrorists, but the possibility that you and Bush will not be impeached. For every day, while the American people sleep--ignorant and unaware of your gross infidelity--the rest of the world is looking at the photographs of burned, disfigured, and dismembered children, and they are beginning to believe that it is not just you and your administration who did this to them, but also our elected representatives, and the American people at large... because so far, we have allowed you to keep doing it with impunity. And given the anger and hatred for the injustice that they've been made to suffer, one can easily imagine the retribution exploding onto American soil if you and your conspirators are not repudiated and removed from office very soon.
Our children and grandchildren don't deserve the danger you, Bush, your partners and your predecessors have put them in.
God help us if we have another terrorist attack, because if that happens most Americans might actually believe that you and our criminal president were right all along--that the terrorists hate us because we are free. They might not realize that it's you and Bush, others in your unworthy administration, and some of your predecessors that they hate... not because you are all free, but because you are all criminals.
Most of the American people have not yet read and seen what I've read and seen, so they don't know the truth about what's been done. But if we have another attack like 9/11, it will be because of your treason... and because of you--but not only you--the final nails in the coffin of our democracy could be hammered in, and the weeping that would follow could endure for a hundred years.
Dear Mr. Cheney:
You said in a speech the other day that,
"The suggestion that's been made by some US senators that the President or any member of this Administration purposely misled the American people on prewar intelligence is one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city."
Well, Mr. Cheney, let me tell you that it's not only US Senators who are suggesting such a thing... I'm suggesting it too... suggesting that you are a liar and a deceiver and the prewar intelligence is only part of it.
I understand that you believe that a strong offense is the best defense, so your well written comments and demeanor were expected and are consistent with your usual methodology. But by now you must understand, that in the wake of your nefarious policies, too many innocent men, women, and children are now dead, limbless, blind, burned, tortured, or grieving for me to sympathize with your discomfort or forget what you did to them. It's not that I can't forgive you... it's just that justice and the safety of America's children come first. It serves no purpose for me to wait for you to admit to what you've done... I have to stand up now and say, enough is enough.
You deserve a fair trial--something you would deny to others, I'm sure--but there's no question that you deserve to be tried. I am not a member of Congress or an elected representative, but I have access to enough evidence to justify a warrant for your arrest. And I am not the only one with this evidence. My evidence are the pictures, the articles, the books, the reports, the published first hand accounts of the many ways that you lied and betrayed the innocent people of Afghanistan and Iraq, not to say anything of how you betrayed your own country and the world at large. I see it as treason, and the only thing that allows you to walk free is the fact that most Americans have not taken the time to discover information that is readily available to them... that, and the fact that too many members of Congress and the public are more loyal to their party than they are to the Constitution and the rule of law, while others are simply afraid of losing their jobs (and perhaps rightly so) if they spoke up and told the truth.
The greatest danger the American people face now are not terrorists, but the possibility that you and Bush will not be impeached. For every day, while the American people sleep--ignorant and unaware of your gross infidelity--the rest of the world is looking at the photographs of burned, disfigured, and dismembered children, and they are beginning to believe that it is not just you and your administration who did this to them, but also our elected representatives, and the American people at large... because so far, we have allowed you to keep doing it with impunity. And given the anger and hatred for the injustice that they've been made to suffer, one can easily imagine the retribution exploding onto American soil if you and your conspirators are not repudiated and removed from office very soon.
Our children and grandchildren don't deserve the danger you, Bush, your partners and your predecessors have put them in.
God help us if we have another terrorist attack, because if that happens most Americans might actually believe that you and our criminal president were right all along--that the terrorists hate us because we are free. They might not realize that it's you and Bush, others in your unworthy administration, and some of your predecessors that they hate... not because you are all free, but because you are all criminals.
Most of the American people have not yet read and seen what I've read and seen, so they don't know the truth about what's been done. But if we have another attack like 9/11, it will be because of your treason... and because of you--but not only you--the final nails in the coffin of our democracy could be hammered in, and the weeping that would follow could endure for a hundred years.
Saturday, November 19, 2005
NEW BROWNIES IN THE WINGS?
By William Fisher
Years from now, we’re likely to remember two things about Hurricane Katrina: The massive human suffering caused by the incredibly dysfunctional response from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, and President Bush’s iconic kudo to FEMA’S clueless head: “You’re doing a heckuva job, Brownie!”
The ‘Brownie’ the president was referring to was, of course, Michael Brown, then FEMA’s hapless director. Days after Bush’s remark, Brownie was ordered back to Washington and later fell on his sword and resigned in disgrace (though he attempted to defend himself before a Senate hearing and remained on the payroll as a “consultant” for several more months).
But in Washington, there’s always a long line of mediocrities waiting in the wings to serve their country. And President Bush seems to have a particular knack for nominating them.
Here are three of the more recent:
Paul Bonicelli was just appointed to oversee the democracy and governance programs of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Those programs are mandated to play a central role in Bush's efforts to democratize Iraq and the broader Middle East.
Bonicelli’s background in spreading democracy and good governance? Well, his current post is dean of academic affairs at Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Virginia, whose motto is: “For Christ and Liberation”. This ultra-fundamentalist institution requires all its students to sign a "statement of faith" declaring that they believe "Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, is God come in the flesh," "Jesus Christ literally rose bodily from the dead," and "all who die outside of Christ shall be confined in conscious torment for eternity."
Bonicelli and PHC have close ties to the Bush Administration and to private right-wing religious groups who form such an important part of Bush’s base. PHC students have been chosen to serve as interns for Karl Rove and for the White House Office of Public Liaison, and students and faculty are frequently invited to White House and inaugural events. In 2002, Bush named Bonicelli along with former Vatican advisor John Klink and Janice Crouse of the ultra-conservative Concerned Women for America, to a U.N. delegation to promote biblical values in U.S. foreign policy – and sparked an outcry of protest from women’s rights advocates.
One has to wonder how Muslims will react to the news that "all who die outside of Christ shall be confined in conscious torment for eternity."
Then there’s Ellen Sauerbrey, nominated to head the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. The mission of the Bureau is to coordinate U.S. response to migration problems arising from war and natural disasters, and to work with international groups on population and reproductive-health issues. The Bureau has a budget of more than $700 million.
Sauerbrey's qualifications? Well, she ran Bush's 2000 presidential campaign in Maryland, and twice ran for governor of that state. And she served as U.S. envoy on women's issues at the United Nations, which means advocating for Bush-administration positions on abortion, abstinence, and reproductive health. Those policies have been widely criticized for frustrating family planning and failing to provide reproductive health services to refugee women.
When asked about her qualifications, Sauerbrey told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that she has a big heart: "I think most important you need to have the compassion and caring for helping to protect vulnerable people."
No doubt. But a little experience in refugee affairs wouldn’t hurt either.
Finally, there’s Julie Myers, nominated to head U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security and the second largest Federal investigative agency after the FBI. ICE’s mission is to deal with all Customs and Immigration violations occurring within the U.S., including drug shipments over a U.S. border and the detention and deportation of all illegal aliens involved in removal proceedings. ICE runs the largest and most secretive prison system in the U.S. and accounts for close to 80% of all arrests made within the FBI’s joint terrorism task force. It prosecutes more individuals than any other Federal agency.
Her resume? She was a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, N.Y., for two years, and for the past four years held a variety of jobs at the White House and at the departments of Commerce, Justice and Treasury. At the White House, she was a special assistant to the president for personnel issues. No doubt also helpful was her service as chief of staff to Michael Chertoff when he led the Justice Department's criminal division before he became a Federal judge and later Secretary of Homeland Security. Equally helpful was her work with independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr. Perhaps even more helpful: She is the niece of now retired Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
ICE is a massive bureaucracy with tens of thousands of employees and an annual budget of close to $15 billion. It has been widely criticized as dysfunctional. So one might have expected a nominee with extensive experience in management, not to mention immigration issues.
Matthew Issman, national legislative vice president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, characterized the Myers appointment most succinctly: She "just doesn't pass the smell test and is another indication that this administration created the Department of Homeland Security as window dressing and does not care whether ICE is successful”, he said, adding, "What we need is a strong, law-enforcement leader, not another inexperienced, well-connected lawyer with friends in the White House."
Washington is a town where the best and the brightest co-exist with well-connected political hacks. It defies credulity that the Bush Administration continues to shoot itself in the foot by stubbornly choosing the latter, and thereby setting itself up for another ‘Brownie’.
My shrink says they must have a death wish.
R.I.P.
Years from now, we’re likely to remember two things about Hurricane Katrina: The massive human suffering caused by the incredibly dysfunctional response from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, FEMA, and President Bush’s iconic kudo to FEMA’S clueless head: “You’re doing a heckuva job, Brownie!”
The ‘Brownie’ the president was referring to was, of course, Michael Brown, then FEMA’s hapless director. Days after Bush’s remark, Brownie was ordered back to Washington and later fell on his sword and resigned in disgrace (though he attempted to defend himself before a Senate hearing and remained on the payroll as a “consultant” for several more months).
But in Washington, there’s always a long line of mediocrities waiting in the wings to serve their country. And President Bush seems to have a particular knack for nominating them.
Here are three of the more recent:
Paul Bonicelli was just appointed to oversee the democracy and governance programs of the U.S. Agency for International Development. Those programs are mandated to play a central role in Bush's efforts to democratize Iraq and the broader Middle East.
Bonicelli’s background in spreading democracy and good governance? Well, his current post is dean of academic affairs at Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Virginia, whose motto is: “For Christ and Liberation”. This ultra-fundamentalist institution requires all its students to sign a "statement of faith" declaring that they believe "Jesus Christ, born of a virgin, is God come in the flesh," "Jesus Christ literally rose bodily from the dead," and "all who die outside of Christ shall be confined in conscious torment for eternity."
Bonicelli and PHC have close ties to the Bush Administration and to private right-wing religious groups who form such an important part of Bush’s base. PHC students have been chosen to serve as interns for Karl Rove and for the White House Office of Public Liaison, and students and faculty are frequently invited to White House and inaugural events. In 2002, Bush named Bonicelli along with former Vatican advisor John Klink and Janice Crouse of the ultra-conservative Concerned Women for America, to a U.N. delegation to promote biblical values in U.S. foreign policy – and sparked an outcry of protest from women’s rights advocates.
One has to wonder how Muslims will react to the news that "all who die outside of Christ shall be confined in conscious torment for eternity."
Then there’s Ellen Sauerbrey, nominated to head the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. The mission of the Bureau is to coordinate U.S. response to migration problems arising from war and natural disasters, and to work with international groups on population and reproductive-health issues. The Bureau has a budget of more than $700 million.
Sauerbrey's qualifications? Well, she ran Bush's 2000 presidential campaign in Maryland, and twice ran for governor of that state. And she served as U.S. envoy on women's issues at the United Nations, which means advocating for Bush-administration positions on abortion, abstinence, and reproductive health. Those policies have been widely criticized for frustrating family planning and failing to provide reproductive health services to refugee women.
When asked about her qualifications, Sauerbrey told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that she has a big heart: "I think most important you need to have the compassion and caring for helping to protect vulnerable people."
No doubt. But a little experience in refugee affairs wouldn’t hurt either.
Finally, there’s Julie Myers, nominated to head U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, the largest investigative arm of the Department of Homeland Security and the second largest Federal investigative agency after the FBI. ICE’s mission is to deal with all Customs and Immigration violations occurring within the U.S., including drug shipments over a U.S. border and the detention and deportation of all illegal aliens involved in removal proceedings. ICE runs the largest and most secretive prison system in the U.S. and accounts for close to 80% of all arrests made within the FBI’s joint terrorism task force. It prosecutes more individuals than any other Federal agency.
Her resume? She was a federal prosecutor in Brooklyn, N.Y., for two years, and for the past four years held a variety of jobs at the White House and at the departments of Commerce, Justice and Treasury. At the White House, she was a special assistant to the president for personnel issues. No doubt also helpful was her service as chief of staff to Michael Chertoff when he led the Justice Department's criminal division before he became a Federal judge and later Secretary of Homeland Security. Equally helpful was her work with independent counsel Kenneth W. Starr. Perhaps even more helpful: She is the niece of now retired Air Force Gen. Richard B. Myers, former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
ICE is a massive bureaucracy with tens of thousands of employees and an annual budget of close to $15 billion. It has been widely criticized as dysfunctional. So one might have expected a nominee with extensive experience in management, not to mention immigration issues.
Matthew Issman, national legislative vice president of the Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association, characterized the Myers appointment most succinctly: She "just doesn't pass the smell test and is another indication that this administration created the Department of Homeland Security as window dressing and does not care whether ICE is successful”, he said, adding, "What we need is a strong, law-enforcement leader, not another inexperienced, well-connected lawyer with friends in the White House."
Washington is a town where the best and the brightest co-exist with well-connected political hacks. It defies credulity that the Bush Administration continues to shoot itself in the foot by stubbornly choosing the latter, and thereby setting itself up for another ‘Brownie’.
My shrink says they must have a death wish.
R.I.P.
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