By William Fisher
So George W. Bush’s Texas pal, Karen Hughes, is out as America’s chief shill to the world, soon to be replaced by a fellow named Jim Glassman.
It’s illuminating to understand how much these two have in common. As Karen Hughes took on the job of winning the hearts and minds of people overseas – particuarly in the Muslim world -- America’s reputation abroad was at an historic low. But those people were a lot savvier than the president ever acknowledged – or understood.
Quite accustomed to the unending propaganda spewed forth by the own governments, they knew all about the Bush Administration’s cynical marketing of post 9/11 fear of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, its mindless invasion and then incompetent occupation of Iraq, its failure to seriously address the Israeli-Palestinian issue, the horrors of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, “enhanced” interrogation techniques, CIA renditions, “ghost” detainees and black sites, cozying up to such stalwart democrats as Pervez Musharraf and Hosni Mubarak – all played out against the backdrop of Washington misinformation, disinformation, spin, non-stop dissembling by the president and his loyal Bushies, the arrogance of American exceptionalism, the administration’s incessant saber-rattling, and its inability to ever own up to a mistake.
So what’s changed for Jim Glassman? Zilch!
Only the amount of money our country spends on “public diplomacy.” Yet despite the substantial increase in funding, every credible poll taken since 2003 tells us our policies are creating more jihadists than we’re killing. They tell us the “Arab Street” views the Annapolis conference as more a search for legacy than for Israeli-Palestinian peace. They tell us most Iraqis want us out of their country. They tell us folks are not watching our TV broadcasts or listening to our radio programs – or watching but not believing. They tell us our credibility abroad is lower than it’s ever been in the history of our country.
Hughes and Glassman have something else in common: Each is uniquely un-equipped to take on this arguably impossible job. Hughes, the president’s confidante and pal, was a Texas TV reporter, hardly a venue likely to lead to knowledge and, perhaps more importantly, cultural sensitivity to the byzantine ways of the Middle East.
Glassman, currently chairman of the scandously inept Broadcasting Board of Governors -- which is responsible for our government’s radio and television broadcasts to various parts of the world -- is best known for his prediction that the Dow Jones Industrial Average would reach 36,000 during the last bull market. A Resident Fellow at the right-wing think-tank, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), he is the founder and long-time "host" of Tech Central Station, a corporate-sponsored, Internet opinion site published by the Republican firm, the DCI Group. At AEI, he researches Social Security, economics, technology, politics, federal budget, interest rates, stock market, taxes, and education.
The sum total of his “Middle East experience”? He was a member of the Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy in the Arab and Muslim World, chaired by former Ambassador Edward Djerejian. That group’s report was highly critical of the state of public diplomacy and urged significant changes. Endorsed by many in Congress, the press and some elements of the administration, it was greeted with deafening silence by the White House.
Like Hughes, who played a major role in crafting the Administration’s pre-Iraq-invasion sales campaign to our citizens, Glassman brings a lot of baggage to his new job.
Here’s what he said in 2003: “….the anti-war protesters remain clueless. They're still planning their marches. Instead, they should be apologizing. Before the war, they told us that 500,000 Iraqis would be killed in Dresden-like bombing, that we would precipitate an eco-catastrophe by pushing Saddam to set fire to his oil wells, that millions of people would flee the country, that thousands of our own troops would be killed, that the Arab "street" would rise up, that terrorist attacks would resume ferociously on our homeland, that Iraqis would tenaciously resist our colonization of their land, that we would become bogged down in urban warfare, and on and on. In fact, none of that has happened. It has been a war unmatched in history, with relatively few civilian and allied casualties and the prime objectives - control of the capital and the destruction of Saddam's regime - achieved in only a few weeks. Conscientious opponents of the war should say they were wrong, wrong, wrong - on all counts.”
A year later, he persisted in promulgating the myth that simply doing a better job of carrying public diplomacy was the answer. “Recent events in Iraq, especially in Abu Ghraib prison, ” he said, “emphasize once more the dire need for serious, strategic and properly funded public diplomacy -- the promotion of the national interest by informing, engaging and influencing people around the world.”
He added, “The United States is not making a serious effort to tell its story, to convince both its enemies and its friends of our cause -- to change minds.”
I suppose he was also just trying to “change minds” in his vigorous defense of the scientifically-challenged Republican Senator from Oklahoma, James Inhofe, who said at the recent climate change conference in Bali, "Global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."
Is this hope springing eternal? Or ideologically-driven wishful thinking? Or some kind of parallel reality?
When the world keeps telling you “it’s the policy, stupid,” what exactly is “serious, strategic and properly funded public diplomacy”?
We’ll probably never know because the cast of characters is the same and still in denial mode, the rhetoric is if anything more bellicose and more uninformed, and not even the cosmetics of the policies have changed.
Poor Mr. Glassman! He has only little more than a year to change all those millions of hearts and minds. So much to do and so little time to do it. Good luck!
Being America’s conveyor belt to hearts and minds during this Administration is, and always was, an arguably un-doable job. Karen Hughes’ performance only made it worse.
But not to George W. Bush. At Hughes’ farewell ceremony, the president said, "She is a consequential person. And I am confident that she has begun a cultural change throughout our State Department that will stand in good stead; it'll help the country."
But, as Dan Froomkin pointed out in the Washington Post, “Hughes wasn't hired to create cultural change inside the State Department; she was hired to improve America's image abroad. And she failed miserably at that task, at least in part because she failed to use her close relationship with Bush to get him to stop doing the things that made her job so impossible.”
There is a painful irony in the reality that the country that invented modern marketing fails to understand that a flawed product won’t sell for long, if at all. I’m told that Jim Glassman is a smart guy. But if he’s so smart, why did he take this thankless job in the first place?
At the end of the day, it won’t matter. The “product” just doesn’t work. So the U.S. will continue to fail in its public diplomacy campaigns until wiser, better informed, and perhaps more humble heads occupy the Oval Office.
Back in 1928, the man most regard as “the father of public relations,” Edward L. Bernays, coined the phrase “the engineering of consent.” By which he meant that, through effective propaganda, people could be persuaded to embrace ideas or actions based on deception.
Bernays was famously successful, but he lived in a different time and in a simpler world. My guess is that if he had the U.S. as a client today, he’d resign the account.
Friday, December 14, 2007
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
WHAT DID SHE STUDY IN HIGH SCHOOL?
By William Fisher
Maybe the story is apocryphal, maybe not, but here it is anyway, courtesy of the Republican National Convention blog:
When Dana Perino was six years old, she stood on a milk crate in her Denver house, held up an American flag, and told her parents, "I'm gonna work in the White House." By third grade, she and her father, Leo Perino, were debating the news of the day at the dinner table.
"He wanted me to have read the newspapers and to have picked out one or two articles to discuss by the time he got home and then we always watched the evening news together and my Dad and I would always watch the Sunday shows as well," said Perino.
Which makes it even more bizarre that the president’s press secretary never heard of the Cuban Missile Crisis. After all, she’s an educated person -- Ponderosa High School, the University of Southern Colorado, grad school at the University of Illinois, work on the Hill, and so forth.
And the event she says she never heard of isn’t some arcane happening from ancient history. It played out only ten years before she was born. And it wasn’t just any ordinary event. It was arguably the Cold War’s scariest threat of Mutually Assured Destruction, also known as M.A.D. It was the time when U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev faced off over Soviet ballistic missiles being stationed in Cuba, 90 miles from the Florida coast. Long story short: Nikita blinked first and M.A.D. was averted.
Now, not to be uncharitable, none of us can know everything. And Ms. Perino’s cluelessness is nowhere near as egregious as the President not knowing that there are Sunni Arabs and Shia Arabs before he invades a country where both groups live.
But the Perino deficit strikes me as emblematic of much that’s wrong in the Bush Administration:
A secretary of defense who knows nothing about military history, military strategy, or how the military works. An assistant secretary of state who is a defeated candidate for a governorship with no refugee experience put in charge of dealing with the millions fleeing from Iraq. An undersecretary of state charged with resurrecting America’s “image” abroad whose preparation for the job was as a Texas TV reporter. Another put in charge of immigration and border security with no relevant experience whatever. A pro-consul in Iraq with no Middle East experience, much less languages, filling Green Zone jobs so long as the applicants vow to repeal Roe v. Wade. And, of course, that heck-of-a-job guy who ran FEMA. The list goes on and on.
At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, I was a young, eager, and very low-level functionary in the Kennedy Administration (I was thrilled that someone higher up thought enough about me that they assigned me a secret spot in a secret tunnel in a secret mountain in North Carolina – in case the entire government had to relocate).
The Kennedy Administration certainly wasn’t perfect. The White House, for example, could have made good use of a few people with gray hairs and knowledge of how you talk to a senator. But the huge preponderance of the president’s 3,000-plus political appointees were people who had spent their entire adult lives preparing for the jobs they got. They really knew what they were doing. JKF’s best and brightest were neither ideologues nor political hacks, though there were a few of both. By and large, they were dedicated and they were competent.
I fear that history will look back on the time of George W. Bush not only as a time of American arrogance, American exceptionalism, and America’s abandonment of its most dearly treasured principles. I also fear that the judgment of history will serve to strengthen right-wing canards about government not being able to do anything right.
My hope is that the next administration will choose people who can get it right.
Maybe the story is apocryphal, maybe not, but here it is anyway, courtesy of the Republican National Convention blog:
When Dana Perino was six years old, she stood on a milk crate in her Denver house, held up an American flag, and told her parents, "I'm gonna work in the White House." By third grade, she and her father, Leo Perino, were debating the news of the day at the dinner table.
"He wanted me to have read the newspapers and to have picked out one or two articles to discuss by the time he got home and then we always watched the evening news together and my Dad and I would always watch the Sunday shows as well," said Perino.
Which makes it even more bizarre that the president’s press secretary never heard of the Cuban Missile Crisis. After all, she’s an educated person -- Ponderosa High School, the University of Southern Colorado, grad school at the University of Illinois, work on the Hill, and so forth.
And the event she says she never heard of isn’t some arcane happening from ancient history. It played out only ten years before she was born. And it wasn’t just any ordinary event. It was arguably the Cold War’s scariest threat of Mutually Assured Destruction, also known as M.A.D. It was the time when U.S. President John F. Kennedy and Soviet President Nikita Khrushchev faced off over Soviet ballistic missiles being stationed in Cuba, 90 miles from the Florida coast. Long story short: Nikita blinked first and M.A.D. was averted.
Now, not to be uncharitable, none of us can know everything. And Ms. Perino’s cluelessness is nowhere near as egregious as the President not knowing that there are Sunni Arabs and Shia Arabs before he invades a country where both groups live.
But the Perino deficit strikes me as emblematic of much that’s wrong in the Bush Administration:
A secretary of defense who knows nothing about military history, military strategy, or how the military works. An assistant secretary of state who is a defeated candidate for a governorship with no refugee experience put in charge of dealing with the millions fleeing from Iraq. An undersecretary of state charged with resurrecting America’s “image” abroad whose preparation for the job was as a Texas TV reporter. Another put in charge of immigration and border security with no relevant experience whatever. A pro-consul in Iraq with no Middle East experience, much less languages, filling Green Zone jobs so long as the applicants vow to repeal Roe v. Wade. And, of course, that heck-of-a-job guy who ran FEMA. The list goes on and on.
At the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis, I was a young, eager, and very low-level functionary in the Kennedy Administration (I was thrilled that someone higher up thought enough about me that they assigned me a secret spot in a secret tunnel in a secret mountain in North Carolina – in case the entire government had to relocate).
The Kennedy Administration certainly wasn’t perfect. The White House, for example, could have made good use of a few people with gray hairs and knowledge of how you talk to a senator. But the huge preponderance of the president’s 3,000-plus political appointees were people who had spent their entire adult lives preparing for the jobs they got. They really knew what they were doing. JKF’s best and brightest were neither ideologues nor political hacks, though there were a few of both. By and large, they were dedicated and they were competent.
I fear that history will look back on the time of George W. Bush not only as a time of American arrogance, American exceptionalism, and America’s abandonment of its most dearly treasured principles. I also fear that the judgment of history will serve to strengthen right-wing canards about government not being able to do anything right.
My hope is that the next administration will choose people who can get it right.
CLERGY JOINS “TAPEGATE” BATTLE
By William Fisher
A coalition of more than 130 religious organizations has joined the growing chorus of individuals and groups calling for appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate allegations regarding the CIA's destruction of videotapes and its use of "harsh" interrogation techniques.
In a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) reminded the nation’s top law enforcement officer of his testimony during confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month.
“A key point of controversy during your confirmation process involved your statement that one particular ‘harsh’ interrogation technique (namely, waterboarding) was not necessarily torture,” the group wrote, adding: “It is possible that top Justice Department officials may have been involved in counseling the CIA about both the techniques used and the handling of the tapes.”
For these reasons, the group wrote, “We believe it is necessary for you to appoint a Special Counsel, independent of the normal Justice Department chain of command, to conduct this investigation. We believe a Special Counsel is critical to achieve the confidence of the American people in the outcome of such an investigation.”
NRCAT’s letter cited a December 7 New York Times article, in which several officials said that "the tapes were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that video showing harsh interrogation methods could expose agency officials to legal risks." Furthermore, there appears to be credible evidence that requests for the tapes by a federal court at the time such videotapes were intact may have been ignored by the CIA. These two allegations, if true, would be evidence of the use of illegal interrogation tactics by U.S. personnel and an effort to cover-up that fact.”
These allegations, it said, “raise serious concerns that must be fully and fairly addressed in order to retain the trust and confidence of the American people in our intelligence and justice systems.”
The NRCAT letter was signed by Executive Director Rev. Richard Killmer, a Presbyterian minister, and the organization’s president, Linda Gustitus. Gustitus is former chief of staff to Illinois Democratic Senator Carl M. Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
NRCAT’s founder, Rev. George Hunsinger of the Princeton University Theological Seminary, told us, “The destroyed videos reportedly depict waterboarding in action. To acknowledge that waterboarding is torture is like conceding that the sun rises in the east.”
He added, “After World War II Japanese soldiers who practiced it were prosecuted as war criminals.”
In an online interview, Hunsinger asked, “Why must our public officials and would-be office-holders persist in evading the elementary truth about a technique used by monsters like Pol Pot and Pinochet, and that is being used against Buddhist monks today – to say nothing of our own secret prisons? All the dissembling in high places that makes these shocking abuses possible must be brought to an end. But they will undoubtedly continue unless those responsible for them are held accountable. Clearly a joint probe by the Justice Department and the CIA -- agencies that are both seriously compromised -- is not enough. A Special Counsel is an essential first step.”
Following Judge Mukasey’s confirmation testimony, NRCAT wrote the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee expressing deep concern about the Mukasey’s responses on the subject of torture and urging the committee members to "approve a nominee as Attorney General who is unequivocal in his or her stance against the use of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." Mukasey wrote the Committee saying that he found waterboarding “personally abhorrent” but declined to say whether the practice constituted torture.
Gustitus and Killmer told the committee that Judge Mukasey's answers "leave open the door to the use of techniques by the U.S. government that would be cruel, inhuman and degrading and that could amount to torture."
Referring to the period when Alberto Gonzalez was Attorney General, Gustitus and Killmer said, "It is time to turn a new page. It would be tragic to allow an individual, despite his or her legal training and ability, who has not clearly rejected the illegal and immoral practices of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment to become the leading law enforcement officer of our nation."
NRCAT's members include representatives from the Catholic, evangelical Christian, mainline Protestant, Orthodox Christian, Unitarian Universalist, Jewish, Quaker, Muslim, and Sikh communities. More than 18,000 individuals have signed NRCAT's "Statement of Conscience" against torture.
NRCAT is generally categorized as a “progressive” organization. More conservative religious organizations have largely remained silent on the “TapeGate” controversy.
The issue exploded into the headlines on December 7, after Central Intelligence Director (CIA)Michael V. Hayden announced that the CIA made videotapes in 2002 of its officers administering harsh interrogation techniques to two al-Qaeda suspects but destroyed the tapes three years later. Hayden said the action was taken to protect CIA employees from possible criminal prosecution.
The CIA’s top lawyer reportedly advised against the tapes’ destruction and similar counsel is said to have come from then White House Counsel Harriet Miers.
The tapes showed the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah, a close associate of Osama bin Laden, and a second high-level al-Qaeda member who was not identified. Zubaydah has been identified by U.S. officials, who spoke to the press on condition of anonymity, as one of three al-Qaeda suspects who the CIA subjected to "waterboarding," a technique that simulates drowning.
The tapes were destroyed on the order of Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the CIA's director of clandestine operations. They were destroyed after the Justice Department (DOJ) told a federal judge in the case of al-Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui that the CIA did not possess videotapes of a specific set of interrogations sought by his attorneys.
The CIA also failed to turn the tapes over to the 9/11 Commission despite their request. The Commission demanded all documentation related to its work and largely used on classified interrogation transcripts to construct its account of the events of that day. The Commission was Congressionally mandated to investigate the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The recordings were destroyed despite orders from judges that required the government to preserve records related to its interrogation programs. The judges’ rulings came in connection with lawsuits filed by Guantanamo detainees who went to court to challenge the basis of their detention.
Multiple investigations of the tapes’ destruction are already underway. The House Intelligence Committee chairman, Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex.), and ranking Republican Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) yesterday announced that the panel will conduct its own investigation. The lawmakers said that Hayden's assertion that the committee had been "properly notified" of the destruction "does not appear to be true." It is likely the Senate Intelligence Committee will also investigate the matter, and the Justice Department (DOJ) and the CIA inspector general's office have already begun a preliminary inquiry into the tapes' destruction.
At the White House daily press briefing Monday, Press Secretary Dana Perino announced she was “not allowed” to discuss the issue because it might compromise ongoing investigations.
A coalition of more than 130 religious organizations has joined the growing chorus of individuals and groups calling for appointment of a Special Counsel to investigate allegations regarding the CIA's destruction of videotapes and its use of "harsh" interrogation techniques.
In a letter to Attorney General Michael Mukasey, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture (NRCAT) reminded the nation’s top law enforcement officer of his testimony during confirmation hearings before the Senate Judiciary Committee last month.
“A key point of controversy during your confirmation process involved your statement that one particular ‘harsh’ interrogation technique (namely, waterboarding) was not necessarily torture,” the group wrote, adding: “It is possible that top Justice Department officials may have been involved in counseling the CIA about both the techniques used and the handling of the tapes.”
For these reasons, the group wrote, “We believe it is necessary for you to appoint a Special Counsel, independent of the normal Justice Department chain of command, to conduct this investigation. We believe a Special Counsel is critical to achieve the confidence of the American people in the outcome of such an investigation.”
NRCAT’s letter cited a December 7 New York Times article, in which several officials said that "the tapes were destroyed in part because officers were concerned that video showing harsh interrogation methods could expose agency officials to legal risks." Furthermore, there appears to be credible evidence that requests for the tapes by a federal court at the time such videotapes were intact may have been ignored by the CIA. These two allegations, if true, would be evidence of the use of illegal interrogation tactics by U.S. personnel and an effort to cover-up that fact.”
These allegations, it said, “raise serious concerns that must be fully and fairly addressed in order to retain the trust and confidence of the American people in our intelligence and justice systems.”
The NRCAT letter was signed by Executive Director Rev. Richard Killmer, a Presbyterian minister, and the organization’s president, Linda Gustitus. Gustitus is former chief of staff to Illinois Democratic Senator Carl M. Levin, chairman of the Armed Services Committee.
NRCAT’s founder, Rev. George Hunsinger of the Princeton University Theological Seminary, told us, “The destroyed videos reportedly depict waterboarding in action. To acknowledge that waterboarding is torture is like conceding that the sun rises in the east.”
He added, “After World War II Japanese soldiers who practiced it were prosecuted as war criminals.”
In an online interview, Hunsinger asked, “Why must our public officials and would-be office-holders persist in evading the elementary truth about a technique used by monsters like Pol Pot and Pinochet, and that is being used against Buddhist monks today – to say nothing of our own secret prisons? All the dissembling in high places that makes these shocking abuses possible must be brought to an end. But they will undoubtedly continue unless those responsible for them are held accountable. Clearly a joint probe by the Justice Department and the CIA -- agencies that are both seriously compromised -- is not enough. A Special Counsel is an essential first step.”
Following Judge Mukasey’s confirmation testimony, NRCAT wrote the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee expressing deep concern about the Mukasey’s responses on the subject of torture and urging the committee members to "approve a nominee as Attorney General who is unequivocal in his or her stance against the use of torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment." Mukasey wrote the Committee saying that he found waterboarding “personally abhorrent” but declined to say whether the practice constituted torture.
Gustitus and Killmer told the committee that Judge Mukasey's answers "leave open the door to the use of techniques by the U.S. government that would be cruel, inhuman and degrading and that could amount to torture."
Referring to the period when Alberto Gonzalez was Attorney General, Gustitus and Killmer said, "It is time to turn a new page. It would be tragic to allow an individual, despite his or her legal training and ability, who has not clearly rejected the illegal and immoral practices of torture and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment to become the leading law enforcement officer of our nation."
NRCAT's members include representatives from the Catholic, evangelical Christian, mainline Protestant, Orthodox Christian, Unitarian Universalist, Jewish, Quaker, Muslim, and Sikh communities. More than 18,000 individuals have signed NRCAT's "Statement of Conscience" against torture.
NRCAT is generally categorized as a “progressive” organization. More conservative religious organizations have largely remained silent on the “TapeGate” controversy.
The issue exploded into the headlines on December 7, after Central Intelligence Director (CIA)Michael V. Hayden announced that the CIA made videotapes in 2002 of its officers administering harsh interrogation techniques to two al-Qaeda suspects but destroyed the tapes three years later. Hayden said the action was taken to protect CIA employees from possible criminal prosecution.
The CIA’s top lawyer reportedly advised against the tapes’ destruction and similar counsel is said to have come from then White House Counsel Harriet Miers.
The tapes showed the interrogations of Abu Zubaydah, a close associate of Osama bin Laden, and a second high-level al-Qaeda member who was not identified. Zubaydah has been identified by U.S. officials, who spoke to the press on condition of anonymity, as one of three al-Qaeda suspects who the CIA subjected to "waterboarding," a technique that simulates drowning.
The tapes were destroyed on the order of Jose A. Rodriguez Jr., then the CIA's director of clandestine operations. They were destroyed after the Justice Department (DOJ) told a federal judge in the case of al-Qaeda operative Zacarias Moussaoui that the CIA did not possess videotapes of a specific set of interrogations sought by his attorneys.
The CIA also failed to turn the tapes over to the 9/11 Commission despite their request. The Commission demanded all documentation related to its work and largely used on classified interrogation transcripts to construct its account of the events of that day. The Commission was Congressionally mandated to investigate the 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
The recordings were destroyed despite orders from judges that required the government to preserve records related to its interrogation programs. The judges’ rulings came in connection with lawsuits filed by Guantanamo detainees who went to court to challenge the basis of their detention.
Multiple investigations of the tapes’ destruction are already underway. The House Intelligence Committee chairman, Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex.), and ranking Republican Pete Hoekstra (Mich.) yesterday announced that the panel will conduct its own investigation. The lawmakers said that Hayden's assertion that the committee had been "properly notified" of the destruction "does not appear to be true." It is likely the Senate Intelligence Committee will also investigate the matter, and the Justice Department (DOJ) and the CIA inspector general's office have already begun a preliminary inquiry into the tapes' destruction.
At the White House daily press briefing Monday, Press Secretary Dana Perino announced she was “not allowed” to discuss the issue because it might compromise ongoing investigations.
Monday, December 10, 2007
WHAT CAN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION CELEBRATE ON HUMAN RIGHTS DAY?
By William Fisher
A coalition of more than 200 not-for-profit human rights and social justice organizations charged today that the Bush Administration is contributing to racial, religious and ethnic discrimination in the U.S. – and attempting to cover up its violations in a report to the United Nations they term “a complete whitewash.”
The charges are contained in a “shadow report “ timed to coincide with International Human Rights Day, today, and designed to rebut a far more positive picture of American racism painted by the U.S. State Department (DOS). State’s report, quietly submitted to the U.N. last spring and posted without publicity on the Department’s website, was a requirement under the world body’s “International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD)”, to which the U.S. is a signatory.
The shadow report was prepared by the U.S. Human Rights Network (USHRN), a large group of non-governmental organizations ranging from Amnesty International to the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund.
It charges that the U.S. Government has failed both by action and inaction to promote racial and ethnic justice in a host of areas, including voting rights, health care, housing, education, homelessness, police brutality and fairness in the criminal justice system.
It says the government report “misrepresents and/or cherry picks data demonstrating ongoing racial disparities and discrimination” and “suffers from glaring gaps clearly aimed at covering up the most egregious examples of persistent racism and racial discrimination in the U.S. today.”
USHRN’s Executive Director, Ajamu Baraka, told IPS, “This report is an important effort to correct the historic record as it relates to the failure of the Bush Administration and previous administrations to address the ongoing crisis of racial oppression and discrimination in the U.S.”
Next March, the U.S. will be required to defend its record on race relations, persistent racial inequalities, and ongoing racial discrimination, before a panel of UN experts.
The USHRN highlights a number of areas where it says the Government report fails to confront the facts.
For example, said a USHRN spokesperson, the Government’s report highlights training and outreach programs for law enforcement agencies to encourage sensitivity to Arab and Muslim communities developed in the aftermath of 9/11, “while completely failing to acknowledge widespread racially and ethnically targeted law enforcement practices such as the special registration program and aggressive round-ups and interviews of thousands of non-citizen Muslims, Arabs and South Asians.”
The USHRN report says, “Since September 11, 2001, new federal laws and policies have limited non-citizens’ access to due process rights, while at the same time creating an atmosphere of elevated fear and mistrust of those who are foreign-born, as well as those who are perceived to be of a particular religious or ethnic background.”
It adds, “In an increasingly anti-immigrant climate, authorities have collaboratively advanced hundreds of measures denying immigrants and refugees access to employment and a living wage, labor protections, access to public benefits, health care, and education, and adequate public safety.”
The USHRN warns that “the humanitarian crisis at the border has reached new heights as migrant deaths hit record numbers and the federal government pours billions of dollars into militarizing the region. In the interior, workers are increasingly subject to violent and disruptive immigration raids at their workplaces and in their homes, typically targeting a population of ethnic minorities that is hugely disproportionate to the number of people actually charged with violations.”
It says that discrimination against migrants, immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers of color “is increasingly fueled by legislation, administrative regulations and enforcement policies framing immigration as an assault on the public purse, and immigrants as illegitimate interlopers rather than substantial contributors to the nation's economy.”
The report highlights a number of issues relating particularly to women. It charges that the U.S. government’s claim that “substantial progress has been made in addressing disparities in . . . access to health care has been made over the years” is belied by persistent and dramatic racial disparities in infant and maternal mortality rates, life expectancy, and prevalence and survival rates of cancer, HIV-AIDS, and heart disease shocking in a country of the United States’ wealth and resources.”
“African American women are nearly four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women and 24 times more likely to be infected with HIV/AIDS,” the report says. It attributes these disparities to “a range of government actions and inactions, from the failure to address high rates of uninsured women of color to restrictions on public funding for sexual and reproductive health services.”
Women of color, it says, “are more economically disadvantaged than white women and more likely to rely on government funded health insurance, are disproportionately impacted by federal and state policies that restrict access to and public funding for sexual and reproductive health care.”
The efforts cited by the U.S. government as evidence of progress fail to address “systemic factors driving health disparities, including obstacles to access to health care, such as lack of health insurance, unequal distribution of health care resources, and poor quality public health care,” the report says.
It also faults the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for
failing to reopen public health care facilities in the Gulf Coast communities devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, thereby contributing to
“an increase in the number of deaths due to the lack of medical services.”
Housing discrimination is another area underlined in the USHRN report. It says the government “has not adequately responded to private acts of housing discrimination. African Americans and Latinos frequently encounter discrimination when attempting to rent or purchase a home, or when attempting to secure funding or insurance for a home purchase.”
The report also links race with predatory and subprime lending. “The subprime mortgage market clearly adversely impacts members of minority groups seeking mortgages within the U.S. Women of color have been victimized by subprime lending abuses more than any other group of homeowners.”
The culprits, it says, include “federally regulated depository institutions, state regulated institutions, non-regulated independent mortgage bankers and brokers, secondary market institutions, private investors, rating agencies, and appraisers.”
The report singles out police brutality and the negative experiences of racial and ethnic minorities in the criminal justice system as examples of racist practices. It says, “Disparities generated by racial profiling and concentration of law enforcement efforts in communities of color are exacerbated by racially discriminatory exercises of broad prosecutorial discretion in charging, plea bargaining, and prosecution of criminal offenses.”
Law enforcement officers “known to have engaged in even the most egregious forms of racist police torture and violence often go unprosecuted and unpunished, and lack of transparency and effectiveness in complaint and disciplinary mechanisms allows widespread abuses to go undeterred,” the report says.
It accuses the Department of Justice (DOJ) of taking “no action to launch a comprehensive investigation into the abusive treatment of hurricane evacuees by law enforcement and military personnel, which has been documented by law enforcement agencies and non-governmental organizations. Federal courts have dismissed claims associated with these events without reaching the claims’ merits.”
It points out that “Disadvantages faced by defendants of color are aggravated by profound failures in the fragmented, patchwork public defense system in the U.S. Notwithstanding the U.S. government’s claims that the right to counsel is guaranteed to all without discrimination based on race, public defense services in most parts of the United States, disproportionately relied up on by people of color, are dramatically under-funded and lacking in oversight. The federal government provides minimal to no financial support for indigent defense in state courts.”
Education is another target of USHRN’s criticism of the government report. It says, “More than five decades since the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education the U.S. has failed to provide equal educational opportunity and a high quality, inclusive education to all students. Public schools today are more segregated than they were in 1970.”
It says that major factors contributing to racial inequality in educational opportunities include “under-performing, poorly financed schools that perpetuate minority students’ underachievement due to lower teacher quality, larger class size, and inadequate facilities; student assignment policies that promote segregation.”
It adds, “The legislative and executive branches of the federal government have all but abandoned school integration and diversity as a matter of policy. The public school system has become an entry point into the juvenile justice system, in particular for youth of color. It says this ‘school to prison pipeline’ is fed by “historical inequities, such as segregated education, concentrated poverty, and racial disparities in law enforcement. Racial disparities exist in suspension, expulsion and arrest rates in school which contribute to disproportionately high dropout rates and referrals to the justice system.”
A coalition of more than 200 not-for-profit human rights and social justice organizations charged today that the Bush Administration is contributing to racial, religious and ethnic discrimination in the U.S. – and attempting to cover up its violations in a report to the United Nations they term “a complete whitewash.”
The charges are contained in a “shadow report “ timed to coincide with International Human Rights Day, today, and designed to rebut a far more positive picture of American racism painted by the U.S. State Department (DOS). State’s report, quietly submitted to the U.N. last spring and posted without publicity on the Department’s website, was a requirement under the world body’s “International Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD)”, to which the U.S. is a signatory.
The shadow report was prepared by the U.S. Human Rights Network (USHRN), a large group of non-governmental organizations ranging from Amnesty International to the People’s Hurricane Relief Fund.
It charges that the U.S. Government has failed both by action and inaction to promote racial and ethnic justice in a host of areas, including voting rights, health care, housing, education, homelessness, police brutality and fairness in the criminal justice system.
It says the government report “misrepresents and/or cherry picks data demonstrating ongoing racial disparities and discrimination” and “suffers from glaring gaps clearly aimed at covering up the most egregious examples of persistent racism and racial discrimination in the U.S. today.”
USHRN’s Executive Director, Ajamu Baraka, told IPS, “This report is an important effort to correct the historic record as it relates to the failure of the Bush Administration and previous administrations to address the ongoing crisis of racial oppression and discrimination in the U.S.”
Next March, the U.S. will be required to defend its record on race relations, persistent racial inequalities, and ongoing racial discrimination, before a panel of UN experts.
The USHRN highlights a number of areas where it says the Government report fails to confront the facts.
For example, said a USHRN spokesperson, the Government’s report highlights training and outreach programs for law enforcement agencies to encourage sensitivity to Arab and Muslim communities developed in the aftermath of 9/11, “while completely failing to acknowledge widespread racially and ethnically targeted law enforcement practices such as the special registration program and aggressive round-ups and interviews of thousands of non-citizen Muslims, Arabs and South Asians.”
The USHRN report says, “Since September 11, 2001, new federal laws and policies have limited non-citizens’ access to due process rights, while at the same time creating an atmosphere of elevated fear and mistrust of those who are foreign-born, as well as those who are perceived to be of a particular religious or ethnic background.”
It adds, “In an increasingly anti-immigrant climate, authorities have collaboratively advanced hundreds of measures denying immigrants and refugees access to employment and a living wage, labor protections, access to public benefits, health care, and education, and adequate public safety.”
The USHRN warns that “the humanitarian crisis at the border has reached new heights as migrant deaths hit record numbers and the federal government pours billions of dollars into militarizing the region. In the interior, workers are increasingly subject to violent and disruptive immigration raids at their workplaces and in their homes, typically targeting a population of ethnic minorities that is hugely disproportionate to the number of people actually charged with violations.”
It says that discrimination against migrants, immigrants, refugees and asylum seekers of color “is increasingly fueled by legislation, administrative regulations and enforcement policies framing immigration as an assault on the public purse, and immigrants as illegitimate interlopers rather than substantial contributors to the nation's economy.”
The report highlights a number of issues relating particularly to women. It charges that the U.S. government’s claim that “substantial progress has been made in addressing disparities in . . . access to health care has been made over the years” is belied by persistent and dramatic racial disparities in infant and maternal mortality rates, life expectancy, and prevalence and survival rates of cancer, HIV-AIDS, and heart disease shocking in a country of the United States’ wealth and resources.”
“African American women are nearly four times more likely to die in childbirth than white women and 24 times more likely to be infected with HIV/AIDS,” the report says. It attributes these disparities to “a range of government actions and inactions, from the failure to address high rates of uninsured women of color to restrictions on public funding for sexual and reproductive health services.”
Women of color, it says, “are more economically disadvantaged than white women and more likely to rely on government funded health insurance, are disproportionately impacted by federal and state policies that restrict access to and public funding for sexual and reproductive health care.”
The efforts cited by the U.S. government as evidence of progress fail to address “systemic factors driving health disparities, including obstacles to access to health care, such as lack of health insurance, unequal distribution of health care resources, and poor quality public health care,” the report says.
It also faults the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) for
failing to reopen public health care facilities in the Gulf Coast communities devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, thereby contributing to
“an increase in the number of deaths due to the lack of medical services.”
Housing discrimination is another area underlined in the USHRN report. It says the government “has not adequately responded to private acts of housing discrimination. African Americans and Latinos frequently encounter discrimination when attempting to rent or purchase a home, or when attempting to secure funding or insurance for a home purchase.”
The report also links race with predatory and subprime lending. “The subprime mortgage market clearly adversely impacts members of minority groups seeking mortgages within the U.S. Women of color have been victimized by subprime lending abuses more than any other group of homeowners.”
The culprits, it says, include “federally regulated depository institutions, state regulated institutions, non-regulated independent mortgage bankers and brokers, secondary market institutions, private investors, rating agencies, and appraisers.”
The report singles out police brutality and the negative experiences of racial and ethnic minorities in the criminal justice system as examples of racist practices. It says, “Disparities generated by racial profiling and concentration of law enforcement efforts in communities of color are exacerbated by racially discriminatory exercises of broad prosecutorial discretion in charging, plea bargaining, and prosecution of criminal offenses.”
Law enforcement officers “known to have engaged in even the most egregious forms of racist police torture and violence often go unprosecuted and unpunished, and lack of transparency and effectiveness in complaint and disciplinary mechanisms allows widespread abuses to go undeterred,” the report says.
It accuses the Department of Justice (DOJ) of taking “no action to launch a comprehensive investigation into the abusive treatment of hurricane evacuees by law enforcement and military personnel, which has been documented by law enforcement agencies and non-governmental organizations. Federal courts have dismissed claims associated with these events without reaching the claims’ merits.”
It points out that “Disadvantages faced by defendants of color are aggravated by profound failures in the fragmented, patchwork public defense system in the U.S. Notwithstanding the U.S. government’s claims that the right to counsel is guaranteed to all without discrimination based on race, public defense services in most parts of the United States, disproportionately relied up on by people of color, are dramatically under-funded and lacking in oversight. The federal government provides minimal to no financial support for indigent defense in state courts.”
Education is another target of USHRN’s criticism of the government report. It says, “More than five decades since the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Brown v. Board of Education the U.S. has failed to provide equal educational opportunity and a high quality, inclusive education to all students. Public schools today are more segregated than they were in 1970.”
It says that major factors contributing to racial inequality in educational opportunities include “under-performing, poorly financed schools that perpetuate minority students’ underachievement due to lower teacher quality, larger class size, and inadequate facilities; student assignment policies that promote segregation.”
It adds, “The legislative and executive branches of the federal government have all but abandoned school integration and diversity as a matter of policy. The public school system has become an entry point into the juvenile justice system, in particular for youth of color. It says this ‘school to prison pipeline’ is fed by “historical inequities, such as segregated education, concentrated poverty, and racial disparities in law enforcement. Racial disparities exist in suspension, expulsion and arrest rates in school which contribute to disproportionately high dropout rates and referrals to the justice system.”
Tuesday, December 04, 2007
Perturbing the Judiciary? Hurting the Country’s Image? Shame on You!
By William Fisher
By now, most of us have heard the sickening story of the “Girl of Qatif” – the 20-year-old Saudi woman who was gang-raped at knifepoint by seven men and then sentenced to jail time and 200 lashes because she was alone in a car with a male who was not a relative.
Her plight has now become well known through extensive worldwide media coverage. The “Girl of Qatif” – her hometown – is only one of hundreds of others we’ll never hear about. She has become the poster child for much of what we in the West find incomprehensible about the way many Islamic countries define the “rule of law.”
But there is another victim here: The rape victim’s lawyer, a 36-year old named Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem. As if to magnify its incomprehensible sentence, the Saudi court has revoked his license because of "belligerent behavior, talking to the media for the purpose of perturbing the judiciary, and hurting the country's image." He faces a disciplinary hearing tomorrow, December 5, to determine the length of his suspension.
The victims in this bizarre case were originally sentenced to 90 lashes and the rapists were sentenced to between 10 months and five years in prison. Doing what we would expect any good defense lawyer to do, Lahem appealed the sentences. He asked for harsher sentences for the rapists and called the ruling against his client unjust. The court obliged by increasing the sentences of the two victims to six months in prison and 200 lashes, and nearly doubling the rapists’ sentences. The court told the woman her punishment was increased because of "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media."
Lest we forget, Saudi Arabia is one of America’s best buddies. It’s the place where we buy much of the oil we import. And, as President Bush incessantly reminds us, it’s a staunch ally in the “Global War on Terror.”
But here we have another kind of terror: Terror in the Courtroom. It is a kind of terror that violates the most basic tenets of what America is supposed to stand for: the rule of law. It is a terror that springs from the Saudi Kingdom’s strict Wahhabe interpretation of Islamic, or Sharia, law.
This is not to say that American jurisprudence should be the model for the entire world. Our justice system is replete with gross miscarriages, witness our despicable performance at Guantanamo Bay, our courts’ frequent failures to appoint competent lawyers to represent poor defendants, our Kafkaesque sentencing guidelines, and the reluctance of too many of our judges to report prosecutorial misconduct to their state bar associations.
But, though it is not altogether unknown, our judges don’t often go after defense lawyers simply for being tenacious. They applaud them. They and we believe a robust defense is at the very heart of our adversarial system of justice.
Our judges expect defense lawyers to be "belligerent” – while respectful of the court. They may not like it, but they expect lawyers to talk to the media. And they expect to be “perturbed.” For most judges, this is water off a duck’s back. It goes with the territory.
And as for these kinds of issues damaging the country’s image, we have to wonder what could be more damaging than meting out a jail sentence and 200 lashes to a rape victim.
By now, most of us have heard the sickening story of the “Girl of Qatif” – the 20-year-old Saudi woman who was gang-raped at knifepoint by seven men and then sentenced to jail time and 200 lashes because she was alone in a car with a male who was not a relative.
Her plight has now become well known through extensive worldwide media coverage. The “Girl of Qatif” – her hometown – is only one of hundreds of others we’ll never hear about. She has become the poster child for much of what we in the West find incomprehensible about the way many Islamic countries define the “rule of law.”
But there is another victim here: The rape victim’s lawyer, a 36-year old named Abdul-Rahman al-Lahem. As if to magnify its incomprehensible sentence, the Saudi court has revoked his license because of "belligerent behavior, talking to the media for the purpose of perturbing the judiciary, and hurting the country's image." He faces a disciplinary hearing tomorrow, December 5, to determine the length of his suspension.
The victims in this bizarre case were originally sentenced to 90 lashes and the rapists were sentenced to between 10 months and five years in prison. Doing what we would expect any good defense lawyer to do, Lahem appealed the sentences. He asked for harsher sentences for the rapists and called the ruling against his client unjust. The court obliged by increasing the sentences of the two victims to six months in prison and 200 lashes, and nearly doubling the rapists’ sentences. The court told the woman her punishment was increased because of "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media."
Lest we forget, Saudi Arabia is one of America’s best buddies. It’s the place where we buy much of the oil we import. And, as President Bush incessantly reminds us, it’s a staunch ally in the “Global War on Terror.”
But here we have another kind of terror: Terror in the Courtroom. It is a kind of terror that violates the most basic tenets of what America is supposed to stand for: the rule of law. It is a terror that springs from the Saudi Kingdom’s strict Wahhabe interpretation of Islamic, or Sharia, law.
This is not to say that American jurisprudence should be the model for the entire world. Our justice system is replete with gross miscarriages, witness our despicable performance at Guantanamo Bay, our courts’ frequent failures to appoint competent lawyers to represent poor defendants, our Kafkaesque sentencing guidelines, and the reluctance of too many of our judges to report prosecutorial misconduct to their state bar associations.
But, though it is not altogether unknown, our judges don’t often go after defense lawyers simply for being tenacious. They applaud them. They and we believe a robust defense is at the very heart of our adversarial system of justice.
Our judges expect defense lawyers to be "belligerent” – while respectful of the court. They may not like it, but they expect lawyers to talk to the media. And they expect to be “perturbed.” For most judges, this is water off a duck’s back. It goes with the territory.
And as for these kinds of issues damaging the country’s image, we have to wonder what could be more damaging than meting out a jail sentence and 200 lashes to a rape victim.
Monday, December 03, 2007
BEYOND ANNAPOLIS – WHAT MODEL?
By William Fisher
In the aftermath of the Annapolis peace conference, foreign policy analysts and human rights advocates are finding considerable irony in Israel’s Arab neighbors pressing for freedom for Palestinians while their own citizens continue carry a heavy burden of unrelenting political repression.
Most of those representing Middle East and North African nations at the conference appear to endorse the idea of a “two-state solution” to the decades-old conflict: a separate and contiguous Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel.
But Arab delegates to Annapolis -- including Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen – have had little to say about the nature of the state that may emerge from negotiations set to begin soon between Israel and the Palestinians.
Critics of Israel’s neighbors point out that, with a few exceptions, the governments of these countries are unelected, authoritarian, often corrupt, and willing to use any means to stifle dissent. In most of these countries, a free press has been silenced, journalists and bloggers jailed, peaceful demonstrations disrupted by police and participants beaten and arrested, political parties effectively banned, elections rigged or non-existent, and citizens detained by security authorities without charges or lawyers and often tortured or simply “disappeared.”
Many of these observers see the absence of press freedom as emblematic of a broader freedom deficit in most of the Arab countries represented at Annapolis. In most Middle East and North African states, both the media and its messages are state-controlled. Many are state-owned. All have extensive and expensive programs designed to block satellite television and a wide range of Internet websites.
Critics point to Egypt and Saudi Arabia as among the worst offenders. Both countries are seen as close allies of the U.S. The Saudi Kingdom is the source of much of the oil consumed by Americans. And Egypt is second only to Israel in the amount of U.S. aid it receives each year – its reward for making peace with Israel in 1979.
In Egypt – which has lived under draconian “emergency laws” for more than 25 years – President Hosni Mubarak promised in 2006 a long-delayed press law reform designed to give journalists more freedom by decriminalizing media offences. But, according to Reporters Without Borders (FWB), a journalism advocacy organization, the new law “turned out to be just a show.” It says, “The media were quickly disillusioned by the many restrictions on their activities contained in the amendments to it. At least seven journalists were arrested during the year and dozens threatened or physically attacked.”
The group says Egyptian journalists “can now be jailed for up to five years for ‘publishing false news’, defaming the president or foreign heads of state or ‘undermining national institutions’ such as parliament and the armed forces.”
TV and print journalists attempting to cover public events are routinely harassed, arrested, threatened or beaten.
The Mubarak regime also continues its crackdown on Internet freedom. Hundreds of websites have been blocked, and at least seven cyber-dissidents jailed. The courts ruled that authorities could block, suspend or shut down websites considered a threat to “national security.” A number of bloggers have been jailed. One was detained for posting criticism of Islam and is still in prison. Another was jailed for four years after he used his weblog to criticize the country's top Islamic institution, al-Azhar university, and President Mubarak, whom he called a dictator.
Saudi Arabia also remains high on the list of countries that have aggressively cracked down on press freedom. The Saudi regime maintains very tight control of all news and self-censorship is pervasive. According to RWB, “Enterprising journalists pay dearly for the slightest criticism of the authorities or the policies of ‘brother Arab’ countries. The tame local media content means most Saudis get their news and information from foreign TV stations and the Internet.”
The Al-Jazeera TV channel is banned and was not allowed to cover the annual pilgrimage to Mecca for the fifth consecutive year. Like Egypt, Saudi Arabia also blocks more than a thousand Internet websites.
Two journalists were dismissed for going beyond the limits set by the
dominant ultra-conservative religious authorities. A writer for a government
daily, Arab News, was dismissed for writing about the atrocities perpetrated by Indonesia,a Muslim country, during its 1975-99 occupation of East Timor. The
editor of another government daily, Al Watan, was forced to resign as the paper’s editor after reporting that US troops were using the country’s military bases. The privately-owned daily Shams was closed for a month and its editor dismissed
for reprinting some of the cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed first carried by a
Danish paper in 2005.
Blogs are also becoming a growing problem for Saudi censors, who maintain a “blacklist” said to contain hundreds of personal websites. In 2005,
authorities tried to completely bar access to the country’s main blog-tool, blogger.com, but gave up after only a few days because of the ubiquity of the blogosphere. Today, government censors blogs they object to.
In the Reporters Without Borders annual survey of press freedom, Egypt
ranked 146th and Saudi Arabia 147th, out of a total of 169 countries worldwide.
Israel, including the occupied territories, ranked 44th.
Human rights groups have also been highly critical of Middle Eastern and
North African governments for imposing press restrictions, as well as for
other numerous and widespread human rights abuses.
Looking forward to the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations emerging from the
Annapolis conference, Mary Shaw of Amnesty International USA is urging both
sides to respect the basic human rights of the other. She told us, “The parties should agree to the deployment of international human rights monitors in Israel
and the Occupied Territories, with a mandate to monitor and report publicly on compliance and on violations by either party of their commitments under international human rights and humanitarian law.”
But given the consistently flawed human rights records of Israel’s neighbors, critics wonder how eager any of the Annapolis delegates will be to endorse this proposal.
This is the question raised by the Egyptian-born journalist and lecturer
Mona Eltahawi, Distinguished Visiting Professor at the American University
in Cairo,who has lived in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel.
She told us, “When I was a Jerusalem-based Reuters correspondent in 1998, many Palestinians would tell me they wanted a future Palestinian state to be like Israel. They meant an open and democratic country. I thought it was ironic that their ‘role model’ state was the one occupying them.”
Ms. Eltahawy, who is a contributor to the Washington Post’s “On Faith” series, charged that the late Yasser Arafat and other Palestinian officials “modeled a nascent Palestinian state on Egypt, Jordan and other repressive Arab neighbors. Arafat introduced military trials and Palestinians were horrified to discover that the Palestinian Authority, and not just Israel, also detained and tortured Palestinians with often little reason. I would hear from Palestinians that it was worse for them when their fellow Palestinians were the ones doing the torture.”
She added, “After years of struggle and sacrifice for Palestine, Palestinians deserve a free and democratic state. I hope they insist it be nothing like the Arab states that have fought several wars with Israel ostensibly in the name of such a Palestinian state.”
In the aftermath of the Annapolis peace conference, foreign policy analysts and human rights advocates are finding considerable irony in Israel’s Arab neighbors pressing for freedom for Palestinians while their own citizens continue carry a heavy burden of unrelenting political repression.
Most of those representing Middle East and North African nations at the conference appear to endorse the idea of a “two-state solution” to the decades-old conflict: a separate and contiguous Palestinian state living in peace alongside Israel.
But Arab delegates to Annapolis -- including Algeria, Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen – have had little to say about the nature of the state that may emerge from negotiations set to begin soon between Israel and the Palestinians.
Critics of Israel’s neighbors point out that, with a few exceptions, the governments of these countries are unelected, authoritarian, often corrupt, and willing to use any means to stifle dissent. In most of these countries, a free press has been silenced, journalists and bloggers jailed, peaceful demonstrations disrupted by police and participants beaten and arrested, political parties effectively banned, elections rigged or non-existent, and citizens detained by security authorities without charges or lawyers and often tortured or simply “disappeared.”
Many of these observers see the absence of press freedom as emblematic of a broader freedom deficit in most of the Arab countries represented at Annapolis. In most Middle East and North African states, both the media and its messages are state-controlled. Many are state-owned. All have extensive and expensive programs designed to block satellite television and a wide range of Internet websites.
Critics point to Egypt and Saudi Arabia as among the worst offenders. Both countries are seen as close allies of the U.S. The Saudi Kingdom is the source of much of the oil consumed by Americans. And Egypt is second only to Israel in the amount of U.S. aid it receives each year – its reward for making peace with Israel in 1979.
In Egypt – which has lived under draconian “emergency laws” for more than 25 years – President Hosni Mubarak promised in 2006 a long-delayed press law reform designed to give journalists more freedom by decriminalizing media offences. But, according to Reporters Without Borders (FWB), a journalism advocacy organization, the new law “turned out to be just a show.” It says, “The media were quickly disillusioned by the many restrictions on their activities contained in the amendments to it. At least seven journalists were arrested during the year and dozens threatened or physically attacked.”
The group says Egyptian journalists “can now be jailed for up to five years for ‘publishing false news’, defaming the president or foreign heads of state or ‘undermining national institutions’ such as parliament and the armed forces.”
TV and print journalists attempting to cover public events are routinely harassed, arrested, threatened or beaten.
The Mubarak regime also continues its crackdown on Internet freedom. Hundreds of websites have been blocked, and at least seven cyber-dissidents jailed. The courts ruled that authorities could block, suspend or shut down websites considered a threat to “national security.” A number of bloggers have been jailed. One was detained for posting criticism of Islam and is still in prison. Another was jailed for four years after he used his weblog to criticize the country's top Islamic institution, al-Azhar university, and President Mubarak, whom he called a dictator.
Saudi Arabia also remains high on the list of countries that have aggressively cracked down on press freedom. The Saudi regime maintains very tight control of all news and self-censorship is pervasive. According to RWB, “Enterprising journalists pay dearly for the slightest criticism of the authorities or the policies of ‘brother Arab’ countries. The tame local media content means most Saudis get their news and information from foreign TV stations and the Internet.”
The Al-Jazeera TV channel is banned and was not allowed to cover the annual pilgrimage to Mecca for the fifth consecutive year. Like Egypt, Saudi Arabia also blocks more than a thousand Internet websites.
Two journalists were dismissed for going beyond the limits set by the
dominant ultra-conservative religious authorities. A writer for a government
daily, Arab News, was dismissed for writing about the atrocities perpetrated by Indonesia,a Muslim country, during its 1975-99 occupation of East Timor. The
editor of another government daily, Al Watan, was forced to resign as the paper’s editor after reporting that US troops were using the country’s military bases. The privately-owned daily Shams was closed for a month and its editor dismissed
for reprinting some of the cartoons of the Prophet Mohamed first carried by a
Danish paper in 2005.
Blogs are also becoming a growing problem for Saudi censors, who maintain a “blacklist” said to contain hundreds of personal websites. In 2005,
authorities tried to completely bar access to the country’s main blog-tool, blogger.com, but gave up after only a few days because of the ubiquity of the blogosphere. Today, government censors blogs they object to.
In the Reporters Without Borders annual survey of press freedom, Egypt
ranked 146th and Saudi Arabia 147th, out of a total of 169 countries worldwide.
Israel, including the occupied territories, ranked 44th.
Human rights groups have also been highly critical of Middle Eastern and
North African governments for imposing press restrictions, as well as for
other numerous and widespread human rights abuses.
Looking forward to the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations emerging from the
Annapolis conference, Mary Shaw of Amnesty International USA is urging both
sides to respect the basic human rights of the other. She told us, “The parties should agree to the deployment of international human rights monitors in Israel
and the Occupied Territories, with a mandate to monitor and report publicly on compliance and on violations by either party of their commitments under international human rights and humanitarian law.”
But given the consistently flawed human rights records of Israel’s neighbors, critics wonder how eager any of the Annapolis delegates will be to endorse this proposal.
This is the question raised by the Egyptian-born journalist and lecturer
Mona Eltahawi, Distinguished Visiting Professor at the American University
in Cairo,who has lived in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Israel.
She told us, “When I was a Jerusalem-based Reuters correspondent in 1998, many Palestinians would tell me they wanted a future Palestinian state to be like Israel. They meant an open and democratic country. I thought it was ironic that their ‘role model’ state was the one occupying them.”
Ms. Eltahawy, who is a contributor to the Washington Post’s “On Faith” series, charged that the late Yasser Arafat and other Palestinian officials “modeled a nascent Palestinian state on Egypt, Jordan and other repressive Arab neighbors. Arafat introduced military trials and Palestinians were horrified to discover that the Palestinian Authority, and not just Israel, also detained and tortured Palestinians with often little reason. I would hear from Palestinians that it was worse for them when their fellow Palestinians were the ones doing the torture.”
She added, “After years of struggle and sacrifice for Palestine, Palestinians deserve a free and democratic state. I hope they insist it be nothing like the Arab states that have fought several wars with Israel ostensibly in the name of such a Palestinian state.”
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
ANN OF A THOUSAND SLURS
By William Fisher
I’m shocked! No, outraged!
Ann Coulter, the extreme right-wing motormouth who insults everyone left of Ghengis Kahn, is being harassed.
A greeting card delivered to her home that read, “You self-aggrandizing sociopath! The only thing left after a nuclear war are you and cockroaches.” A phone message saying, “Hey, Ann, now that you’ve moved to Florida and you’re in your 40s, did you know that you can join the Florida National Guard? You love war until you have to put your own a** on the line. I don’t call that patriotism. I call it cowardice.”
And more. You get the idea.
So upset by all this was the Goddess with the flaxen hair that she’s had the local property appraiser remove the address of her $1.2 million home in Palm Beach, Florida, from public records.
According to that fount of scholarly discourse, Newsmax, Coulter’s is one of 2,674 properties in Palm Beach County whose owners are confidential in property appraiser records. Homeowners seeking anonymity must submit an affidavit stating why they believe they require it. Exemptions are made for people in occupations that could make them targets — including police officers, judges, prosecutors, and child abuse investigators — and for victims of domestic violence, stalking, or harassment.
I guess “harassment” would be Annie’s beef.
Oh, the shame of it all! To think that such things could happen in a country that so values reason and civil discourse! Whose politics are steeped in the laudable tradition of listening respectfully to views not our own, of making that special effort to walk in someone else’s shoes.
Surely, there can be no more perfect poster child for our devotion to these values than Annie-Get-Your-Gun Coulter. No better example of reason on steroids.
One has only to quickly peruse the titles of Annie’s books to confirm her dedication to walking the high road: "If Democrats Had Any Brains They'd Be Republicans,” “Godless: The Church of Liberalism,” “Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism,” “How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must).”
Or read some of the quotes from her recent columns and speeches:
On Jews: "We just want Jews to be perfected, as they say." --arguing that it would be better if we were all Christian.”
On terrorists: Or, in responding to terrorists "we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."
On women: "I think [women] should be armed but should not [be allowed to] vote. No, they all have to give up their vote, not just, you know, the lady clapping and me. The problem with women voting -- and your Communists will back me up on this -- is that, you know, women have no capacity to understand how money is earned. They have a lot of ideas on how to spend it. And when they take these polls, it's always more money on education, more money on child care, more money on day care."
On Liberals: "With their infernal racial set-asides, racial quotas, and race norming, liberals share many of the Klan's premises. The Klan sees the world in terms of race and ethnicity. So do liberals! Indeed, liberals and white supremacists are the only people left in America who are neurotically obsessed with race….”
On John Edwards: “I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards.”
Predictably, I don’t agree with Ms. C. all that often. And my guess is that she wouldn’t agree with too many of my views either. Except one: The free speech part of the Constitution.
Because without it, she wouldn’t be living in a confidential Palm Beach mansion.
I’m shocked! No, outraged!
Ann Coulter, the extreme right-wing motormouth who insults everyone left of Ghengis Kahn, is being harassed.
A greeting card delivered to her home that read, “You self-aggrandizing sociopath! The only thing left after a nuclear war are you and cockroaches.” A phone message saying, “Hey, Ann, now that you’ve moved to Florida and you’re in your 40s, did you know that you can join the Florida National Guard? You love war until you have to put your own a** on the line. I don’t call that patriotism. I call it cowardice.”
And more. You get the idea.
So upset by all this was the Goddess with the flaxen hair that she’s had the local property appraiser remove the address of her $1.2 million home in Palm Beach, Florida, from public records.
According to that fount of scholarly discourse, Newsmax, Coulter’s is one of 2,674 properties in Palm Beach County whose owners are confidential in property appraiser records. Homeowners seeking anonymity must submit an affidavit stating why they believe they require it. Exemptions are made for people in occupations that could make them targets — including police officers, judges, prosecutors, and child abuse investigators — and for victims of domestic violence, stalking, or harassment.
I guess “harassment” would be Annie’s beef.
Oh, the shame of it all! To think that such things could happen in a country that so values reason and civil discourse! Whose politics are steeped in the laudable tradition of listening respectfully to views not our own, of making that special effort to walk in someone else’s shoes.
Surely, there can be no more perfect poster child for our devotion to these values than Annie-Get-Your-Gun Coulter. No better example of reason on steroids.
One has only to quickly peruse the titles of Annie’s books to confirm her dedication to walking the high road: "If Democrats Had Any Brains They'd Be Republicans,” “Godless: The Church of Liberalism,” “Treason: Liberal Treachery from the Cold War to the War on Terrorism,” “How to Talk to a Liberal (If You Must).”
Or read some of the quotes from her recent columns and speeches:
On Jews: "We just want Jews to be perfected, as they say." --arguing that it would be better if we were all Christian.”
On terrorists: Or, in responding to terrorists "we should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity."
On women: "I think [women] should be armed but should not [be allowed to] vote. No, they all have to give up their vote, not just, you know, the lady clapping and me. The problem with women voting -- and your Communists will back me up on this -- is that, you know, women have no capacity to understand how money is earned. They have a lot of ideas on how to spend it. And when they take these polls, it's always more money on education, more money on child care, more money on day care."
On Liberals: "With their infernal racial set-asides, racial quotas, and race norming, liberals share many of the Klan's premises. The Klan sees the world in terms of race and ethnicity. So do liberals! Indeed, liberals and white supremacists are the only people left in America who are neurotically obsessed with race….”
On John Edwards: “I was going to have a few comments on the other Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, but it turns out you have to go into rehab if you use the word ‘faggot,’ so I — so kind of an impasse, can’t really talk about Edwards.”
Predictably, I don’t agree with Ms. C. all that often. And my guess is that she wouldn’t agree with too many of my views either. Except one: The free speech part of the Constitution.
Because without it, she wouldn’t be living in a confidential Palm Beach mansion.
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