By William Fisher
The most discredited bromide in American civic life is: “Give the American people the facts, and they will make the right decisions.”
But who is giving them the facts?
Fox News? Rush Limbaugh? Bill O’Reilly? Lou Dobbs? The hysterical Chris Matthews?
I don’t think so. These people are entertainers pitching themselves as journalists.
Or maybe the fact-gatherers are ABC’s Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, who spent the first 50 minutes of the last Obama-Clinton debate asking non-questions for which they surely deserve the year’s top Inanity Awards.
Charley and George are not journalists; they’re “gotcha” peddlers. Their interest is in ratings and money, not facts.
The short answer is nobody. And the result is a tragically uninformed electorate.
But this state of affairs didn’t start with TV talking heads. It started in our middle and high schools, with the parents of the young people who attend these schools and with those who teach those students.
The intellectual poverty of our educational system was recently highlighted in an article in the Journal of Higher Education by Ted Gup, a professor of journalism at Case Western Reserve University and author of “Nation of Secrets: The Threat to Democracy and the American Way of Life” (Doubleday, 2007).
Gup recounted the following experience:
“I teach a seminar called ‘Secrecy: Forbidden Knowledge’. I recently asked my class of 16 freshmen and sophomores, many of whom had graduated in the top 10 percent of their high-school classes and had dazzling SAT scores, how many had heard the word "rendition." Not one hand went up. This is after four years of the word appearing on the front pages of the nation's newspapers, on network and cable news, and online. This is after years of highly publicized lawsuits, Congressional inquiries, and international controversy and condemnation. This is after the release of a Hollywood film of that title, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep, and Reese Witherspoon.”
Gup wrote that this information deficit was no aberration. He said, “Nearly half of a recent class could not name a single country that bordered Israel. In an introductory journalism class, 11 of 18 students could not name what country Kabul was in, although we have been at war there for half a decade. Last fall only one in 21 students could name the U.S. secretary of defense. Given a list of four countries — China, Cuba, India, and Japan — not one of those same 21 students could identify India and Japan as democracies. Their grasp of history was little better. Some students thought that Islam was the principal religion of South America, that Roe v. Wade was about slavery, that 50 justices sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, that the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1975.”
Should we be surprised? I don’t think so.
The study of civics has virtually disappeared from our middle and high school curricula. And many of the few schools that still teach this subject are using a textbook – now in its 11th edition -- that the widely respected Center for Inquiry says contains “inaccurate and misleading statements, in particular in its analysis of certain constitutional law issues, including school prayer and global warming."
And despite the ubiquity of blackberries, laptops, and access to television and the Internet by our youth, survey after survey has validated the sorry state of their knowledge, particularly about American history and America’s civic life.
For example, one survey found that 52% of Americans could name two or more of the characters from "The Simpsons," but only 28% could identify two of the freedoms protected under the First Amendment. Another poll found that 77% of Americans could name at least two of the Seven Dwarfs from "Snow White," but only 24% could name two or more Supreme Court justices. Yet another survey showed that only two-thirds of Americans could identify all three branches of government; only 55% of Americans were aware that the Supreme Court can declare an act of Congress unconstitutional; and 35% thought that it was the intention of the founding fathers to give the president "the final say" over Congress and the judiciary.
And according to a new statewide study, thousands of Massachusetts public high school graduates arrive at college unprepared for even the most basic math and English classes, forcing them to take remedial courses that discourage many from staying in school. At three high schools in Boston and two in Worcester, at least 70 percent of students were forced to take at least one remedial class because they scored poorly on a college placement test.
Other studies sadly point in the same direction. One showed that a majority of college students thinks the press has too much freedom. Another found that they believe the freedoms of American Muslims should be restricted. Still another found that a majority of high school graduates couldn’t find China on a map. And year after year, America’s knowledge scores vis a vis other industrialized democracies keeps going south.
The totally predictable result is, as David Brooks pointed out in a recent New York Times column, “For the first time in the nation’s history, workers retiring from the labor force are better educated than the ones coming in.”
Lately, amidst our xenophobic immigration debate, there’s been lots of chatter about the new test the government is proposing to determine which immigrants qualify for naturalized U.S. citizenship. The Los Angeles Times’ Rosa Brooks writes, tongue in cheek, that it “will rigorously assess immigrants' knowledge of ‘the fundamental concepts of American democracy’," asking tough questions such as ‘Why do we have three branches of government? , ‘What is the rule of law?’ and ‘What are inalienable rights’? ”
Ms. Brooks says that requiring those who want the privileges of U.S. citizenship to have some minimal knowledge of American civics “is a great idea.” Why, she asks, “should this country mint new so-called citizens who don't know the first thing about American history or law?”
Her zinger, however, is that she wants to make native-born Americans take the test too — and deport them to their last known countries of ancestry if they flunk. Why, she asks, “should we ask first-generation immigrants to know more about the United States than the rest of us?”
Why indeed!
Do we have reason to hope that the millions of young people who have flocked to support Barack Obama’s candidacy represent some kind of a sea change among our youth?
No, we don’t. These young people are “the best and the brightest” – far above the norm. A vastly greater number of American young people are high school dropouts, or kids who graduate from high school despite being functionally illiterate, or even those who go on to college clueless about their country’s history and government.
These are the young people who click on YouTube to amass an encyclopedic knowledge of Paris Hilton’s latest antics.
And despite the Bush Administration’s overblown claims of success for its “No Child Left Behind” program, these are the millions of kids who continue to be left behind.
And who leave our country behind in the process.
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Friday, April 11, 2008
WARRIORS IN KNEE-PANTS
By William Fisher
The U.S. is providing military aid to six of the countries cited in the U.S. State Department’s latest series of human rights report for recruiting and using child soldiers.
They are Afghanistan, Chad, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Uganda.
And a second report -- by the Center for Defense Information (CDI) – charges that, while child soldiers are often recruited and deployed by rebel groups over which the government has little control, in other cases the recruitment is being carried out by directly by governments and government-supported paramilitaries.
For example, the CDI reports that in Chad, government security forces recruited and retained child soldiers and compelled forced labor by adults and children. It says that human rights abuses included killings and use of child soldiers, adding that government and other armed groups continued to use child soldiers.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the CDI reports that government military units and armed groups continued to recruit and maintain child soldiers in their ranks. It notes that military authorities took no action against commanders who employed child soldiers, and says that while the government reached agreements with militias for the demobilization of child soldiers, the groups did not generally respect the agreements.
In Sudan, the CDI report says, “There were numerous serious abuses, including forced military conscription of underage men and recruitment of child soldiers.”
Recruitment of child soldiers also remained a serious problem in Sudan’s Darfur region. While much of the recruitment was carried out by a variety of anti-government rebel groups, the CDI says there are credible reports that government and government-aligned militias also conscripted children to serve as soldiers.
The State Department and CDI reports come at a time when the Bush administration is sharply increasing its use of military aid as a reward for countries that cooperate with its war on terrorism, despite concerns about human rights and political instability.
The CDI found large increases in government and commercial U.S. arms sales in recent years to 25 countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa that have become allies against Islamist militancy since the Sept. 11 attacks.
The nonpartisan Washington-based think tank said half the countries were identified by the State Department in 2006 as having serious, grave or significant human rights problems.
The center's analysis of U.S. data showed government-to-government U.S. arms sales to some 25 countries rocketed to $3.9 billion in 2006 from about $400 million a year earlier. The 2006 figure accounted for about 22 percent of the total $18 billion in U.S. foreign military sales last year.
"The trend is continuing in a steep upward climb," said Rachel Stohl, a co-author of the CDI study.
The center also criticized the Bush administration for its increasing use of new military assistance accounts, which it said allow the Pentagon to bypass legal restrictions on training or arming human rights abusers.
"The United States is sending unprecedented levels of military assistance to countries that it simultaneously criticizes for lack of respect for human rights and, in some cases, for questionable democratic processes," the center said.
"While these countries are currently considered important to U.S. efforts in the 'war on terror' now, political and military instability makes their continued allegiance to the United States questionable."
Military aid increases were due in part to the lifting of sanctions and restrictions against certain countries immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, according to the center. Direct commercial sales, in which U.S. weapons manufacturers strike deals overseen by the State Department, stood at over $3 billion for the same countries during the period from 2002 through 2006. That was up from $72 million for the five years preceding the Sept. 11 attacks.
At the same time, the non-profit, non-partisan Center for Public Integrity (CPI) charges that foreign lobbyists are exploiting America’s post-9/11 fear to obtain billions of dollars in U.S. military aid – and a substantial part of it is being sent to countries that routinely violate human rights, participate in ‘extraordinary renditions,’ and recruit and deploy child soldiers.
These are among the conclusions of a yearlong study by a CPI team of seasoned reporters – known as the Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
The ICIJ report, titled “Collateral Damage”, concludes that “the influence of foreign lobbying on the U.S. government, as well as a shortsighted emphasis on counterterrorism objectives over broader human rights concerns, have generated staggering costs to the U.S. and its allies in money spent and political capital burned.”
“Deals to provide military aid to what are perceived as often corrupt and brutal governments have set back efforts to advance human rights and the rule of law,” the ICIJ report says.
Since 1950, the US government has provided over $91 billion to militaries around the world from a single fund. There are a number of additional funds, so the total is substantially higher. Most of the money comes from the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of State (DOS).
Joanne Mariner, Director of the Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program for Human Rights Watch, told us, “We're concerned that U.S. military aid is, in some cases, showered on repressive governments. In our view aid should be more carefully conditioned to ensure that abuses are not carried out with American funding.”
In their investigation, 10 ICIJ reporters on four continents explored American counterterrorism policy since the 2001 terrorist attacks. They found that post-9/11 U.S. political pressure, Washington lobbying and aid dollars have reshaped policies towards countries ranging from Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, to Pakistan and Thailand in Asia, Poland and Romania in Europe, to Colombia in South America.
The ICIJ report notes that many of the recipients of this aid are countries believed to be guilty of human rights abuses. For example, it charges that countries receiving military aid from the U.S. have participated in “extraordinary renditions” – kidnapping suspected terrorists or transferring prisoners to countries known to practice torture and other inhuman and degrading practices.
Reliable data shows that airplanes chartered by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) made at least 76 stopovers in Azerbaijan, 72 in Jordan, 61 in Egypt, 52 in Turkmenistan, 46 in Uzbekistan, 40 in Iraq, 40 in Morocco, 38 in Afghanistan, and 14 in Libya. Most of these countries are recipients of U.S. military assistance.
For example, in Uzbekistan, “Torture and ill-treatment” remain “widespread” and continue to occur with “impunity,” according to a highly critical assessment by the United Nations Committee Against Torture. Uzbekistan currently receives well over $100 million in U.S. military aid.
Since the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, Pakistan has become one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid – reportedly more than $10 billion.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) contends that torture is used extensively by both police and prison officials. It notes that no officials have been punished for engaging in such excesses. HRCP further alleges that instances of illegal detention occur on a relatively regular basis and that most of them go unreported.
The ICIJ report also says that Indonesia used the charitable foundation of a former Indonesian president to hire lobbyists to pressure Congress to keep U.S. funds flowing. Its report says the Indonesian government ran a concerted lobbying effort of Congress after the 9/11 attacks using “high-powered influence peddlers”, including former Republican Senator and 1996 presidential candidate Bob Dole.
The U.S. is providing military aid to six of the countries cited in the U.S. State Department’s latest series of human rights report for recruiting and using child soldiers.
They are Afghanistan, Chad, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Uganda.
And a second report -- by the Center for Defense Information (CDI) – charges that, while child soldiers are often recruited and deployed by rebel groups over which the government has little control, in other cases the recruitment is being carried out by directly by governments and government-supported paramilitaries.
For example, the CDI reports that in Chad, government security forces recruited and retained child soldiers and compelled forced labor by adults and children. It says that human rights abuses included killings and use of child soldiers, adding that government and other armed groups continued to use child soldiers.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the CDI reports that government military units and armed groups continued to recruit and maintain child soldiers in their ranks. It notes that military authorities took no action against commanders who employed child soldiers, and says that while the government reached agreements with militias for the demobilization of child soldiers, the groups did not generally respect the agreements.
In Sudan, the CDI report says, “There were numerous serious abuses, including forced military conscription of underage men and recruitment of child soldiers.”
Recruitment of child soldiers also remained a serious problem in Sudan’s Darfur region. While much of the recruitment was carried out by a variety of anti-government rebel groups, the CDI says there are credible reports that government and government-aligned militias also conscripted children to serve as soldiers.
The State Department and CDI reports come at a time when the Bush administration is sharply increasing its use of military aid as a reward for countries that cooperate with its war on terrorism, despite concerns about human rights and political instability.
The CDI found large increases in government and commercial U.S. arms sales in recent years to 25 countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa that have become allies against Islamist militancy since the Sept. 11 attacks.
The nonpartisan Washington-based think tank said half the countries were identified by the State Department in 2006 as having serious, grave or significant human rights problems.
The center's analysis of U.S. data showed government-to-government U.S. arms sales to some 25 countries rocketed to $3.9 billion in 2006 from about $400 million a year earlier. The 2006 figure accounted for about 22 percent of the total $18 billion in U.S. foreign military sales last year.
"The trend is continuing in a steep upward climb," said Rachel Stohl, a co-author of the CDI study.
The center also criticized the Bush administration for its increasing use of new military assistance accounts, which it said allow the Pentagon to bypass legal restrictions on training or arming human rights abusers.
"The United States is sending unprecedented levels of military assistance to countries that it simultaneously criticizes for lack of respect for human rights and, in some cases, for questionable democratic processes," the center said.
"While these countries are currently considered important to U.S. efforts in the 'war on terror' now, political and military instability makes their continued allegiance to the United States questionable."
Military aid increases were due in part to the lifting of sanctions and restrictions against certain countries immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, according to the center. Direct commercial sales, in which U.S. weapons manufacturers strike deals overseen by the State Department, stood at over $3 billion for the same countries during the period from 2002 through 2006. That was up from $72 million for the five years preceding the Sept. 11 attacks.
At the same time, the non-profit, non-partisan Center for Public Integrity (CPI) charges that foreign lobbyists are exploiting America’s post-9/11 fear to obtain billions of dollars in U.S. military aid – and a substantial part of it is being sent to countries that routinely violate human rights, participate in ‘extraordinary renditions,’ and recruit and deploy child soldiers.
These are among the conclusions of a yearlong study by a CPI team of seasoned reporters – known as the Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
The ICIJ report, titled “Collateral Damage”, concludes that “the influence of foreign lobbying on the U.S. government, as well as a shortsighted emphasis on counterterrorism objectives over broader human rights concerns, have generated staggering costs to the U.S. and its allies in money spent and political capital burned.”
“Deals to provide military aid to what are perceived as often corrupt and brutal governments have set back efforts to advance human rights and the rule of law,” the ICIJ report says.
Since 1950, the US government has provided over $91 billion to militaries around the world from a single fund. There are a number of additional funds, so the total is substantially higher. Most of the money comes from the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of State (DOS).
Joanne Mariner, Director of the Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program for Human Rights Watch, told us, “We're concerned that U.S. military aid is, in some cases, showered on repressive governments. In our view aid should be more carefully conditioned to ensure that abuses are not carried out with American funding.”
In their investigation, 10 ICIJ reporters on four continents explored American counterterrorism policy since the 2001 terrorist attacks. They found that post-9/11 U.S. political pressure, Washington lobbying and aid dollars have reshaped policies towards countries ranging from Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, to Pakistan and Thailand in Asia, Poland and Romania in Europe, to Colombia in South America.
The ICIJ report notes that many of the recipients of this aid are countries believed to be guilty of human rights abuses. For example, it charges that countries receiving military aid from the U.S. have participated in “extraordinary renditions” – kidnapping suspected terrorists or transferring prisoners to countries known to practice torture and other inhuman and degrading practices.
Reliable data shows that airplanes chartered by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) made at least 76 stopovers in Azerbaijan, 72 in Jordan, 61 in Egypt, 52 in Turkmenistan, 46 in Uzbekistan, 40 in Iraq, 40 in Morocco, 38 in Afghanistan, and 14 in Libya. Most of these countries are recipients of U.S. military assistance.
For example, in Uzbekistan, “Torture and ill-treatment” remain “widespread” and continue to occur with “impunity,” according to a highly critical assessment by the United Nations Committee Against Torture. Uzbekistan currently receives well over $100 million in U.S. military aid.
Since the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, Pakistan has become one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid – reportedly more than $10 billion.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) contends that torture is used extensively by both police and prison officials. It notes that no officials have been punished for engaging in such excesses. HRCP further alleges that instances of illegal detention occur on a relatively regular basis and that most of them go unreported.
The ICIJ report also says that Indonesia used the charitable foundation of a former Indonesian president to hire lobbyists to pressure Congress to keep U.S. funds flowing. Its report says the Indonesian government ran a concerted lobbying effort of Congress after the 9/11 attacks using “high-powered influence peddlers”, including former Republican Senator and 1996 presidential candidate Bob Dole.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Peering Into the Racial Divide
By William Fisher
Last week, the central Florida newspaper that gave me my start in journalism ran a story based on a 1950s reminiscence I wrote for Huffington Post.
My column recounted how, as a cub reporter, I witnessed the every-weekend mass and indiscriminate arrests of African-Americans by a posse of sheriff’s deputies from Volusia County, aided by local cops from the town of DeLand, where I ran the county seat bureau.
Back in those days, law enforcement departments operated on the “fee system.” That means they got a slice of the fines they collected, and that determined their annual budgets.
I wrote about men and women being arrested during these sorties into “colored town,” jailed without access to lawyers, eventually given court-appointed lawyers who showed up unprepared, or who were so hung over from their weekend revelries that they were incoherent or slept through their clients’ hearings.
Here’s a link to the story published by the Daytona Beach News-Journal on April 7.
http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Headlines/frtHEAD02040708.htm
And here’s a link to my original March 18 Huffington Post story.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-fisher/its-about-a-lot-more-tha_b_92231.html
What intrigued me most about this trip down memory lane were the comments posted by readers of the News-Journal’s article. These remarks tell me that racism is still alive and well on what is often called “The Redneck Riviera” – but that, unlike my experience there half a century ago, there are many who have refused to drink the Klan’s Kool-Aid.
Here’s a small sampling of some of the reader comments:
A guy named Dan wrote, “Why don’t you put this crap on black month and get over it!!!!!!”
And Dan had more than his share of cheerleaders.
One, identified as “whitey”, opined: “The liberal media will do anything, anytime, to stir the white/black pot. That's how many liberals make their living. I guess nobody called in any news to the Journal. So not being able to find their way around the streets of Volusia County, the News Journal crew went to their library to see if they could dig up some really old news. Well they did. Does anybody wonder why Rush Limbaugh labeled them all as ‘The drive by Media’? That's exactly what they are.”
Then there was Joe from Daytona, who wrote, “It’s interesting when you read the original article. With easy facts being wrong, such as 1952 being more than 45 years ago, rather than the 56 it really is. With his comments that Black people are directed to the wrong polling places (because of racism). With his failure to mention that Volusia was one of the first integrated Sheriff Departments in the state. With his implications that racism is still institutionalized here, while providing no examples. With all those things, it makes everything he wrote questionable. It almost seems like his memories are crafted by Hillary Clinton. Did he see any snipers?”
And “WhiterNU”, who wrote, “What you need to do is tell that to a ‘big, black, young-buck’. He'll remind you just how much you fear black people. I hope that you get a black president. When he's elected, I'll be laughing at you! LOL LOL LOL!!! Redneck garbage is what you are. I'll take black families as neighbors every time over white trash like you. Your momma should have aborted you. But that would have reduced her welfare benefits, thus necessitating, turning tricks again.”
And “Dizzy – Huh,” whose comment was, “Jimmy Crack Crow and I don't care, Jimmy Crack Crow and I don't care, my master's gone away!”
And “bohog” from Daytona Beach. His comment: “Now, This is what I would called racism. This does not exist in today's world, but black people still thinks it does.”
But these folks faced a lot of opposition as well as praise.
Dan caught a lot of flak. One reader wrote, “Hey Dan. You need to get a life, and open your eyes. Articles such as this should be presented whenever they are needed to make the general public, or should I say educated public, that racist practices must be eliminated. You get over it and wise up.”
And Gail from Palm Coast, wrote, “I hear that they're having a white sale at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Time for you to stock up on some white sheets for your gatherings.”
Another reader responded to Dan: “Good one. LOL Dan's just a racist idiot that must have lost his wife or girlfriend to a bro. You'll find that out the more of his posts you see. I think really all he does is come on here to try to start sh**! Idiot from the word gooooooooo!”
Yet another, “Wlindsey” from Port Orange, wrote: “We're clearly a community in need of racial healing. All the more reason to celebrate the heritage of Mary McLeod Bethune and the college she founded, which tries to bring blacks and whites together and heal the deep wounds of racial division by inclusive conversation and a curriculum centered on social justice.”
Many readers questioned the role of the media in presenting news in its historical context. For example:
“Fed Up – Florida” wrote, “It must have been a slow news day. This reporter went to a history book and decided it was news.”
“Jim” from Ormond Beach wrote, “ This is history, not news. Stories like this are frequently published, however, to fulfill their liberal agenda of keeping racial divisions alive for the political gain of Democrats. Too bad we'll never read an inspiring account about one of the hundreds of millions of Americans that have bettered their lives because of this nation. Freedom is now taken for granted by too many people, and because of this politicians continue to take it away bit by bit everyday. So sad.”
And “Active O” wrote, “I'm not reading this NEWS PAPER for a history lesson... and make no mistake... this is HISTORY... history would be... (A chronological record of significant events (as affecting a nation or institution... often including an explanation of their causes)... it is NOT to be confused with NEWS... (A report of recent events b: Previously unknown information) get it??? Jim Crow died... DEAD... put in the grave in the mid-1960's... thanks to you and the News-Journal for assuming a history lesson was in order here... but for my part... your assumptions are sickeningly incorrect! Thanks anyway!”
But “andy ray” from Deltona disagreed. “You can't get to where you are going unless you know where you have been.”
Another reader said, “Thanks for this insightful historical piece. It must be awful to read these comments and be criticized for doing your job by educating and informing. Any story about race draws the ignorant. I guess people would rather sweep it under the rug and blame the media for propagating. Keep on chugging; your work is appreciated.”
And “Marley” reminded Jim: “History can serve as a reminder of today’s news, after all, history repeats itself, especially with the ignorant.”
Finally, “DlndChic” weighed in with “Quoting Rush Limbaugh doesn't show much intelligence…I'm blessed and thankful for those who are willing to keep their hearts and minds open. Only the ignorant will repeat mistakes made by others. The more intelligent will learn from them.”
I happily cast my lot with “DlandChic.” We scriveners cherish “those who are willing to keep their hearts and minds open.” We hope they will learn from our efforts to present the past as well as the present. In the news business, it’s called “context.”
Journalists who do their work without it do all of us a disservice.
Last week, the central Florida newspaper that gave me my start in journalism ran a story based on a 1950s reminiscence I wrote for Huffington Post.
My column recounted how, as a cub reporter, I witnessed the every-weekend mass and indiscriminate arrests of African-Americans by a posse of sheriff’s deputies from Volusia County, aided by local cops from the town of DeLand, where I ran the county seat bureau.
Back in those days, law enforcement departments operated on the “fee system.” That means they got a slice of the fines they collected, and that determined their annual budgets.
I wrote about men and women being arrested during these sorties into “colored town,” jailed without access to lawyers, eventually given court-appointed lawyers who showed up unprepared, or who were so hung over from their weekend revelries that they were incoherent or slept through their clients’ hearings.
Here’s a link to the story published by the Daytona Beach News-Journal on April 7.
http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Headlines/frtHEAD02040708.htm
And here’s a link to my original March 18 Huffington Post story.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-fisher/its-about-a-lot-more-tha_b_92231.html
What intrigued me most about this trip down memory lane were the comments posted by readers of the News-Journal’s article. These remarks tell me that racism is still alive and well on what is often called “The Redneck Riviera” – but that, unlike my experience there half a century ago, there are many who have refused to drink the Klan’s Kool-Aid.
Here’s a small sampling of some of the reader comments:
A guy named Dan wrote, “Why don’t you put this crap on black month and get over it!!!!!!”
And Dan had more than his share of cheerleaders.
One, identified as “whitey”, opined: “The liberal media will do anything, anytime, to stir the white/black pot. That's how many liberals make their living. I guess nobody called in any news to the Journal. So not being able to find their way around the streets of Volusia County, the News Journal crew went to their library to see if they could dig up some really old news. Well they did. Does anybody wonder why Rush Limbaugh labeled them all as ‘The drive by Media’? That's exactly what they are.”
Then there was Joe from Daytona, who wrote, “It’s interesting when you read the original article. With easy facts being wrong, such as 1952 being more than 45 years ago, rather than the 56 it really is. With his comments that Black people are directed to the wrong polling places (because of racism). With his failure to mention that Volusia was one of the first integrated Sheriff Departments in the state. With his implications that racism is still institutionalized here, while providing no examples. With all those things, it makes everything he wrote questionable. It almost seems like his memories are crafted by Hillary Clinton. Did he see any snipers?”
And “WhiterNU”, who wrote, “What you need to do is tell that to a ‘big, black, young-buck’. He'll remind you just how much you fear black people. I hope that you get a black president. When he's elected, I'll be laughing at you! LOL LOL LOL!!! Redneck garbage is what you are. I'll take black families as neighbors every time over white trash like you. Your momma should have aborted you. But that would have reduced her welfare benefits, thus necessitating, turning tricks again.”
And “Dizzy – Huh,” whose comment was, “Jimmy Crack Crow and I don't care, Jimmy Crack Crow and I don't care, my master's gone away!”
And “bohog” from Daytona Beach. His comment: “Now, This is what I would called racism. This does not exist in today's world, but black people still thinks it does.”
But these folks faced a lot of opposition as well as praise.
Dan caught a lot of flak. One reader wrote, “Hey Dan. You need to get a life, and open your eyes. Articles such as this should be presented whenever they are needed to make the general public, or should I say educated public, that racist practices must be eliminated. You get over it and wise up.”
And Gail from Palm Coast, wrote, “I hear that they're having a white sale at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Time for you to stock up on some white sheets for your gatherings.”
Another reader responded to Dan: “Good one. LOL Dan's just a racist idiot that must have lost his wife or girlfriend to a bro. You'll find that out the more of his posts you see. I think really all he does is come on here to try to start sh**! Idiot from the word gooooooooo!”
Yet another, “Wlindsey” from Port Orange, wrote: “We're clearly a community in need of racial healing. All the more reason to celebrate the heritage of Mary McLeod Bethune and the college she founded, which tries to bring blacks and whites together and heal the deep wounds of racial division by inclusive conversation and a curriculum centered on social justice.”
Many readers questioned the role of the media in presenting news in its historical context. For example:
“Fed Up – Florida” wrote, “It must have been a slow news day. This reporter went to a history book and decided it was news.”
“Jim” from Ormond Beach wrote, “ This is history, not news. Stories like this are frequently published, however, to fulfill their liberal agenda of keeping racial divisions alive for the political gain of Democrats. Too bad we'll never read an inspiring account about one of the hundreds of millions of Americans that have bettered their lives because of this nation. Freedom is now taken for granted by too many people, and because of this politicians continue to take it away bit by bit everyday. So sad.”
And “Active O” wrote, “I'm not reading this NEWS PAPER for a history lesson... and make no mistake... this is HISTORY... history would be... (A chronological record of significant events (as affecting a nation or institution... often including an explanation of their causes)... it is NOT to be confused with NEWS... (A report of recent events b: Previously unknown information) get it??? Jim Crow died... DEAD... put in the grave in the mid-1960's... thanks to you and the News-Journal for assuming a history lesson was in order here... but for my part... your assumptions are sickeningly incorrect! Thanks anyway!”
But “andy ray” from Deltona disagreed. “You can't get to where you are going unless you know where you have been.”
Another reader said, “Thanks for this insightful historical piece. It must be awful to read these comments and be criticized for doing your job by educating and informing. Any story about race draws the ignorant. I guess people would rather sweep it under the rug and blame the media for propagating. Keep on chugging; your work is appreciated.”
And “Marley” reminded Jim: “History can serve as a reminder of today’s news, after all, history repeats itself, especially with the ignorant.”
Finally, “DlndChic” weighed in with “Quoting Rush Limbaugh doesn't show much intelligence…I'm blessed and thankful for those who are willing to keep their hearts and minds open. Only the ignorant will repeat mistakes made by others. The more intelligent will learn from them.”
I happily cast my lot with “DlandChic.” We scriveners cherish “those who are willing to keep their hearts and minds open.” We hope they will learn from our efforts to present the past as well as the present. In the news business, it’s called “context.”
Journalists who do their work without it do all of us a disservice.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
A Double-Standard For Jordan?
By William Fisher
When Jordan’s King Abdullah II addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress in March 2007, his speech was filled with words like peace and justice.
He was, of course, referring to the plight of the Palestinian people in their ongoing struggle with Israel. He had a good case to make.
And Congress gave him a standing ovation for making it.
But what he left out was any reference to Jordan’s own state of peace and justice.
Now we learn that this small Mideast country –often described by the mainstream media as the most moderate of America’s allies in the region -- was the first to receive prisoners “as a true proxy jailer for the CIA”, has received more victims of “extraordinary rendition” than any other country in the world, and has systematically subjected detainees to torture.
These are the principal conclusions of a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), a Washington-based advocacy organization.
The report charges that U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, were aware that “Jordan was already notorious for torturing security detainees” because the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) “already had a history of close relations” with Jordan’s General Intelligence Department (GID).”
HRW charges that “Torture and cruel or inhuman treatment seems to have been systematically used” against most of the detainees rendered by the CIA to Jordan. “Detainees claim they were threatened, beaten, insulted, deprived of sleep, and subjected to falaqa -- a form of torture in which the soles of the feet are beaten with an object,” HRW says.
The report claims that rendered prisoners were “hidden whenever the International Committee of the Red Cross visited.”
It adds that the CIA’s long-standing relationship with Jordanian security services may have given U.S. officials confidence that the Jordanians “would be particularly good at keeping the fact of the detentions secret.”
Joanne Mariner, Director of the Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program for Human Rights Watch, told us, “The rendition cases we've documented in Jordan show the unreality of the Bush administration's claims that it did not hand people over to face torture.”
She added, “Not only did the CIA illegally detain prisoners in its own prisons in the years after September 11, it secretly outsourced the interrogation, detention, and torture of more than a dozen prisoners in Jordan.”
HRW says the precise number of people rendered to Jordan by the CIA is not known. But it asserts that rendered prisoners were taken to Jordan for one purpose only: to extract confessions of terrorist activities. “It is clear that many of the detainees were returned to CIA custody immediately after intensive periods of abusive interrogation in Jordan.”
Some of these people were then returned to custody in their home countries while others were taken to the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where some of them still remain. At least five men who are currently detained at Guantanamo were previously rendered to Jordan for some amount of time during the period of 2001 to 2004, HRW says.
In addition, at least two Yemeni prisoners who were later held in secret CIA prisons -- without being sent to Guantanamo -- were arrested in Jordan and held in the custody of the Jordanian security services for a few days or weeks prior to their transfer into U.S. custody.
HRW says “Some of the detainees who arrived in Jordan in 2002 were held for more than a year”, leaving Jordanian custody in 2004. Some former prisoners told Human Rights Watch that “for a while in 2002 and 2003 the detention facility was full of non-Jordanian prisoners who had been delivered by the CIA.”
The report says that after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the CIA quickly began rendering suspected terrorists to Jordan for interrogation.
Those rendered by the CIA to Jordan may have declined over time because the CIA developed its own detention capacity, opening secret facilities in Thailand, Afghanistan, Poland, and Romania, and had less need to rely on Jordan, the HRW report says.
The report concludes that U.S. government officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, were well aware of the hollowness of the “diplomatic assurances” it received from Jordan that it would not subject rendered prisoners to torture.
The report recalls that Rice, under pressure from European allies because of press revelations about CIA activities in Europe, offered a vigorous defense of U.S. rendition practices in December 2005.
Asserting that the practice of rendition was a “vital tool in combating transnational terrorism,” Rice claimed that the United States and other countries have long relied on renditions to transport terrorist suspects from the country where they were arrested to their home country or to other countries where they can be held and questioned.
She insisted that the United States “does not transport, and has not transported, detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation using torture.” Instead, she explained that, where necessary, “the United States seeks assurances that transferred persons will not be tortured.”
HRW says, “The systematic nature of the abuses suffered by prisoners rendered to Jordan contradicts Rice’s bland reassurances. If the Jordanians did indeed promise the US authorities that prisoners rendered there would not be tortured, it was a promise that neither the US nor Jordan believed.”
The Jordan chapter of the U.S. State Department’s 2001 human rights report states that prisoners in the custody of Jordanian police and security forces have alleged that “methods of torture include sleep deprivation, beatings on the soles of the feet, prolonged suspension with ropes in contorted positions, and extended solitary confinement.”
The report notes that Michael Scheuer, a former CIA officer who claims to have initiated the terrorist rendition program during the Clinton Administration, “rightly dismisses these assurances as ‘legal niceties’ -- pledges meant to look good on paper, which provide no real protection. He has said that both CIA agents and their superiors were aware that abuses were likely.”
HRW reports that Pakistan, and in particular the city of Karachi, was the source of at least six detainees believed to have been rendered to Jordan from U.S. custody. “The Pakistani authorities have made no secret of the fact that since September 2001 they have handed over several hundred terrorism suspects to the United States, boasting of the transfers as proof of Pakistan’s cooperation in US counterterrorism efforts,” HRW says.
“A large number of these men ended up at Guantanamo; some ended up in secret CIA prisons, and others were rendered to Jordan and other countries.”
The US practice of rendering terrorist suspects abroad -- transferring prisoners to foreign custody outside of normal legal proceedings -- predates the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. During the administration of President Bill Clinton, the CIA rendered a number of Egyptian terrorist suspects from countries such as Albania and Croatia to Egypt, where some of them had previously been sentenced to death in absentia.
HRW notes that after September 2001, the CIA’s rendition practices changed. “Rather than returning people to their home countries to face ‘justice’ (albeit justice that included torture and grossly unfair trials), the CIA began handing people over to third countries apparently to facilitate abusive interrogations.”
Following the September 11 attacks, U.S. President George W. Bush signed a classified presidential directive giving the CIA expanded authority to arrest, interrogate, detain, and render terrorist suspects arrested abroad. Since that time, the US is believed to have rendered terrorism suspects to the custody of Egypt, Morocco, Libya, and Syria, in addition to Jordan.
The HRW report calls on the U.S. government to repudiate the use of rendition to torture as a counterterrorism tactic, discontinue the CIA’s rendition program, and “disclose the identities, fate, and current whereabouts of all persons detained by the CIA or rendered to foreign custody by the CIA since 2001, including detainees who were rendered to Jordan.”
And it calls on Jordan’s government to repudiate its role as a proxy jailer in the CIA’s rendition program; disclose the identities, fate, and current whereabouts of all persons rendered to Jordan by the CIA since 2001; make public any audio recordings or videotapes made of interrogations of detainees rendered by the CIA to Jordan; and open an immediate independent judicial inquiry into the GID’s use of torture, ill-treatment, and arbitrary detention.
Dare we hope that the young monarch – and his American partners -- will heed this advice before he comes before the next joint session of Congress?
Well, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
When Jordan’s King Abdullah II addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress in March 2007, his speech was filled with words like peace and justice.
He was, of course, referring to the plight of the Palestinian people in their ongoing struggle with Israel. He had a good case to make.
And Congress gave him a standing ovation for making it.
But what he left out was any reference to Jordan’s own state of peace and justice.
Now we learn that this small Mideast country –often described by the mainstream media as the most moderate of America’s allies in the region -- was the first to receive prisoners “as a true proxy jailer for the CIA”, has received more victims of “extraordinary rendition” than any other country in the world, and has systematically subjected detainees to torture.
These are the principal conclusions of a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), a Washington-based advocacy organization.
The report charges that U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, were aware that “Jordan was already notorious for torturing security detainees” because the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) “already had a history of close relations” with Jordan’s General Intelligence Department (GID).”
HRW charges that “Torture and cruel or inhuman treatment seems to have been systematically used” against most of the detainees rendered by the CIA to Jordan. “Detainees claim they were threatened, beaten, insulted, deprived of sleep, and subjected to falaqa -- a form of torture in which the soles of the feet are beaten with an object,” HRW says.
The report claims that rendered prisoners were “hidden whenever the International Committee of the Red Cross visited.”
It adds that the CIA’s long-standing relationship with Jordanian security services may have given U.S. officials confidence that the Jordanians “would be particularly good at keeping the fact of the detentions secret.”
Joanne Mariner, Director of the Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program for Human Rights Watch, told us, “The rendition cases we've documented in Jordan show the unreality of the Bush administration's claims that it did not hand people over to face torture.”
She added, “Not only did the CIA illegally detain prisoners in its own prisons in the years after September 11, it secretly outsourced the interrogation, detention, and torture of more than a dozen prisoners in Jordan.”
HRW says the precise number of people rendered to Jordan by the CIA is not known. But it asserts that rendered prisoners were taken to Jordan for one purpose only: to extract confessions of terrorist activities. “It is clear that many of the detainees were returned to CIA custody immediately after intensive periods of abusive interrogation in Jordan.”
Some of these people were then returned to custody in their home countries while others were taken to the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where some of them still remain. At least five men who are currently detained at Guantanamo were previously rendered to Jordan for some amount of time during the period of 2001 to 2004, HRW says.
In addition, at least two Yemeni prisoners who were later held in secret CIA prisons -- without being sent to Guantanamo -- were arrested in Jordan and held in the custody of the Jordanian security services for a few days or weeks prior to their transfer into U.S. custody.
HRW says “Some of the detainees who arrived in Jordan in 2002 were held for more than a year”, leaving Jordanian custody in 2004. Some former prisoners told Human Rights Watch that “for a while in 2002 and 2003 the detention facility was full of non-Jordanian prisoners who had been delivered by the CIA.”
The report says that after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the CIA quickly began rendering suspected terrorists to Jordan for interrogation.
Those rendered by the CIA to Jordan may have declined over time because the CIA developed its own detention capacity, opening secret facilities in Thailand, Afghanistan, Poland, and Romania, and had less need to rely on Jordan, the HRW report says.
The report concludes that U.S. government officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, were well aware of the hollowness of the “diplomatic assurances” it received from Jordan that it would not subject rendered prisoners to torture.
The report recalls that Rice, under pressure from European allies because of press revelations about CIA activities in Europe, offered a vigorous defense of U.S. rendition practices in December 2005.
Asserting that the practice of rendition was a “vital tool in combating transnational terrorism,” Rice claimed that the United States and other countries have long relied on renditions to transport terrorist suspects from the country where they were arrested to their home country or to other countries where they can be held and questioned.
She insisted that the United States “does not transport, and has not transported, detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation using torture.” Instead, she explained that, where necessary, “the United States seeks assurances that transferred persons will not be tortured.”
HRW says, “The systematic nature of the abuses suffered by prisoners rendered to Jordan contradicts Rice’s bland reassurances. If the Jordanians did indeed promise the US authorities that prisoners rendered there would not be tortured, it was a promise that neither the US nor Jordan believed.”
The Jordan chapter of the U.S. State Department’s 2001 human rights report states that prisoners in the custody of Jordanian police and security forces have alleged that “methods of torture include sleep deprivation, beatings on the soles of the feet, prolonged suspension with ropes in contorted positions, and extended solitary confinement.”
The report notes that Michael Scheuer, a former CIA officer who claims to have initiated the terrorist rendition program during the Clinton Administration, “rightly dismisses these assurances as ‘legal niceties’ -- pledges meant to look good on paper, which provide no real protection. He has said that both CIA agents and their superiors were aware that abuses were likely.”
HRW reports that Pakistan, and in particular the city of Karachi, was the source of at least six detainees believed to have been rendered to Jordan from U.S. custody. “The Pakistani authorities have made no secret of the fact that since September 2001 they have handed over several hundred terrorism suspects to the United States, boasting of the transfers as proof of Pakistan’s cooperation in US counterterrorism efforts,” HRW says.
“A large number of these men ended up at Guantanamo; some ended up in secret CIA prisons, and others were rendered to Jordan and other countries.”
The US practice of rendering terrorist suspects abroad -- transferring prisoners to foreign custody outside of normal legal proceedings -- predates the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. During the administration of President Bill Clinton, the CIA rendered a number of Egyptian terrorist suspects from countries such as Albania and Croatia to Egypt, where some of them had previously been sentenced to death in absentia.
HRW notes that after September 2001, the CIA’s rendition practices changed. “Rather than returning people to their home countries to face ‘justice’ (albeit justice that included torture and grossly unfair trials), the CIA began handing people over to third countries apparently to facilitate abusive interrogations.”
Following the September 11 attacks, U.S. President George W. Bush signed a classified presidential directive giving the CIA expanded authority to arrest, interrogate, detain, and render terrorist suspects arrested abroad. Since that time, the US is believed to have rendered terrorism suspects to the custody of Egypt, Morocco, Libya, and Syria, in addition to Jordan.
The HRW report calls on the U.S. government to repudiate the use of rendition to torture as a counterterrorism tactic, discontinue the CIA’s rendition program, and “disclose the identities, fate, and current whereabouts of all persons detained by the CIA or rendered to foreign custody by the CIA since 2001, including detainees who were rendered to Jordan.”
And it calls on Jordan’s government to repudiate its role as a proxy jailer in the CIA’s rendition program; disclose the identities, fate, and current whereabouts of all persons rendered to Jordan by the CIA since 2001; make public any audio recordings or videotapes made of interrogations of detainees rendered by the CIA to Jordan; and open an immediate independent judicial inquiry into the GID’s use of torture, ill-treatment, and arbitrary detention.
Dare we hope that the young monarch – and his American partners -- will heed this advice before he comes before the next joint session of Congress?
Well, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
COLLATERAL DAMAGE?
By William Fisher
Foreign lobbyists are exploiting America’s post-9/11 fear to obtain billions of dollars in U.S. military aid – and a substantial part of it is being sent to countries that routinely violate human rights, participate in ‘extraordinary renditions,’ and recruit and deploy child soldiers.
These are among the conclusions of a year-long study by a team of seasoned reporters – known as the Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) --under the aegis of the non-profit, non-partisan Center for Public Integrity (CPI).
The ICIJ report, titled “Collateral Damage”, concludes that “the influence of foreign lobbying on the U.S. government, as well as a shortsighted emphasis on counterterrorism objectives over broader human rights concerns, have generated staggering costs to the U.S. and its allies in money spent and political capital burned.”
“Deals to provide military aid to what are perceived as often corrupt and brutal governments have set back efforts to advance human rights and the rule of law,” the ICIJ report says.
Since 1950, the US government has provided over $91 billion to militaries around the world from a single fund. There are a number of additional funds, so total is substantially higher. Most of the money comes from the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of State (DOS).
In their investigation, 10 ICIJ reporters on four continents explored American counterterrorism policy since the 2001 terrorist attacks. They found that post-9/11 U.S. political pressure, Washington lobbying and aid dollars have reshaped policies towards countries ranging from Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, to Pakistan and Thailand in Asia, Poland and Romania in Europe, to Colombia in South America.
The ICIJ report documents substantial increases in U.S. military aid since the attacks of September 11, 2001 on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The 2008 budget presented to Congress by President George W. Bush requested an increase of more than a billion dollars for military and security assistance, particularly to key ''front-line'' states in the ''war on terror".
But the ICIJ report notes that many of the recipients of this aid are countries believed to be guilty of human rights abuses.
For example, the report highlights the continued use and recruitment of child soldiers by governments and government-supported paramilitaries, militias and other armed groups in eight countries. The U.S. provides military assistance to six of those eight countries: Afghanistan, Chad, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Uganda.
It charges that countries receiving military aid from the U.S. have also participated in “extraordinary renditions” – kidnapping suspected terrorists or transferring prisoners to countries known to practice torture and other inhuman and degrading practices.
Reliable data shows that airplanes chartered by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) made at least 76 stopovers in Azerbaijan, 72 in Jordan, 61 in Egypt, 52 in Turkmenistan, 46 in Uzbekistan, 40 in Iraq, 40 in Morocco, 38 in Afghanistan, and 14 in Libya. Most of these countries are recipients of U.S. military assistance.
The British Government recently disclosed, and the U.S. acknowledged, that CIA aircraft had touched down on Diego Garcia, a U.K. territory in the Indian Ocean. It is believed that CIA flights included hundreds carrying prisoners to the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba.
Until North American and European media exposed the practice, the U.S., along with countries reportedly receiving rendered prisoners, denied that “extraordinary renditions” were part of government policy.
For example, in a meeting with Human Rights Watch in late August 2007, Jordanian officials categorically denied that it had held prisoners rendered by the United States.
Often characterized by the mainstream press as being one of the most moderate nations in the Arab Middle East, Jordan was receiving more than $2.7 billion in U.S. military aid as of 2004, and the sum has reportedly increased since then.
Jordanian officials have denied that they inflict torture in detention. But Human Rights Watch concludes, “Given the weight of credible evidence showing the opposite, their denials are unconvincing.”
Egypt -- a key U.S. ally – has long been the second-largest recipient of U.S. aid, after only Israel. Washington provides $1.3 billion in annual military aid, a sum that amounts to 80 percent of Egypt’s military’s budget. Its secret police are notorious for their brutality during interrogations.
In Uzbekistan, according to a highly critical assessment by the United Nations Committee Against Torture, torture and ill-treatment remain “widespread” and continue to occur with “impunity.” Uzbekistan currently receives well over $100 million in U.S. military aid.
Although there have been prosecutions of Uzbek police for torture -- some 42 cases, according to the ICIJ report -- representatives of human rights groups assert that most of these cases resulted in convictions based on confessions and testimony linked to torture. They contend that the Uzbek government has grown more, rather than less, repressive over time
Since the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, Pakistan has become one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid – reportedly more than $10 billion.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) contends that torture is used extensively by both police and prison officials. It notes that no officials have been punished for engaging in such excesses. HRCP further alleges that instances of illegal detention occur on a relatively regular basis and that most of them go unreported.
Pakistan’s use of U.S. military assistance funds has also been the subject of serious questions raised in Congress and by human rights groups. Tim Rieser, a key adviser to Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, told the ICJ, “With the possible exception of Iraq reconstruction funds, I've never seen a larger blank check for any country.”
He added, “There is no formal auditing mechanism to verify costs apart from local U.S. embassies and military officials vouching for the accuracy of the submitted bills.” He charged that the former Republican congress "did next to nothing to track what was done with the money."
The ICJ said it “found little evidence that the U.S. government has paid significant attention to improving the accountability and human rights practices of Pakistan’s internal security forces.”
Indonesia – not long ago banned from American help because of its conflict with East Timor -- is now another recipient of substantial U.S. military aid. To increase the flow of U.S. money, the Indonesian intelligence agency used the charitable foundation of a former Indonesian president to hire lobbyists to pressure Congress on keeping the spigots open. The ICIJ report says the Indonesian government ran a concerted lobbying effort of Congress after the 9/11 attacks using “high-powered influence peddlers”, including former Republican Senator and 1996 presidential candidate Bob Dole.
The U.S. State Department reported, “Inadequate resources, poor leadership, and limited accountability contributed to serious violations by security forces. Widespread corruption further degraded an already weak regard for rule of law and contributed to impunity.”
Alleged human rights violations included extrajudicial killings, disappearances, torture, harsh prison conditions, arbitrary detentions, a corrupt judicial system, infringements on free speech, peaceful assembly, and freedom of religion, and sexual abuse against women and children.
Foreign lobbyists are exploiting America’s post-9/11 fear to obtain billions of dollars in U.S. military aid – and a substantial part of it is being sent to countries that routinely violate human rights, participate in ‘extraordinary renditions,’ and recruit and deploy child soldiers.
These are among the conclusions of a year-long study by a team of seasoned reporters – known as the Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) --under the aegis of the non-profit, non-partisan Center for Public Integrity (CPI).
The ICIJ report, titled “Collateral Damage”, concludes that “the influence of foreign lobbying on the U.S. government, as well as a shortsighted emphasis on counterterrorism objectives over broader human rights concerns, have generated staggering costs to the U.S. and its allies in money spent and political capital burned.”
“Deals to provide military aid to what are perceived as often corrupt and brutal governments have set back efforts to advance human rights and the rule of law,” the ICIJ report says.
Since 1950, the US government has provided over $91 billion to militaries around the world from a single fund. There are a number of additional funds, so total is substantially higher. Most of the money comes from the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of State (DOS).
In their investigation, 10 ICIJ reporters on four continents explored American counterterrorism policy since the 2001 terrorist attacks. They found that post-9/11 U.S. political pressure, Washington lobbying and aid dollars have reshaped policies towards countries ranging from Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, to Pakistan and Thailand in Asia, Poland and Romania in Europe, to Colombia in South America.
The ICIJ report documents substantial increases in U.S. military aid since the attacks of September 11, 2001 on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The 2008 budget presented to Congress by President George W. Bush requested an increase of more than a billion dollars for military and security assistance, particularly to key ''front-line'' states in the ''war on terror".
But the ICIJ report notes that many of the recipients of this aid are countries believed to be guilty of human rights abuses.
For example, the report highlights the continued use and recruitment of child soldiers by governments and government-supported paramilitaries, militias and other armed groups in eight countries. The U.S. provides military assistance to six of those eight countries: Afghanistan, Chad, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Uganda.
It charges that countries receiving military aid from the U.S. have also participated in “extraordinary renditions” – kidnapping suspected terrorists or transferring prisoners to countries known to practice torture and other inhuman and degrading practices.
Reliable data shows that airplanes chartered by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) made at least 76 stopovers in Azerbaijan, 72 in Jordan, 61 in Egypt, 52 in Turkmenistan, 46 in Uzbekistan, 40 in Iraq, 40 in Morocco, 38 in Afghanistan, and 14 in Libya. Most of these countries are recipients of U.S. military assistance.
The British Government recently disclosed, and the U.S. acknowledged, that CIA aircraft had touched down on Diego Garcia, a U.K. territory in the Indian Ocean. It is believed that CIA flights included hundreds carrying prisoners to the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba.
Until North American and European media exposed the practice, the U.S., along with countries reportedly receiving rendered prisoners, denied that “extraordinary renditions” were part of government policy.
For example, in a meeting with Human Rights Watch in late August 2007, Jordanian officials categorically denied that it had held prisoners rendered by the United States.
Often characterized by the mainstream press as being one of the most moderate nations in the Arab Middle East, Jordan was receiving more than $2.7 billion in U.S. military aid as of 2004, and the sum has reportedly increased since then.
Jordanian officials have denied that they inflict torture in detention. But Human Rights Watch concludes, “Given the weight of credible evidence showing the opposite, their denials are unconvincing.”
Egypt -- a key U.S. ally – has long been the second-largest recipient of U.S. aid, after only Israel. Washington provides $1.3 billion in annual military aid, a sum that amounts to 80 percent of Egypt’s military’s budget. Its secret police are notorious for their brutality during interrogations.
In Uzbekistan, according to a highly critical assessment by the United Nations Committee Against Torture, torture and ill-treatment remain “widespread” and continue to occur with “impunity.” Uzbekistan currently receives well over $100 million in U.S. military aid.
Although there have been prosecutions of Uzbek police for torture -- some 42 cases, according to the ICIJ report -- representatives of human rights groups assert that most of these cases resulted in convictions based on confessions and testimony linked to torture. They contend that the Uzbek government has grown more, rather than less, repressive over time
Since the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, Pakistan has become one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid – reportedly more than $10 billion.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) contends that torture is used extensively by both police and prison officials. It notes that no officials have been punished for engaging in such excesses. HRCP further alleges that instances of illegal detention occur on a relatively regular basis and that most of them go unreported.
Pakistan’s use of U.S. military assistance funds has also been the subject of serious questions raised in Congress and by human rights groups. Tim Rieser, a key adviser to Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, told the ICJ, “With the possible exception of Iraq reconstruction funds, I've never seen a larger blank check for any country.”
He added, “There is no formal auditing mechanism to verify costs apart from local U.S. embassies and military officials vouching for the accuracy of the submitted bills.” He charged that the former Republican congress "did next to nothing to track what was done with the money."
The ICJ said it “found little evidence that the U.S. government has paid significant attention to improving the accountability and human rights practices of Pakistan’s internal security forces.”
Indonesia – not long ago banned from American help because of its conflict with East Timor -- is now another recipient of substantial U.S. military aid. To increase the flow of U.S. money, the Indonesian intelligence agency used the charitable foundation of a former Indonesian president to hire lobbyists to pressure Congress on keeping the spigots open. The ICIJ report says the Indonesian government ran a concerted lobbying effort of Congress after the 9/11 attacks using “high-powered influence peddlers”, including former Republican Senator and 1996 presidential candidate Bob Dole.
The U.S. State Department reported, “Inadequate resources, poor leadership, and limited accountability contributed to serious violations by security forces. Widespread corruption further degraded an already weak regard for rule of law and contributed to impunity.”
Alleged human rights violations included extrajudicial killings, disappearances, torture, harsh prison conditions, arbitrary detentions, a corrupt judicial system, infringements on free speech, peaceful assembly, and freedom of religion, and sexual abuse against women and children.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
OBAMA, WRIGHT, AND THE MEDIA
By William Fisher
Amid the explosive controversy over remarks made in sermons by Sen. Barack Obama’s former pastor, critics are charging that America’s mainstream media has distorted his comments with out-of-context soundbites, failed to understand the African American church, sought to punish the Democratic Party presidential hopeful through “guilt by association,” and gave a free pass to what they say are equally incendiary remarks made by white clergy on the religious right.
At the center of the storm that engulfed Barack Obama's presidential campaign is his spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Wright is the former pastor of the Obama’s church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago's south side. He officiated at Obama's wedding and baptized his daughters.
Parts of Wright’s sermons have been played millions of times on the Internet and on television and have become a major issue for the Obama campaign. Wright's comments prompted Obama to give a groundbreaking speech on race in America – the first time in decades that this issue has been addressed by a candidate for the presidential nomination. In the speech, Obama said he rejected Wright’s more inflammatory statements, but refused to disown his longtime spiritual advisor.
Among Wright’s remarks:
"The government gives them (African Americans) the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, Goddamn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. Goddamn America for treating our citizens as less than human. Goddamn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."
"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans and now (post 9/11) we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."
The comments of Dr. George Hunsinger of Princeton University, an ordained Presbyterian minister, are typical of those who believe the American popular media have distorted Wright’s remarks.
He told us, “I think we are looking at some basic questions of fairness. Is it really fair to take a minister's remarks, no matter how provocative or ill-advised, out of context and to broadcast them incessantly, as if they were the only thing that minister ever said or believed? What purposes are served by this sort of propaganda?”
Hunsinger also raised the issue of faulting Obama for remarks made by Wright. “Is it really fair to slime a candidate with the defamation of guilt by association? Does anyone really believe that tactics like this belong in a well-functioning democracy? What kind of media succumbs to these tactics? Finally, is it really fair to act as though African Americans should all be a bunch of happy watermellon eating black folks with no historic grievances that our nation has yet to address? What universe are we living in?”
Another prominent theologian, Rev. Martin Marty of the University of Chicago Divinity School, said he “does not excuse some of the indefensible comments of Wright that have now been bludgeoned into our consciousness to the exclusion of all else. And those comments should not be excused. And they have not been excused by Obama.”
But he says, “The four S's charged against Wright -- segregation, separatism, sectarianism, and superiority -- don't stand up…” He said Trinity “has made strenuous efforts to help black Christians overcome the shame they had so long been conditioned to experience…People do not leave Trinity ready to beat up on white people; they are charged to make peace.”
Civil libertarians have also been weighing in on the continuing Wright/Obama controversy. For example, Marjorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers Guild, told us, “Wright’s comments were taken out of context to make it seem like he was justifying the 9/11 attacks and was therefore unpatriotic. But when you listen to his entire sermon, he characterizes them as blowback for a vicious U.S. foreign policy.”
She added, “The cable (news) stations played the soundbites over and over, distorting their real meaning. Over the weekend, when news was slow, CNN played one of Wright's sermons in its entirety, which was helpful.”
In his speech, Obama called an Americans to begin a national conversation on race and ethnicity. Cohn told IPS that this “is already happening in the corporate media and on the Web among grassroots organizations. There is so much to talk about, this discourse will, and should, go on for a long time. We have a long way to go in overcoming racism.”
But she expressed doubt that the Bush Administration will take any substantive action to encourage the debate. “The Bush administration likes to sugar coat, i.e. spin, the most important problems, such as the failing economy, and the increasingly disastrous situation in Iraq. By encouraging a national debate about institutional racism, the administration would be admitting to its own shortcomings. It won't happen.”
The National Lawyers Guild was founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association which, at that time, did not accept African-American lawyers as members.
Most polling data suggest that the Wright controversy has not damaged Sen. Obama’s presidential bid. But Harold Ickes, a senior advisor to Sen. Hillary Clinton, his competitor for the Democratic Party nomination, is quoted as saying that the Clinton campaign would use it as a way of persuading Party insiders – known as Super-Delegates – that Obama is not electable.
Meanwhile, theologians in Texas expressed support for Wright at a symposium last weekend on the “State of Black Church.” Dr. Stacey Floyd-Thomas, associate professor of ethics and director of black church studies at the Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, said, ""What is eminently clear is the degree to which the black church is still largely misunderstood and routinely caricatured in U.S. popular culture.”
She added, “If Wright is guilty of anything, (he is) guilty of loving the U.S. enough to tell the United States the truth. Patriots and prophets are "often called to speak harsh words to their nation, not out of a place of hatred, as some suggest, but from an impassioned place of profound love and the highest of expectations.” Wright is a former member of the U.S. Marine Corps.
In contrast to the Wright/Obama furor, criticism of right-wing clergy has been muted or non-existent. For example, Mike Huckabee, a former candidate for the Republican nomination for president, has said, "I got into politics because I knew government didn't have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives...I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ." Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, is a former governor of Arkansas.
Also attracting little attention in the U.S. mainstream press are endorsements by prominent conservative clergymen of the presumptive Republican nominee for president, Sen. John McCain of Arizona. One of them, Rev. John Hagee, has said Roman Catholicism is ‘A Godless theology of hate that no one dared try to stop for a thousand years.” He said that the Catholic religion has “produced a harvest of hate.” Hagee has confirmed that McCain sought his endorsement. McCain has said he was proud to have Hagee’s support.
Another prominent McCain supporter, Rev. Rod Parsley, has said, “America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion (Islam) destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.”
Amid the explosive controversy over remarks made in sermons by Sen. Barack Obama’s former pastor, critics are charging that America’s mainstream media has distorted his comments with out-of-context soundbites, failed to understand the African American church, sought to punish the Democratic Party presidential hopeful through “guilt by association,” and gave a free pass to what they say are equally incendiary remarks made by white clergy on the religious right.
At the center of the storm that engulfed Barack Obama's presidential campaign is his spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Wright is the former pastor of the Obama’s church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago's south side. He officiated at Obama's wedding and baptized his daughters.
Parts of Wright’s sermons have been played millions of times on the Internet and on television and have become a major issue for the Obama campaign. Wright's comments prompted Obama to give a groundbreaking speech on race in America – the first time in decades that this issue has been addressed by a candidate for the presidential nomination. In the speech, Obama said he rejected Wright’s more inflammatory statements, but refused to disown his longtime spiritual advisor.
Among Wright’s remarks:
"The government gives them (African Americans) the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, Goddamn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. Goddamn America for treating our citizens as less than human. Goddamn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."
"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans and now (post 9/11) we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."
The comments of Dr. George Hunsinger of Princeton University, an ordained Presbyterian minister, are typical of those who believe the American popular media have distorted Wright’s remarks.
He told us, “I think we are looking at some basic questions of fairness. Is it really fair to take a minister's remarks, no matter how provocative or ill-advised, out of context and to broadcast them incessantly, as if they were the only thing that minister ever said or believed? What purposes are served by this sort of propaganda?”
Hunsinger also raised the issue of faulting Obama for remarks made by Wright. “Is it really fair to slime a candidate with the defamation of guilt by association? Does anyone really believe that tactics like this belong in a well-functioning democracy? What kind of media succumbs to these tactics? Finally, is it really fair to act as though African Americans should all be a bunch of happy watermellon eating black folks with no historic grievances that our nation has yet to address? What universe are we living in?”
Another prominent theologian, Rev. Martin Marty of the University of Chicago Divinity School, said he “does not excuse some of the indefensible comments of Wright that have now been bludgeoned into our consciousness to the exclusion of all else. And those comments should not be excused. And they have not been excused by Obama.”
But he says, “The four S's charged against Wright -- segregation, separatism, sectarianism, and superiority -- don't stand up…” He said Trinity “has made strenuous efforts to help black Christians overcome the shame they had so long been conditioned to experience…People do not leave Trinity ready to beat up on white people; they are charged to make peace.”
Civil libertarians have also been weighing in on the continuing Wright/Obama controversy. For example, Marjorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers Guild, told us, “Wright’s comments were taken out of context to make it seem like he was justifying the 9/11 attacks and was therefore unpatriotic. But when you listen to his entire sermon, he characterizes them as blowback for a vicious U.S. foreign policy.”
She added, “The cable (news) stations played the soundbites over and over, distorting their real meaning. Over the weekend, when news was slow, CNN played one of Wright's sermons in its entirety, which was helpful.”
In his speech, Obama called an Americans to begin a national conversation on race and ethnicity. Cohn told IPS that this “is already happening in the corporate media and on the Web among grassroots organizations. There is so much to talk about, this discourse will, and should, go on for a long time. We have a long way to go in overcoming racism.”
But she expressed doubt that the Bush Administration will take any substantive action to encourage the debate. “The Bush administration likes to sugar coat, i.e. spin, the most important problems, such as the failing economy, and the increasingly disastrous situation in Iraq. By encouraging a national debate about institutional racism, the administration would be admitting to its own shortcomings. It won't happen.”
The National Lawyers Guild was founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association which, at that time, did not accept African-American lawyers as members.
Most polling data suggest that the Wright controversy has not damaged Sen. Obama’s presidential bid. But Harold Ickes, a senior advisor to Sen. Hillary Clinton, his competitor for the Democratic Party nomination, is quoted as saying that the Clinton campaign would use it as a way of persuading Party insiders – known as Super-Delegates – that Obama is not electable.
Meanwhile, theologians in Texas expressed support for Wright at a symposium last weekend on the “State of Black Church.” Dr. Stacey Floyd-Thomas, associate professor of ethics and director of black church studies at the Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, said, ""What is eminently clear is the degree to which the black church is still largely misunderstood and routinely caricatured in U.S. popular culture.”
She added, “If Wright is guilty of anything, (he is) guilty of loving the U.S. enough to tell the United States the truth. Patriots and prophets are "often called to speak harsh words to their nation, not out of a place of hatred, as some suggest, but from an impassioned place of profound love and the highest of expectations.” Wright is a former member of the U.S. Marine Corps.
In contrast to the Wright/Obama furor, criticism of right-wing clergy has been muted or non-existent. For example, Mike Huckabee, a former candidate for the Republican nomination for president, has said, "I got into politics because I knew government didn't have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives...I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ." Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, is a former governor of Arkansas.
Also attracting little attention in the U.S. mainstream press are endorsements by prominent conservative clergymen of the presumptive Republican nominee for president, Sen. John McCain of Arizona. One of them, Rev. John Hagee, has said Roman Catholicism is ‘A Godless theology of hate that no one dared try to stop for a thousand years.” He said that the Catholic religion has “produced a harvest of hate.” Hagee has confirmed that McCain sought his endorsement. McCain has said he was proud to have Hagee’s support.
Another prominent McCain supporter, Rev. Rod Parsley, has said, “America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion (Islam) destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.”
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Selling Democracy – De Lux Model with Double-Standards Built In
By William Fisher
The news went largely unreported, so you may have missed it, but last week the editor of a newspaper in Cairo was sentenced to six months in prison for spreading “false information… damaging the public interest and national stability” by reporting that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was in a coma. The judge in the case said the report, by Ibrahim Eissa, editor of Egypt’s Al-Dustour, caused panic among foreign investors and threatened Egypt’s economy.
This case is unremarkable given the recent history of Egypt’s contempt for press freedom – in fact, for all the freedoms we Americans still regard as our inalienable rights. It is arguably more remarkable in that, if the test of “spreading false information” were applied to American journalists, building more jails would be a higher priority than building new homes for Katrina victims.
That said, however, the news of Mr. Eissa’s conviction gives us yet another example of the embarrassing double standards built into US foreign policy. Our State Department produces an annual report on human rights abuses around the world, but neglects to assess our own performance. So Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, renditions and waterboarding, are absent. Instead, the Bush Administration continues to bury us in empty bromides about democracy promotion.
But the democracy-promotion mantra didn’t start with George W. Bush. It started as long ago as Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. It was significantly ratcheted up during the Cold War administration of President Ronald Reagan (1981-89), when the US policy of Soviet containment made friends of the enemies of our enemy.
In 1982, Reagan told the British Parliament of a "democratic revolution" gathering force around the globe. Reagan announced that the US would “foster the infrastructure of democracy" — a free press, independent
unions, truly representative political parties, and the many other institutions essential to a functioning democracy.
Bush 41, considered a foreign policy “realist,” continued the theme, though somewhat less stridently. And the Clinton Administration embraced much the same themes during the 1990s, to make its case for our embrace of globalization.
But post-9/11, the Bush Administration raised the promotion of democracy and freedom – particularly in the Middle East -- to a historically higher rhetorical priority. In his second inaugural address, Bush said, “It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."
Bush said the "resentment and tyranny" in which "whole regions of the world" were now immersed had come to breed new forms of violence that "raise a mortal threat" because Islamic fundamentalism endangered American security. So, he said, “It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."
Bush administration officials say they have used diplomatic pressure, foreign aid and the architecture established by Reagan to help nurture democracy in the Middle East and North Africa. Bush also said the democratic transformation of the Middle East would begin with regime change in Iraq.
But Bush outdid Reagan: He went for a twofer: The US would continue to talk up freedom and democracy while enlisting other nations to help fight the ‘global war on terror.’ It is now clear that in Dubya’s world, counter-terrorism trumps democracy promotion, rhetoric notwithstanding. And it is precisely that juxtaposition of goals that now finds us in bed with most of the world’s most repressive regimes – many of the same countries we wooed during the Cold War.
Egypt was one of them. In the 1950s, both the Soviet Union and the Western powers offered aid to Egypt to build the Aswan High Dam on the Nile River. But Egypt chose to buy weapons from the communist government of Czechoslovakia, and the West canceled its offer. Later, it would become a more dependable Cold War partner for the US.
And – from a war on terror standpoint – the Bush Administration has considered it a dependable partner ever since. Today, Egypt receives $2 billion a year, including $1.3 billion in military assistance from the U.S. annually – second only to the sum awarded to Israel. The Bush Administration considers Egypt as key ally against the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, a once-violent opposition group that has since renounced terror and has numerous representatives in the Egyptian parliament – serving as independents, because the government won’t recognize the Brotherhood as a legitimate political party.
The US also considers Egypt – the first Arab nation to recognize Israel and establish full diplomatic relations – as critical to its peace-seeking agenda for a Palestinian state, though to date there is little evidence that it has much real influence on the process. Currently, Egypt is said to be in secret talks to reach some kind of accommodation with the leadership of Hamas. And, as David Ignatius pointed out in Sunday’s Washington Post, there has been no outcry of opposition from the US or the Israelis.
The bottom line in this complex relationship is that US aid to Egypt has continued without major interruption despite what many see as toothless criticisms by the Bush Administration of the iron-fisted 30-year rule of Egypt’s aging autocrat, Hosni Mubarak.
That criticism has included Administration condemnation of the arrest and imprisonment of Mubarak’s main opponent in the presidential elections in 2005, Ayman Nour, who Bush said was “unjustly imprisoned.” Earlier, Bush complained about the conviction of another prominent opposition leader, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who has since fled Egypt. Since 1980, Egypt has been under a so-called Emergency Law, which gives its police and security services virtually carte blanche in arrests and detention of its citizens. The State Department’s human rights report annually confirms that instances of torture, abuse and death in detention are widespread, and Egypt is known to have been the recipient of “extraordinary renditions” by the CIA.
Earlier this year, the US Congress weighed in to express its displeasure with the Mubarak regime. It put a ‘hold” on $100 million of American military aid to Egypt, calling on the Mubarak government to protect the independence of the judiciary, stop police abuses and curtail arms smuggling from Egypt to Gaza.”
But in January, the Bush Administration waived the hold in a bid to encourage Egypt to help in calming the Israeli-Palestinian crises. In a visit to Egypt the same month, President Bush lavished praise on Mubarak: “I appreciate the example that your nation is setting…I appreciate very much the long and proud tradition that you’ve had for a vibrant civil society.”
But, according to one of the Arab world’s most widely respected non-governmental organizations, a vibrant civil society is the perfect definition of what Egypt is not. Nor is most of the rest of the Arab Middle East and North Africa. In a recent report to the United Nations Human Rights Council – of which Egypt is a member -- the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) charged that at least fourteen Middle East and North African governments are systematically violating the civil liberties of their citizens – and most of them are close US allies in the war on terror.
The report said that there have been “huge harassments of human rights organizations and defenders have been increasingly subject to abusive and suppressive actions by government actors in democratic rights and freedoms in the majority of Arab countries, particularly Egypt, Syria, Bahrain and Tunisia.”
The group called upon the international community to “exert effective efforts to urge Arab governments to duly reconsider their legislation, policy and practices contravening their international obligations to protect freedom of assembly, freedom of expression and freedom to form associations, including non-governmental organizations.”
It added that “Special attention should be awarded to providing protection to human rights defenders in the Arab World.”
As an example of typical area-wide human rights abuses, the CIHRS report cited the recent forced closure by Egyptian authorities of the Association for Human Rights Legal Aid, an organization active in exposing instances of torture. The Egyptian government claimed that the organization “received foreign funding without having the consent of the Minister of Social Solidarity.”
The organization warned of “increasingly repressive conditions being imposed on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Egypt, including a proposed amendment to the Law of Associations that it said would limit the right of association and expression.
Other Arab nations singled out for detailed criticism included Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Tunisia, The United Arab Emirates and Yemen. The report also accused four other Arab countries of human rights abuses -- Libya, Algeria, Sudan and Morocco.
The CIHRS report to the UN details numerous human rights violations throughout the Arab Middle East and North Africa. It accuses Syria of arresting “dozens tens of qualified professionals personnel belonging to human rights organizations and civil society revival committees.” It says the Bahraini government closed the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, put the president of one civil society on trial, and charged seven other activists with "participating in an illegal gathering and creating disturbance."
In Tunisia, the report charges, “The authorities have made it almost impossible for the Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH) and other civil society institutions to operate. Tunisian human rights defenders have not been allowed to travel abroad and undertook measures to freeze LTDH’s grants from the European Union.
According to the CIHRS report, “Many Gulf countries, as well as Libya, do not allow for the existence of human rights organizations or civil society activists. The long-running Algerian military influence has severely limited civil society organizations. Since the toppling of Sudan’s democratic government in 1989, Sudanese civil society has been deprived of many legal and political protections and rights. Furthermore, civil society institutions in conflict affected countries, such as Iraq, come under constant violent attack; the same applies to the situation in Palestine – whether due to the occupation or in-fighting between its two political parties.”
The US position on promoting democracy while turning a blind eye to blatant and widespread human rights abuses in the Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere has made America vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy and has doubtless contributed to the precipitous fall in the world’s respect for the US.
Many foreign policy experts suggest that America needs a more targeted approach to defeating known terrorists. And more effective use of “soft power” to counter the jihadist narrative with a more appealing story, and a series of high priority initiatives to discourage further radicalization among people who feel marginalized and disempowered but have not yet joined the ranks of “the bad guys.”
This is not just an American problem. Millions of people from the Middle East and North Africa have now migrated to Europe. And, so far, few European countries have shown either the skills or the political will to develop policies to create a more welcoming environment for these “not like us” newcomers.
But it is a very special problem for the United States – the country the whole world once looked to as an exemplar of respect for civil liberties, human rights and the rule of law.
It is doubtful that America’s position in the world is likely to be restored by being found in bed with Hosni Mubarak or King Abdullah.
Also doubtful is that President Bush, in the waning months of his administration, is going to do anything except “stay the course.” Changing course will be a job for our next president. Lamentably, none of the contenders for that office are discussing this issue.
But we need to encourage them to do so.
The news went largely unreported, so you may have missed it, but last week the editor of a newspaper in Cairo was sentenced to six months in prison for spreading “false information… damaging the public interest and national stability” by reporting that Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was in a coma. The judge in the case said the report, by Ibrahim Eissa, editor of Egypt’s Al-Dustour, caused panic among foreign investors and threatened Egypt’s economy.
This case is unremarkable given the recent history of Egypt’s contempt for press freedom – in fact, for all the freedoms we Americans still regard as our inalienable rights. It is arguably more remarkable in that, if the test of “spreading false information” were applied to American journalists, building more jails would be a higher priority than building new homes for Katrina victims.
That said, however, the news of Mr. Eissa’s conviction gives us yet another example of the embarrassing double standards built into US foreign policy. Our State Department produces an annual report on human rights abuses around the world, but neglects to assess our own performance. So Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Bagram, renditions and waterboarding, are absent. Instead, the Bush Administration continues to bury us in empty bromides about democracy promotion.
But the democracy-promotion mantra didn’t start with George W. Bush. It started as long ago as Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson. It was significantly ratcheted up during the Cold War administration of President Ronald Reagan (1981-89), when the US policy of Soviet containment made friends of the enemies of our enemy.
In 1982, Reagan told the British Parliament of a "democratic revolution" gathering force around the globe. Reagan announced that the US would “foster the infrastructure of democracy" — a free press, independent
unions, truly representative political parties, and the many other institutions essential to a functioning democracy.
Bush 41, considered a foreign policy “realist,” continued the theme, though somewhat less stridently. And the Clinton Administration embraced much the same themes during the 1990s, to make its case for our embrace of globalization.
But post-9/11, the Bush Administration raised the promotion of democracy and freedom – particularly in the Middle East -- to a historically higher rhetorical priority. In his second inaugural address, Bush said, “It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."
Bush said the "resentment and tyranny" in which "whole regions of the world" were now immersed had come to breed new forms of violence that "raise a mortal threat" because Islamic fundamentalism endangered American security. So, he said, “It is the policy of the United States to seek and support the growth of democratic movements and institutions in every nation and culture, with the ultimate goal of ending tyranny in our world."
Bush administration officials say they have used diplomatic pressure, foreign aid and the architecture established by Reagan to help nurture democracy in the Middle East and North Africa. Bush also said the democratic transformation of the Middle East would begin with regime change in Iraq.
But Bush outdid Reagan: He went for a twofer: The US would continue to talk up freedom and democracy while enlisting other nations to help fight the ‘global war on terror.’ It is now clear that in Dubya’s world, counter-terrorism trumps democracy promotion, rhetoric notwithstanding. And it is precisely that juxtaposition of goals that now finds us in bed with most of the world’s most repressive regimes – many of the same countries we wooed during the Cold War.
Egypt was one of them. In the 1950s, both the Soviet Union and the Western powers offered aid to Egypt to build the Aswan High Dam on the Nile River. But Egypt chose to buy weapons from the communist government of Czechoslovakia, and the West canceled its offer. Later, it would become a more dependable Cold War partner for the US.
And – from a war on terror standpoint – the Bush Administration has considered it a dependable partner ever since. Today, Egypt receives $2 billion a year, including $1.3 billion in military assistance from the U.S. annually – second only to the sum awarded to Israel. The Bush Administration considers Egypt as key ally against the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood, a once-violent opposition group that has since renounced terror and has numerous representatives in the Egyptian parliament – serving as independents, because the government won’t recognize the Brotherhood as a legitimate political party.
The US also considers Egypt – the first Arab nation to recognize Israel and establish full diplomatic relations – as critical to its peace-seeking agenda for a Palestinian state, though to date there is little evidence that it has much real influence on the process. Currently, Egypt is said to be in secret talks to reach some kind of accommodation with the leadership of Hamas. And, as David Ignatius pointed out in Sunday’s Washington Post, there has been no outcry of opposition from the US or the Israelis.
The bottom line in this complex relationship is that US aid to Egypt has continued without major interruption despite what many see as toothless criticisms by the Bush Administration of the iron-fisted 30-year rule of Egypt’s aging autocrat, Hosni Mubarak.
That criticism has included Administration condemnation of the arrest and imprisonment of Mubarak’s main opponent in the presidential elections in 2005, Ayman Nour, who Bush said was “unjustly imprisoned.” Earlier, Bush complained about the conviction of another prominent opposition leader, Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who has since fled Egypt. Since 1980, Egypt has been under a so-called Emergency Law, which gives its police and security services virtually carte blanche in arrests and detention of its citizens. The State Department’s human rights report annually confirms that instances of torture, abuse and death in detention are widespread, and Egypt is known to have been the recipient of “extraordinary renditions” by the CIA.
Earlier this year, the US Congress weighed in to express its displeasure with the Mubarak regime. It put a ‘hold” on $100 million of American military aid to Egypt, calling on the Mubarak government to protect the independence of the judiciary, stop police abuses and curtail arms smuggling from Egypt to Gaza.”
But in January, the Bush Administration waived the hold in a bid to encourage Egypt to help in calming the Israeli-Palestinian crises. In a visit to Egypt the same month, President Bush lavished praise on Mubarak: “I appreciate the example that your nation is setting…I appreciate very much the long and proud tradition that you’ve had for a vibrant civil society.”
But, according to one of the Arab world’s most widely respected non-governmental organizations, a vibrant civil society is the perfect definition of what Egypt is not. Nor is most of the rest of the Arab Middle East and North Africa. In a recent report to the United Nations Human Rights Council – of which Egypt is a member -- the Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) charged that at least fourteen Middle East and North African governments are systematically violating the civil liberties of their citizens – and most of them are close US allies in the war on terror.
The report said that there have been “huge harassments of human rights organizations and defenders have been increasingly subject to abusive and suppressive actions by government actors in democratic rights and freedoms in the majority of Arab countries, particularly Egypt, Syria, Bahrain and Tunisia.”
The group called upon the international community to “exert effective efforts to urge Arab governments to duly reconsider their legislation, policy and practices contravening their international obligations to protect freedom of assembly, freedom of expression and freedom to form associations, including non-governmental organizations.”
It added that “Special attention should be awarded to providing protection to human rights defenders in the Arab World.”
As an example of typical area-wide human rights abuses, the CIHRS report cited the recent forced closure by Egyptian authorities of the Association for Human Rights Legal Aid, an organization active in exposing instances of torture. The Egyptian government claimed that the organization “received foreign funding without having the consent of the Minister of Social Solidarity.”
The organization warned of “increasingly repressive conditions being imposed on non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Egypt, including a proposed amendment to the Law of Associations that it said would limit the right of association and expression.
Other Arab nations singled out for detailed criticism included Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Sudan, Somalia, Tunisia, The United Arab Emirates and Yemen. The report also accused four other Arab countries of human rights abuses -- Libya, Algeria, Sudan and Morocco.
The CIHRS report to the UN details numerous human rights violations throughout the Arab Middle East and North Africa. It accuses Syria of arresting “dozens tens of qualified professionals personnel belonging to human rights organizations and civil society revival committees.” It says the Bahraini government closed the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, put the president of one civil society on trial, and charged seven other activists with "participating in an illegal gathering and creating disturbance."
In Tunisia, the report charges, “The authorities have made it almost impossible for the Tunisian League for Human Rights (LTDH) and other civil society institutions to operate. Tunisian human rights defenders have not been allowed to travel abroad and undertook measures to freeze LTDH’s grants from the European Union.
According to the CIHRS report, “Many Gulf countries, as well as Libya, do not allow for the existence of human rights organizations or civil society activists. The long-running Algerian military influence has severely limited civil society organizations. Since the toppling of Sudan’s democratic government in 1989, Sudanese civil society has been deprived of many legal and political protections and rights. Furthermore, civil society institutions in conflict affected countries, such as Iraq, come under constant violent attack; the same applies to the situation in Palestine – whether due to the occupation or in-fighting between its two political parties.”
The US position on promoting democracy while turning a blind eye to blatant and widespread human rights abuses in the Middle East, North Africa and elsewhere has made America vulnerable to charges of hypocrisy and has doubtless contributed to the precipitous fall in the world’s respect for the US.
Many foreign policy experts suggest that America needs a more targeted approach to defeating known terrorists. And more effective use of “soft power” to counter the jihadist narrative with a more appealing story, and a series of high priority initiatives to discourage further radicalization among people who feel marginalized and disempowered but have not yet joined the ranks of “the bad guys.”
This is not just an American problem. Millions of people from the Middle East and North Africa have now migrated to Europe. And, so far, few European countries have shown either the skills or the political will to develop policies to create a more welcoming environment for these “not like us” newcomers.
But it is a very special problem for the United States – the country the whole world once looked to as an exemplar of respect for civil liberties, human rights and the rule of law.
It is doubtful that America’s position in the world is likely to be restored by being found in bed with Hosni Mubarak or King Abdullah.
Also doubtful is that President Bush, in the waning months of his administration, is going to do anything except “stay the course.” Changing course will be a job for our next president. Lamentably, none of the contenders for that office are discussing this issue.
But we need to encourage them to do so.
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