By Jason Miller
Our history books tell us that George Washington was the father of the abomination America has become. Many around the world, including some Americans, have written off the possibility that the United States is capable of acting with morality and sanity. Yet hope remains on the horizon for our country. Harvey Kaye's Thomas Paine and the Promise of America rekindled my fading belief in the United States as a potential home to true freedom and justice. Thomas Paine's spirit burns as an intense beacon lighting the way toward his envisioned "asylum for mankind". Paine, in contrast to Washington, is the intellectual father of an America which does not yet exist, but is still very possible.
Washington epitomized the aristocracy which has dominated our nation both socially and politically since its inception. It is time for the cultural descendents of Thomas Paine--the poor and the working class---to awaken from our slumber and lay claim to our share of the wealth and power in the United States. In so doing, we can remake this nation in the image that Paine envisaged:
When it shall be said in any country in the world, "My poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want,
the taxes are not oppressive; the rational world is my friend, because I am a friend of happiness": when these things can be said, then may that country boast its constitution and its government."
Something is Very Rotten in Denmark
I have written reams about the social and political ills of our ailing nation, which have risen to disturbing heights under the Bush Regime. Given the courageous defiance of tyranny displayed in the American Revolution and the noble principles embedded in our Constitution, it is virtually inconceivable that our King George II could make King George III look like a "Bush-league" tyrant. Yet he has managed such a feat.
Consider the following:
1. Over 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians and over 2,000 US military personnel are dead as a result of our illegal, imperial occupation of Iraq
2. The "Gulag of Our Times", including Guantanamo Bay, Abu Gharib, "secret" CIA prisons, and the extraordinary rendition program (before you write the prisoners of the Gulag off as "terrorists", remember, the crucial issues are due process and justice....most of those in custody have not even been charged with a crime, let alone had a trial. You could be next!)
3. The rise of Social Darwinism which has led to tax cuts for the rich, corporate welfare, and the diversion of our tax dollars from social programs to benefit humanity to an obscene war machine (which catalyzed the Diaspora in New Orleans).
4. The frightening attacks on Habeas Corpus and Posse Comitatus.
5. Wiretapping and eavesdropping by "Big Brother"
6. Increasingly unregulated corporations running roughshod over consumers and the environment (just keep telling yourself that big corporations have your best interests "at heart" and that Global Warming is a myth)
7. Continued unflinching support for the state terrorists in Israel who are committing a form of genocide against the Palestinians
8. A widening wealth gap, an unconscionable concentration of wealth in the hands of 1% of the populace, 45 million Americans without health insurance, one million homeless Americans, and 13% of Americans living below poverty level
9. Neocolonial policies which perpetuate corporate America's capacity to exploit the people and resources of other nations (i.e. Bolivia)
10. A declared policy of attaining global domination
11. Flagrant violations of international law
12. An Orwellian "Patriot Act" which violates four of the ten Amendments in the original Bill of Rights
Newsflash: The American Revolution Is Still Happening
While a fair number of Americans still suffer from the delusion that we are a benevolent superpower, painful realities poking us in the eye scream otherwise. Thankfully, Harvey Kaye's book awoke me to the fact that the dreams and ideals embodied by some of our Founding Fathers, particularly Thomas Paine, are not dead. The fact that America has evolved into a nation ruled by corrupt, bloated plutocrats is not a reason to despair. Our Constitution is more than "just a goddamned piece of paper". It is the embodiment of true freedom and a mechanism for the preservation of the rights of all members of society. As Kaye's tome chronicles the life and times of Thomas Paine, and the impact of Paine throughout the history of our nation, Kaye reveals some powerful aspects of America which transcend the sewer in which we are mired. The America Paine visualized has been a work in progress from the beginning. Despite the regression we have suffered in recent times, the "Promise of America" is not dead.
Paine's words remind us that while the ongoing Revolution is daunting, it is well worth the effort and risk:
"Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered. Yet we have this consolation with us: That the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly. 'Tis dearness only that gives everything its value."
Kaye's book has inspired me as I continue my writing and activism on behalf of global social justice, economic justice, human rights, and intellectual freedom. The true value of this book is that it is that it serves as a reminder that America can still rise to Paine's aspirations. Throughout our history, champions for the down-trodden have sacrificed their blood, sweat, tears, and even their lives to progress toward the goal of conquering the tyranny of America's plutocracy. The Populists, Progressives, Women's Suffragists, Abolitionists, Anarchists, Wobblies, Socialists, and members of the civil rights and anti-war movements were each influenced by Thomas Paine in some fashion.
Who Was Thomas Paine?
According to Professor Kaye's depictions, Thomas Paine, a British immigrant to the American colonies prior to the Revolutionary War, was the common man incarnate (who happened to have some uncommon gifts). Born in Thetford, England in 1837 to a Quaker father and an Anglican mother, Paine grew up in an environment of severe social and economic inequality. His Quaker father forged young Paine's deep suspicion of state and religious authority. At thirteen, his parents withdrew him from school so that he could learn his father's trade of corset or stay making. The local economy prevented him from making his living in this field, so in 1756 Paine became a privateer on a mercenary vessel called the King of Prussia. An avid reader and student, two years later he found himself in London where he often attended lectures by self taught, working class dissidents. In London, he learned the philosophy of John Locke and the art of rhetoric. He opened his own business as a stay maker and was married in 1759. Sadly, his wife and baby died in child-birth shortly thereafter.
Over time, Paine developed a reputation as a formidable debater and "wordsmith". Thomas Clio Rickman, Paine's long-time friend, said of Paine:
He was tenacious of his opinions, which were bold, acute, and independent, and which he maintained with ardour, elegance, and argument.
After a second marriage, which did not last, and a stint as an excise officer, Paine utilized his friendship with Benjamin Franklin to emigrate to the American colonies in 1774. Fortunately for the colonists, according to Kaye, "he had acquired skills and knowledge, tested his courage and intellect, made friends and contacts, and developed an intolerance of hypocrisy, injustice, and inequality along with a budding sense of working people's political potential."
January 10, 1776 marks an intellectual watershed for the American Revolution. It was on that day that Paine's unsigned pamphlet called Common Sense began circulating the streets of Philadelphia. His scathing critique of Great Britain's government and compelling argument for the colonies to break ties with their imperial master ignited a revolutionary flame throughout the fledgling nation.
By December 4, 1776, the colonies had declared their independence and the American army was dogged by defeat and hopelessness. Thomas Paine responded with another powerful dose of writing. The American Crisis buoyed sagging spirits and reinvigorated the colonists as they fought to forge a sovereign nation. Paine spurred on his fellow revolutionaries with this opening line:
THESE are the times that try men's souls: The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of his country but he that stands it NOW, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman.
Having done his part to spark and perpetuate the American Revolution, remaining true to the way he defined himself ("my country is the world, and my religion is to do good..."), Paine left America in 1782 to return to England. There he continued to wage the battle for the common man by publishing The Rights of Man, which supported the French Revolution and decried monarchy. Charged by the British government with seditious libel, Paine fled to Paris. He became a French citizen and became involved in politics. When he opposed the execution of Louis XVI, he was imprisoned and sentenced to death. It was from his cell that he penned The Age of Reason, which incurred the wrath of many Christians because of its exposure of the contradictions, untruths, and immoralities contained in the Bible. Despite his professed Deism, Paine's memory is dogged to this day with charges of atheism.
James Monroe managed to secure a stay of execution and freedom for Paine. In 1802 he returned to America to discover that The Age of Reason had ruined his reputation with many Americans. Paine's stubborn commitment to the working class, human rights, spiritual freedom, and reason had cost him dearly. He died in New York in 1809, poverty-stricken and a pariah.
Which Father Knew Best? The Answer Depends on Your "Pedigree"
Thomas Paine and the Promise of America by Harvey Kaye (a professor of history at the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay), serves as a powerful reminder that the American Revolution may not have started without Common Sense or may have failed without The American Crisis. It also reminds us that the ongoing American social and political revolution (which has advanced the rights of women, minorities, workers, the poor, farmers, and consumers) embodies the spirit of Thomas Paine rather than that of those Founding Fathers who were wealthy aristocrats, owned slaves, opposed the Bill of Rights, and limited the inclusion of the "common people" in the nation's power structure.
With the advent of the Bush Regimes (both I and II), an amoral plutocracy (or Miscreant Dynasty) has seized virtually absolute power in our nation. While most of our presidents have represented America's aristocracy first and foremost, virtually all of them advanced the cause of the poor and working class to some degree. Bush I and II and their myriad criminal accomplices, including Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Rice and a host of plutocrats quietly working behind the scenes, have hijacked the America that Thomas Paine had foreseen. Meanwhile, a majority of Americans (largely pacified by consumerism, popular culture, and propaganda) have stood idly by as unwitting victims and accomplices.
A nation is an abstraction, a complex and intricate set of dynamics involving many people and processes. It is in a constant state of flux and is not easily definable. However, in recent history, generally speaking, the United States has morphed into a social and political cesspool viewed contemptuously by most of the world. We have strayed woefully far from the "Promise of America", but as Kaye's powerful analysis of Thomas Paine and his impact on the evolution of our nation reveals, it is not too late to fulfill that promise. George Washington is the father of a country ruled by the wealthy elite. The spirit of Thomas Paine is poised to become the father of a nation ruled by all Americans. It is time that "We the People" adopt a new father and wrest the power away from a group of narcissistic, avaricious malefactors who are the enemies of humanity.
As Sinclair Lewis warned in It Can't Happen Here, tyranny can arise in highly unexpected places. And it has. If enough of us join together, exhibit fortitude and patience, and take action, we can put an end to this nightmare. For a motivational jump-start and an awakening to what America was meant to be (and still can be), I highly recommend Thomas Paine and the Promise of America by Harvey Kaye.
Jason Miller is a 39 year old activist writer with a degree in liberal arts. When he is not spending time with his wife and three sons, researching, or writing, he is working as a loan counselor. He is a member of Amnesty International and an avid supporter of Oxfam International. He welcomes responses at willpowerful@hotmail.com or comments on his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.
Wednesday, January 04, 2006
Monday, January 02, 2006
THE UNITER AT YEAR-END
By William Fisher
My editors, as well as many friends around the world, have been urging me to write something about how I think about George W. Bush as 2005 ends and a new year begins.
I was reluctant because I have been reading dozens of year-enders on this subject, and wondering if I had anything to add.
What I have to add is not exactly new. Many others have expressed similar views. To which I will now add my own perspective.
As I thought about our president, I wondered: Do I hate him? Do I think he is a liar? Do I think he is a provincial and poorly informed scion of a privileged family? Do I think he embarrasses our country by mangling the English language? Do I think he has placed unnecessary and unproductive restrictions on our liberties? Do I think his promise of a more “compassionate conservatism” was merely an election-year slogan? Do I think he is an incompetent manager of our affairs of State?
The answer to all of the above is either “No” or “We don’t know yet”.
But the more I pondered the question, the stronger grew one overwhelming feeling: Profound disappointment.
I am sad for George W. Bush. The instant those planes flew into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the president was presented with an opportunity few presidents have enjoyed.
It was the opportunity to unite our country. On September 11, 2001, GWB could have asked the American people to “pay any price” – and we would have done it.
Not since Pearl Harbor has any other president held the unity of the nation in his hands.
I found myself thinking of Franklin Roosevelt in the days after Japan attacked us. The American people were asked to make real sacrifices, and we made them. We sacrificed our drafted men and women in uniform. We sacrificed our appetites to food rationing. We held scrap metal drives, rubber drives, paper drives. We bought War Bonds, though this was not by any means the most efficient way to raise money for the war effort. We even sacrificed, at least temporarily, our strong views about FDR’s ever-closer relationships to big business because they were the folks who had to build the tanks and the ammo and the planes that could win the war.
In short, FDR connected all of us to the war effort. And we all rose to the challenge.
When Lyndon Johnson failed to learn FDR’s lessons, his Vietnam project collapsed. Looking back at those days, it seems unthinkable that any American president would ever again believe he could win a war absent the support of ordinary people.
But that is what President Bush did.
He told us we were engaged in a “Global War on Terror”, but he didn’t ask us to sacrifice anything to help win it. On the contrary, our wealthiest people reaped large tax cuts while the divide between our rich and our poor became a chasm.
Still, we were all behind the president when he attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan. We thought that action was necessary and justified: They were the folks who killed almost 3,000 of us – more than we lost at Pearl Harbor – and we felt vindicated when that effort succeeded.
Yet the vast majority of ordinary Americans weren’t really connected, even to that war we all supported. The connected people were our men and women in uniform and their families. The rest of us rejoiced, but we sacrificed nothing because we were never asked.
Then came the sharp left turn into Iraq – a war promoted on dubious evidence by people who routinely denounced “nation building” and whose motivations remain murky to this day.
That’s when the president began slowly to lose popular support. What is now left of that support is crumbling. Most of us were happy when Saddam Hussein’s regime fell. But some of us, even in the early days of the Iraq war, believed that war to be unwinnable. Now, most of us have come to believe that our subsequent prosecution of the war exposed the embarrassing incompetence of our military to understand that there are no military avenues to nation-building.
And today, as in the past, the American people think of the war as something we watch on our TV sets. We are not personally invested. We are increasingly disconnected. The president hasn’t really talked to his people – until his plummeting poll numbers scared the pants off his advisors. So we still have difficulty understanding why there were no weapons of mass destruction, why we were not greeted as “liberators”, and why most Iraqis want us out of their country.
The opportunity of 9/11 is gone. Missed. Bullhorn in hand, hardhat on head, standing in the ruins of Ground Zero, George W. Bush had every chance of bringing our country together – remember, even before 9/11, how he told us he would be a “uniter”? Well, he blew it.
It is much too early to write the history of the Bush years. But, regardless of how our Iraq adventure ends, my guess is that the Bush presidency will be remembered as one that left us divided, diverted, and uncertain of our country’s future and its role in the world.
It will take a generation of yet-unknown leadership to bring us together.
That’s why I’m disappointed. That’s why I feel such a deep sense of sadness and loss for our president.
My editors, as well as many friends around the world, have been urging me to write something about how I think about George W. Bush as 2005 ends and a new year begins.
I was reluctant because I have been reading dozens of year-enders on this subject, and wondering if I had anything to add.
What I have to add is not exactly new. Many others have expressed similar views. To which I will now add my own perspective.
As I thought about our president, I wondered: Do I hate him? Do I think he is a liar? Do I think he is a provincial and poorly informed scion of a privileged family? Do I think he embarrasses our country by mangling the English language? Do I think he has placed unnecessary and unproductive restrictions on our liberties? Do I think his promise of a more “compassionate conservatism” was merely an election-year slogan? Do I think he is an incompetent manager of our affairs of State?
The answer to all of the above is either “No” or “We don’t know yet”.
But the more I pondered the question, the stronger grew one overwhelming feeling: Profound disappointment.
I am sad for George W. Bush. The instant those planes flew into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the president was presented with an opportunity few presidents have enjoyed.
It was the opportunity to unite our country. On September 11, 2001, GWB could have asked the American people to “pay any price” – and we would have done it.
Not since Pearl Harbor has any other president held the unity of the nation in his hands.
I found myself thinking of Franklin Roosevelt in the days after Japan attacked us. The American people were asked to make real sacrifices, and we made them. We sacrificed our drafted men and women in uniform. We sacrificed our appetites to food rationing. We held scrap metal drives, rubber drives, paper drives. We bought War Bonds, though this was not by any means the most efficient way to raise money for the war effort. We even sacrificed, at least temporarily, our strong views about FDR’s ever-closer relationships to big business because they were the folks who had to build the tanks and the ammo and the planes that could win the war.
In short, FDR connected all of us to the war effort. And we all rose to the challenge.
When Lyndon Johnson failed to learn FDR’s lessons, his Vietnam project collapsed. Looking back at those days, it seems unthinkable that any American president would ever again believe he could win a war absent the support of ordinary people.
But that is what President Bush did.
He told us we were engaged in a “Global War on Terror”, but he didn’t ask us to sacrifice anything to help win it. On the contrary, our wealthiest people reaped large tax cuts while the divide between our rich and our poor became a chasm.
Still, we were all behind the president when he attacked the Taliban in Afghanistan. We thought that action was necessary and justified: They were the folks who killed almost 3,000 of us – more than we lost at Pearl Harbor – and we felt vindicated when that effort succeeded.
Yet the vast majority of ordinary Americans weren’t really connected, even to that war we all supported. The connected people were our men and women in uniform and their families. The rest of us rejoiced, but we sacrificed nothing because we were never asked.
Then came the sharp left turn into Iraq – a war promoted on dubious evidence by people who routinely denounced “nation building” and whose motivations remain murky to this day.
That’s when the president began slowly to lose popular support. What is now left of that support is crumbling. Most of us were happy when Saddam Hussein’s regime fell. But some of us, even in the early days of the Iraq war, believed that war to be unwinnable. Now, most of us have come to believe that our subsequent prosecution of the war exposed the embarrassing incompetence of our military to understand that there are no military avenues to nation-building.
And today, as in the past, the American people think of the war as something we watch on our TV sets. We are not personally invested. We are increasingly disconnected. The president hasn’t really talked to his people – until his plummeting poll numbers scared the pants off his advisors. So we still have difficulty understanding why there were no weapons of mass destruction, why we were not greeted as “liberators”, and why most Iraqis want us out of their country.
The opportunity of 9/11 is gone. Missed. Bullhorn in hand, hardhat on head, standing in the ruins of Ground Zero, George W. Bush had every chance of bringing our country together – remember, even before 9/11, how he told us he would be a “uniter”? Well, he blew it.
It is much too early to write the history of the Bush years. But, regardless of how our Iraq adventure ends, my guess is that the Bush presidency will be remembered as one that left us divided, diverted, and uncertain of our country’s future and its role in the world.
It will take a generation of yet-unknown leadership to bring us together.
That’s why I’m disappointed. That’s why I feel such a deep sense of sadness and loss for our president.
Sunday, January 01, 2006
A mixed year for a valiant Arab people
By Rami G. Khouri
A look back at eventful 2005 in the Middle East shows three broad and significant developments in historical terms, related to the citizen, the state and the foreign powers that intervened in the region. Important changes are underway at all three of these levels of identity discernable today, though we need not predict where they will lead.
The most positive development has seen the citizen in many Arab countries start to rebel against the many indignities and inequities that he or she has endured in silence for decades - mostly variations of abuse of power by unelected, unaccountable elites from their own country or abroad. In Lebanon and Palestine, large-scale popular resistance and opposition were expressed, respectively, to Syrian domination and Israeli occupation.The citizenry's rebellion in other Arab lands primarily took the form of small vanguard groups of democratic activists who openly but peacefully challenged the state's monopoly on power (in Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, and Morocco), or mainstream Islamist parties that challenged the ruling elite through democratic elections to Parliament or to local councils (in Palestine, Egypt, or Lebanon).
Changes at the level of states were largely negative this year, the most troubling one being the continued fragmentation of 20th-century sovereign Arab states into much more brittle collections of ethnic, religious and tribal groups. The most common new trend I encountered throughout the 12 different Arab countries I visited this year - without exception - was the tendency to analyze each country in tribal rather than national terms. Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and most other Arab lands are now routinely seen through the prism of Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, Alawites, Druze, Palestinians, Darfurians, Turkmen, and assorted Christian groups such as Maronites, Copts or Greek Orthodox.
The Arab state is in the midst of being fractured, retribalized and redefined into much smaller configurations. Three principal causes of this process would seem to be: the largely incompetent, often brutal rule practiced by the reining Sunni Arab-dominated power elites during the past half century, a clear Israeli penchant for weakening Arab states and promoting the emergence of smaller, weaker minorities with whom it can engage to its advantage (as it has done for years with Kurds in Iraq and some right-wing groups in Lebanon), and, the current American formalization of ethnic politics in Iraq as a possible model for the entire region.
This leads to the third important trend that has defined the Middle East this year, but without clear indications of whether the end results will be positive or negative for the people of the region. This is the stepped up international direct engagement in the internal affairs of countries, including Arab states, Iran and Turkey. (Sorry, a small but necessary aside: peculiarly, and running against the dominant trend, foreign intervention tends to vanish when it comes to intervening in the policies and conduct of the Israeli government, even when Israeli actions are explicitly and repeatedly condemned by the international community through respectable institutions such as the World Court and the United Nations Security Council. A thought for the cold months of early 2006: if freedom and democracy are universal values, and should be spread around the world by diplomatic muscle and occasional force, if necessary, does the same apply to the rule of law, and the state of Israel?).
The enduring exception of Israel aside, the international community's intervention inside the Middle East this year has been striking for its audacity, but imprecise in its legitimacy and consequences. I would identify four dominant patterns of such intervention.
The first was the essentially unilateral American brute use of force, with window-dressing hangers-on, as happened in Iraq. We will need more time to discover if this epic intervention proves to be valiant or catastrophic for the people of Iraq and the region. The second was the multilateral, diplomatic, patient, focused, consensus-driven UN Security Council-based approach used in Lebanon to pressure Syria after the murder of Rafik Hariri last February. A variation on this deliberate approach is also being used to engage Iran on its nuclear plans.
The third form of foreign intervention was the painstaking, step-by-step prodding of domestic institutional and legal reforms of Arab societies championed by the European Union since 1995, and more recently in a slightly more inept form by the U.S.-dominated G-8 group of industrial nations. Gains have been thin to date. The fourth, and most intriguing, intervention technique, also dominated by the U.S., was the pressure exerted on individual countries over specific issues, using a combination of public statements by American senior officials and private warnings and cajoling. The best examples of this were the quests to push forward electoral reform and expanded voting in Egypt and Kuwait. Activists in both countries say privately that Washington's pressure played an important role in pushing these two Arab systems to evolve somewhat.
The cumulative lesson from this year's three political trends, it seems, is that under certain conditions there is indeed a middle ground where Arabs and Westerners can meet and work together for common political goals. Indigenous Arab
activists and those behind external diplomatic efforts can fortify each other if they jointly define a common set of goals that respond to reasonable demands on both sides; and if they anchor the entire process of change in legal and political legitimacy, whether in the UN, in international law, or in negotiated accords.
My hunch is that the good trends of the past year, including citizen activism and small steps to democracy, tend to result from sensible cooperation between Arabs and Westerners; conversely, the bad news from Iraq, Palestine, Sudan and aspects of the Lebanese situation usually reflects the consequences of unilateralism, gangsterism, and militarism. Why Israel consistently gets a free ride from all this remains more than intriguing; it often also drives some of the resentment that translates into extremism and violence throughout this region. Some grad student in Belgium should look into this for us this year.
Happy New Year to all, especially to my fellow average Arab citizens, whose stoicism, heroism and impregnable humanity remain the defining characteristic of these troubled but valiant lands.
This aticle appeared in the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut. It is reprinted with permission. Rami Khouri's work is distributed by Agence Global.
A look back at eventful 2005 in the Middle East shows three broad and significant developments in historical terms, related to the citizen, the state and the foreign powers that intervened in the region. Important changes are underway at all three of these levels of identity discernable today, though we need not predict where they will lead.
The most positive development has seen the citizen in many Arab countries start to rebel against the many indignities and inequities that he or she has endured in silence for decades - mostly variations of abuse of power by unelected, unaccountable elites from their own country or abroad. In Lebanon and Palestine, large-scale popular resistance and opposition were expressed, respectively, to Syrian domination and Israeli occupation.The citizenry's rebellion in other Arab lands primarily took the form of small vanguard groups of democratic activists who openly but peacefully challenged the state's monopoly on power (in Syria, Egypt, Bahrain, and Morocco), or mainstream Islamist parties that challenged the ruling elite through democratic elections to Parliament or to local councils (in Palestine, Egypt, or Lebanon).
Changes at the level of states were largely negative this year, the most troubling one being the continued fragmentation of 20th-century sovereign Arab states into much more brittle collections of ethnic, religious and tribal groups. The most common new trend I encountered throughout the 12 different Arab countries I visited this year - without exception - was the tendency to analyze each country in tribal rather than national terms. Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, Bahrain, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and most other Arab lands are now routinely seen through the prism of Shiites, Sunnis, Kurds, Alawites, Druze, Palestinians, Darfurians, Turkmen, and assorted Christian groups such as Maronites, Copts or Greek Orthodox.
The Arab state is in the midst of being fractured, retribalized and redefined into much smaller configurations. Three principal causes of this process would seem to be: the largely incompetent, often brutal rule practiced by the reining Sunni Arab-dominated power elites during the past half century, a clear Israeli penchant for weakening Arab states and promoting the emergence of smaller, weaker minorities with whom it can engage to its advantage (as it has done for years with Kurds in Iraq and some right-wing groups in Lebanon), and, the current American formalization of ethnic politics in Iraq as a possible model for the entire region.
This leads to the third important trend that has defined the Middle East this year, but without clear indications of whether the end results will be positive or negative for the people of the region. This is the stepped up international direct engagement in the internal affairs of countries, including Arab states, Iran and Turkey. (Sorry, a small but necessary aside: peculiarly, and running against the dominant trend, foreign intervention tends to vanish when it comes to intervening in the policies and conduct of the Israeli government, even when Israeli actions are explicitly and repeatedly condemned by the international community through respectable institutions such as the World Court and the United Nations Security Council. A thought for the cold months of early 2006: if freedom and democracy are universal values, and should be spread around the world by diplomatic muscle and occasional force, if necessary, does the same apply to the rule of law, and the state of Israel?).
The enduring exception of Israel aside, the international community's intervention inside the Middle East this year has been striking for its audacity, but imprecise in its legitimacy and consequences. I would identify four dominant patterns of such intervention.
The first was the essentially unilateral American brute use of force, with window-dressing hangers-on, as happened in Iraq. We will need more time to discover if this epic intervention proves to be valiant or catastrophic for the people of Iraq and the region. The second was the multilateral, diplomatic, patient, focused, consensus-driven UN Security Council-based approach used in Lebanon to pressure Syria after the murder of Rafik Hariri last February. A variation on this deliberate approach is also being used to engage Iran on its nuclear plans.
The third form of foreign intervention was the painstaking, step-by-step prodding of domestic institutional and legal reforms of Arab societies championed by the European Union since 1995, and more recently in a slightly more inept form by the U.S.-dominated G-8 group of industrial nations. Gains have been thin to date. The fourth, and most intriguing, intervention technique, also dominated by the U.S., was the pressure exerted on individual countries over specific issues, using a combination of public statements by American senior officials and private warnings and cajoling. The best examples of this were the quests to push forward electoral reform and expanded voting in Egypt and Kuwait. Activists in both countries say privately that Washington's pressure played an important role in pushing these two Arab systems to evolve somewhat.
The cumulative lesson from this year's three political trends, it seems, is that under certain conditions there is indeed a middle ground where Arabs and Westerners can meet and work together for common political goals. Indigenous Arab
activists and those behind external diplomatic efforts can fortify each other if they jointly define a common set of goals that respond to reasonable demands on both sides; and if they anchor the entire process of change in legal and political legitimacy, whether in the UN, in international law, or in negotiated accords.
My hunch is that the good trends of the past year, including citizen activism and small steps to democracy, tend to result from sensible cooperation between Arabs and Westerners; conversely, the bad news from Iraq, Palestine, Sudan and aspects of the Lebanese situation usually reflects the consequences of unilateralism, gangsterism, and militarism. Why Israel consistently gets a free ride from all this remains more than intriguing; it often also drives some of the resentment that translates into extremism and violence throughout this region. Some grad student in Belgium should look into this for us this year.
Happy New Year to all, especially to my fellow average Arab citizens, whose stoicism, heroism and impregnable humanity remain the defining characteristic of these troubled but valiant lands.
This aticle appeared in the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut. It is reprinted with permission. Rami Khouri's work is distributed by Agence Global.
THE STATE DEPARTMENT’S MIXED MESSAGES
By William Fisher
Amidst undenied charges that the Pentagon is paying Iraqi journalists to write “good news” stories about the country’s progress, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has announced a new international exchange program for journalists named for famed broadcaster Edward R. Murrow and emphasizing “the democratic principles that guided Mr. Murrow's practice of his craft: integrity and ethics and courage and social responsibility”.
Rice added, “We all know that the bedrock pillar of a free society is a free press and that it is crucial for the foundation of any democracy.”
The new initiative -- The Edward R. Murrow Journalism Program -- is a partnership of the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the non-partisan Aspen Institute, and the journalism schools of six American universities. It will invite up to 100 international media professionals to visit leading journalism schools in the U.S., “honing their skills, sharing ideas, and gaining first-hand understanding of American society and democratic institutions,” the Institute said.
The goal, it said, “is not only to inform the journalists about the United States, but also to promote journalistic freedom and excellence around the world.”
Edward R. Murrow is best known for his radio reporting from London during World War Two, and later for exposing on television the demagoguery of Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose communist-hunting in the 1950s led to his censure by the senate.
Unveiling the program, Secretary Rice said, “The Department of State is determined to forge partnerships with our private sector so that Americans of all stripes, all traditions, all ethnic groups and also all walks of life might be able to help to carry the story of democratic progress and the progress of liberty.”
Announcement of the new program was strangely juxtaposed with the furor surrounding recent disclosures that the Pentagon hired a contractor, a PR firm called The Lincoln Group, to pay Iraqi journalists to publish articles written by the U.S. military that put a positive spin on developments in Iraq. The published articles do not identify the U.S. military as the source.
Earlier this week, The Washington Post newspaper reported that U.S. Marines, frustrated by the coverage they were receiving from the mainstream news media, had invited a retired soldier who writes a weblog, or blog, about the military to travel to Iraq to cover the war from the front lines.
The blogger, Bill Roggio, a computer technician from New Jersey, raised more than $30,000 from his online readers to pay for airfare, technical equipment and body armor. A few weeks later, he was posting dispatches from a remote outpost in western Anbar province, a hotbed of Iraq's insurgency.
Roggio told the Washington Post in an email, "I was disenchanted with the
reporting on the war in Iraq and the greater war on terror and felt there
was much to the conflict that was missed." Roggio, who is currently stationed
with Marines along the Syrian border, said, “What is often seen as an attempt at balanced reporting results in underreporting of the military's success and strategy and an overemphasis on the strategically minor success of the jihadists
or insurgents."
After military officials in Baghdad said Roggio could not be issued media credentials unless he was affiliated with an organization, the American
Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning research organization in
Washington, offered him an affiliation. His weblog is called "The Fourth Rail" (http://www.billroggio.com).
At the same time, The Post disclosed that the U.S. military has paid to place favorable coverage on television stations in three Iraqi cities, according to an Army spokesman.
The military, he told the newspaper, has given one of the stations about $35,000 in equipment, is building a new facility for $300,000 and pays $600 a week for a weekly program that focuses positively on U.S. efforts in Iraq.
The Post said a local U.S. Army National Guard commander “acknowledged that his officers ‘suggest’ stories to the station and review the content of the program in a weekly meeting before it is aired. Though the commander, a lieutenant colonel whose name is being withheld because he is based in the same area, denied that payments were made to the station, the Iraqi television producer said his staff got $1,000 a month from the military. It does not disclose any financial
relationship to viewers.” There was no explanation of the discrepancy between
that amount and the figure of $600 per week, the Post added.
The State Department’s new international journalism program may have to confront the same issue. Geoffrey Cowan of the University of Southern California (USC) said, “Democracy cannot work without the free flow of information and ideas that is made possible through an independent and effective press.” He said, “All of our schools expect the international journalists to learn from our courses — and we all expect our students to learn from our visitors.”
In addition to USC, the journalism schools involved in the new program are the University of Kentucky, the University of Minnesota, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Texas at Austin.
As part of the Murrow program, the Institute is planning a major symposium in April featuring prominent working reporters, commentators, editors and columnists discussing practical and ethical issues inherent in the journalistic process. It will also include key government spokespeople, who will discuss the relationship between media and government. Among the themes of the symposium will be the importance of diversity of opinion, an informed public, and challenges facing journalists around the world.
But one observer sees the Iraq “payola” issue and the new Murrow program as “an example of the difference between democracy in theory and practice.” Prof. Beau Grosscup of the University of California at Chico, told IPS, “The same people who set up a program to promote 'independent journalism' are the same folks who defend funding public relations firms, conservative think tank connected jingoist individuals and embedded journalists as 'independent' media. It's all about public relations and media control. Joesph Goebbels would be proud.”
Numerous opinion polls in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East have reported that people are skeptical of U.S. motives and tactics because of what they perceive is a discrepancy between what America says and what it does. The juxtaposition of Pentagon payola and journalism training in ethics and freedom of expression is likely only to muddy the water further.
Amidst undenied charges that the Pentagon is paying Iraqi journalists to write “good news” stories about the country’s progress, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice has announced a new international exchange program for journalists named for famed broadcaster Edward R. Murrow and emphasizing “the democratic principles that guided Mr. Murrow's practice of his craft: integrity and ethics and courage and social responsibility”.
Rice added, “We all know that the bedrock pillar of a free society is a free press and that it is crucial for the foundation of any democracy.”
The new initiative -- The Edward R. Murrow Journalism Program -- is a partnership of the State Department’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the non-partisan Aspen Institute, and the journalism schools of six American universities. It will invite up to 100 international media professionals to visit leading journalism schools in the U.S., “honing their skills, sharing ideas, and gaining first-hand understanding of American society and democratic institutions,” the Institute said.
The goal, it said, “is not only to inform the journalists about the United States, but also to promote journalistic freedom and excellence around the world.”
Edward R. Murrow is best known for his radio reporting from London during World War Two, and later for exposing on television the demagoguery of Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, whose communist-hunting in the 1950s led to his censure by the senate.
Unveiling the program, Secretary Rice said, “The Department of State is determined to forge partnerships with our private sector so that Americans of all stripes, all traditions, all ethnic groups and also all walks of life might be able to help to carry the story of democratic progress and the progress of liberty.”
Announcement of the new program was strangely juxtaposed with the furor surrounding recent disclosures that the Pentagon hired a contractor, a PR firm called The Lincoln Group, to pay Iraqi journalists to publish articles written by the U.S. military that put a positive spin on developments in Iraq. The published articles do not identify the U.S. military as the source.
Earlier this week, The Washington Post newspaper reported that U.S. Marines, frustrated by the coverage they were receiving from the mainstream news media, had invited a retired soldier who writes a weblog, or blog, about the military to travel to Iraq to cover the war from the front lines.
The blogger, Bill Roggio, a computer technician from New Jersey, raised more than $30,000 from his online readers to pay for airfare, technical equipment and body armor. A few weeks later, he was posting dispatches from a remote outpost in western Anbar province, a hotbed of Iraq's insurgency.
Roggio told the Washington Post in an email, "I was disenchanted with the
reporting on the war in Iraq and the greater war on terror and felt there
was much to the conflict that was missed." Roggio, who is currently stationed
with Marines along the Syrian border, said, “What is often seen as an attempt at balanced reporting results in underreporting of the military's success and strategy and an overemphasis on the strategically minor success of the jihadists
or insurgents."
After military officials in Baghdad said Roggio could not be issued media credentials unless he was affiliated with an organization, the American
Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning research organization in
Washington, offered him an affiliation. His weblog is called "The Fourth Rail" (http://www.billroggio.com).
At the same time, The Post disclosed that the U.S. military has paid to place favorable coverage on television stations in three Iraqi cities, according to an Army spokesman.
The military, he told the newspaper, has given one of the stations about $35,000 in equipment, is building a new facility for $300,000 and pays $600 a week for a weekly program that focuses positively on U.S. efforts in Iraq.
The Post said a local U.S. Army National Guard commander “acknowledged that his officers ‘suggest’ stories to the station and review the content of the program in a weekly meeting before it is aired. Though the commander, a lieutenant colonel whose name is being withheld because he is based in the same area, denied that payments were made to the station, the Iraqi television producer said his staff got $1,000 a month from the military. It does not disclose any financial
relationship to viewers.” There was no explanation of the discrepancy between
that amount and the figure of $600 per week, the Post added.
The State Department’s new international journalism program may have to confront the same issue. Geoffrey Cowan of the University of Southern California (USC) said, “Democracy cannot work without the free flow of information and ideas that is made possible through an independent and effective press.” He said, “All of our schools expect the international journalists to learn from our courses — and we all expect our students to learn from our visitors.”
In addition to USC, the journalism schools involved in the new program are the University of Kentucky, the University of Minnesota, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of Texas at Austin.
As part of the Murrow program, the Institute is planning a major symposium in April featuring prominent working reporters, commentators, editors and columnists discussing practical and ethical issues inherent in the journalistic process. It will also include key government spokespeople, who will discuss the relationship between media and government. Among the themes of the symposium will be the importance of diversity of opinion, an informed public, and challenges facing journalists around the world.
But one observer sees the Iraq “payola” issue and the new Murrow program as “an example of the difference between democracy in theory and practice.” Prof. Beau Grosscup of the University of California at Chico, told IPS, “The same people who set up a program to promote 'independent journalism' are the same folks who defend funding public relations firms, conservative think tank connected jingoist individuals and embedded journalists as 'independent' media. It's all about public relations and media control. Joesph Goebbels would be proud.”
Numerous opinion polls in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East have reported that people are skeptical of U.S. motives and tactics because of what they perceive is a discrepancy between what America says and what it does. The juxtaposition of Pentagon payola and journalism training in ethics and freedom of expression is likely only to muddy the water further.
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
MR. NOUR AND POLITICAL REFORM IN EGYPT
By William Fisher
The U.S. Government, foreign policy experts, newspaper editorial writers and human rights advocates were virtually unanimous in condemning the sentencing last week of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s chief political opponent to a five-year prison term, but divided on what can be done about it.
The White House and the State Department issued statements saying they were “deeply troubled” by the conviction and sentencing of Ayman Nour, the runner-up in Egypt's 2005 presidential elections. They said it “calls into question Egypt's commitment to democracy, freedom, and the rule of law” and called on the Egyptian government “to act under the laws of Egypt in the spirit of its professed desire for increased political openness and dialogue within Egyptian society, and out of humanitarian concern” (for Mr. Nour’s health) to release Mr. Nour from detention. Nour has been on a hunger strike for the past week and reports suggest his health is “seriously deteriorating”.
Nour's initial arrest on Jan. 29 and his 42-day detention without charge strained U.S.-Egyptian relations. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice canceled a visit to Egypt, apparently in disapproval of the government's treatment of Nour. Mr. Nour was then released on bail.
Nour had pleaded innocent to ordering the forging of signatures to register his Al-Ghad (Tomorrow) party last year. He finished a distant second to Mubarak in September's elections, Egypt's first contested presidential race, then lost his parliamentary seat in November's legislative polls. He is appealing the November result, alleging irregularities.
During his trial, one of his six co-defendants retracted his confession telling the court that security officials had coerced him to make a statement accusing Nour of forgery.
Last week’s verdict was read by the same judge who convicted the sociology professor and rights activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim, an Egyptian-American, of tarnishing Egypt's image in 2002. The appeals court eventually overturned the verdict.
In an editorial, the influential Washington Post newspaper reminded President George W. Bush of his second inaugural address, in which he said, "When you stand for your liberty we will stand with you. Democratic reformers facing repression, prison or exile can know: America sees you for who you are -- the future leaders of your free country." It concluded: “If Mr. Bush's commitment to freedom fighters means anything at all, he cannot allow this blatant act of injustice to go unchallenged.” The newspaper urged President Bush to use U.S. aid to Egypt as a lever to procure Nour's freedom. “Standing with Ayman Nour means standing against military aid for Mr. Mubarak until this democratic reformer is free.”
Beyond outrage and rhetoric, however, experts have varying approaches to persuading Egypt to back down.
Moataz El Fegiery, program coordinator for the Cairo Institute For Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), told IPS, “The US should integrate its human rights and democracy agenda into the current negotiations with the Egyptian government concerning the free trade agreement and linking the economic motives with progress in political reform.” It also called on the European Union to raise the Nour issue “during its negotiation with the Egypt delegation on the action plan of the European neighborhood policy.” The organization added, “Condemning and criticizing is not enough and it will not deter our government. What we are asking for is linking speeches with actions!!”
Neil Hicks, Director of International Programs for Human Rights First, a major U.S.-based advocacy group, called on the U.S. to “take punitive measures by withholding elements of foreign assistance and denying Egyptian leaders privileged access to the White House in gradual, incremental steps over a sustained period of time.”
He told IPS that Nour’s sentencing “presents a challenge to the Bush administration, which has placed so much emphasis on democratization in the Arab world in recent years. There are many opportunities for the United States government to show its displeasure with the Egyptian government's repression of its political opponents. A powerful tool of influence is President Bush speaking out publicly and categorically to condemn the imprisonment of Nour, and to make clear that the U.S. administration understands and disapproves of the Mubarak government's tactics,” he said.
President Bush “should make clear that it is counterproductive and dangerous for the Egyptian government to continue to suppress the secular political opposition,” Hicks declared, adding, “Failure to make clear its strong opposition to Nour's sentencing would further undermine the already shaky credibility of the administration's calls for democracy and freedom in the Muslim world.”
Amnesty International said that the Nour issue and the “ongoing wave of arrests of alleged Muslim Brothers” appear to be “a means to intimidate members of the opposition and critics of the government and to obstruct their political activities.”
The organization called on the Egyptian government to “respect its obligations
under international human rights standards. In particular, all provisions
criminalizing freedom of expression and association must be removed and existing safeguards must be respected.”
In a recent report outlining detailed recommendations for dealing with Egypt, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace acknowledged that the U. S. “depends on Egypt for assistance with military operations in the Middle East and Africa, diplomatic support in Israeli -- Palestinian negotiations, counterterrorism cooperation, and Suez Canal transit.” It said the U.S. “possesses a great deal of influence but also faces increasing resentment related to its policies in the region.”
However, it added, “In recent years there has been a growing sense in Washington that the Egyptian leadership’s reluctance to liberalize the economy and polity has prevented the Egyptian people from attaining the prosperity needed to ensure long-term stability.”
The report concluded, “Considering the influence it possesses, the United States could in theory sacrifice all other interests and press hard for a rapid and probably chaotic transition to democracy in Egypt. (But) considering the risks associated with instability in Egypt, however, a more realistic choice would be to press for a significant opening of political competition, development of political and civil society organizations, and economic reform. This would create a much freer atmosphere in which the Egyptian people could—should they choose to do so—eventually press their government for full democracy.”
The report cautioned, “The U.S. cannot and should not try to force change in Egypt, and all decisions ultimately reside with Egyptians”. The U.S. can, however, “use its significant influence to help press for a freer, more liberal political environment in which Egyptians will make important choices about their country’s future.”
Carnegie recommended “a strategy that integrates policy engagement and assistance”. Specific initiatives, its report said, should include concentrating on issues that Egyptians have identified as critical: lifting emergency laws, revising laws on forming political parties and regulating NGOs, forming an independent electoral commission and monitoring bodies, and redistribution of power from the executive to legislative and judicial branches; making major assistance program commitments only in areas where the Egyptian government has demonstrated the will to reform, or in critical areas where the U.S. government is prepared to work hard on persuading the Egyptian government to open up; retaining enough flexibility in the assistance program to be able to respond to opportunities or challenges that arise; that is, avoid committing all the funds to large, multiyear projects; carving out funds that the U.S. government can disburse directly, with the Egyptian government agreeing only to general program guidelines; and seeking alternative destinations for funds should the U.S. and Egyptian governments be unable to agree on meaningful programs.”
Many other experts from universities and think-tanks have wrestled with the question of how to encourage democratic liberalization in Egypt. President Bush has arguably been more outspoken than previous U.S. administrations. But the bottom line may be that having Egypt as an ally in the “Global War on Terror” – and a supporter of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – will trump the democratization process. Middle East observers say that, despite the billions the U.S. dispenses in aid to Egypt, America may have less leverage than conventional wisdom perceives.
The U.S. Government, foreign policy experts, newspaper editorial writers and human rights advocates were virtually unanimous in condemning the sentencing last week of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak’s chief political opponent to a five-year prison term, but divided on what can be done about it.
The White House and the State Department issued statements saying they were “deeply troubled” by the conviction and sentencing of Ayman Nour, the runner-up in Egypt's 2005 presidential elections. They said it “calls into question Egypt's commitment to democracy, freedom, and the rule of law” and called on the Egyptian government “to act under the laws of Egypt in the spirit of its professed desire for increased political openness and dialogue within Egyptian society, and out of humanitarian concern” (for Mr. Nour’s health) to release Mr. Nour from detention. Nour has been on a hunger strike for the past week and reports suggest his health is “seriously deteriorating”.
Nour's initial arrest on Jan. 29 and his 42-day detention without charge strained U.S.-Egyptian relations. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice canceled a visit to Egypt, apparently in disapproval of the government's treatment of Nour. Mr. Nour was then released on bail.
Nour had pleaded innocent to ordering the forging of signatures to register his Al-Ghad (Tomorrow) party last year. He finished a distant second to Mubarak in September's elections, Egypt's first contested presidential race, then lost his parliamentary seat in November's legislative polls. He is appealing the November result, alleging irregularities.
During his trial, one of his six co-defendants retracted his confession telling the court that security officials had coerced him to make a statement accusing Nour of forgery.
Last week’s verdict was read by the same judge who convicted the sociology professor and rights activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim, an Egyptian-American, of tarnishing Egypt's image in 2002. The appeals court eventually overturned the verdict.
In an editorial, the influential Washington Post newspaper reminded President George W. Bush of his second inaugural address, in which he said, "When you stand for your liberty we will stand with you. Democratic reformers facing repression, prison or exile can know: America sees you for who you are -- the future leaders of your free country." It concluded: “If Mr. Bush's commitment to freedom fighters means anything at all, he cannot allow this blatant act of injustice to go unchallenged.” The newspaper urged President Bush to use U.S. aid to Egypt as a lever to procure Nour's freedom. “Standing with Ayman Nour means standing against military aid for Mr. Mubarak until this democratic reformer is free.”
Beyond outrage and rhetoric, however, experts have varying approaches to persuading Egypt to back down.
Moataz El Fegiery, program coordinator for the Cairo Institute For Human Rights Studies (CIHRS), told IPS, “The US should integrate its human rights and democracy agenda into the current negotiations with the Egyptian government concerning the free trade agreement and linking the economic motives with progress in political reform.” It also called on the European Union to raise the Nour issue “during its negotiation with the Egypt delegation on the action plan of the European neighborhood policy.” The organization added, “Condemning and criticizing is not enough and it will not deter our government. What we are asking for is linking speeches with actions!!”
Neil Hicks, Director of International Programs for Human Rights First, a major U.S.-based advocacy group, called on the U.S. to “take punitive measures by withholding elements of foreign assistance and denying Egyptian leaders privileged access to the White House in gradual, incremental steps over a sustained period of time.”
He told IPS that Nour’s sentencing “presents a challenge to the Bush administration, which has placed so much emphasis on democratization in the Arab world in recent years. There are many opportunities for the United States government to show its displeasure with the Egyptian government's repression of its political opponents. A powerful tool of influence is President Bush speaking out publicly and categorically to condemn the imprisonment of Nour, and to make clear that the U.S. administration understands and disapproves of the Mubarak government's tactics,” he said.
President Bush “should make clear that it is counterproductive and dangerous for the Egyptian government to continue to suppress the secular political opposition,” Hicks declared, adding, “Failure to make clear its strong opposition to Nour's sentencing would further undermine the already shaky credibility of the administration's calls for democracy and freedom in the Muslim world.”
Amnesty International said that the Nour issue and the “ongoing wave of arrests of alleged Muslim Brothers” appear to be “a means to intimidate members of the opposition and critics of the government and to obstruct their political activities.”
The organization called on the Egyptian government to “respect its obligations
under international human rights standards. In particular, all provisions
criminalizing freedom of expression and association must be removed and existing safeguards must be respected.”
In a recent report outlining detailed recommendations for dealing with Egypt, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace acknowledged that the U. S. “depends on Egypt for assistance with military operations in the Middle East and Africa, diplomatic support in Israeli -- Palestinian negotiations, counterterrorism cooperation, and Suez Canal transit.” It said the U.S. “possesses a great deal of influence but also faces increasing resentment related to its policies in the region.”
However, it added, “In recent years there has been a growing sense in Washington that the Egyptian leadership’s reluctance to liberalize the economy and polity has prevented the Egyptian people from attaining the prosperity needed to ensure long-term stability.”
The report concluded, “Considering the influence it possesses, the United States could in theory sacrifice all other interests and press hard for a rapid and probably chaotic transition to democracy in Egypt. (But) considering the risks associated with instability in Egypt, however, a more realistic choice would be to press for a significant opening of political competition, development of political and civil society organizations, and economic reform. This would create a much freer atmosphere in which the Egyptian people could—should they choose to do so—eventually press their government for full democracy.”
The report cautioned, “The U.S. cannot and should not try to force change in Egypt, and all decisions ultimately reside with Egyptians”. The U.S. can, however, “use its significant influence to help press for a freer, more liberal political environment in which Egyptians will make important choices about their country’s future.”
Carnegie recommended “a strategy that integrates policy engagement and assistance”. Specific initiatives, its report said, should include concentrating on issues that Egyptians have identified as critical: lifting emergency laws, revising laws on forming political parties and regulating NGOs, forming an independent electoral commission and monitoring bodies, and redistribution of power from the executive to legislative and judicial branches; making major assistance program commitments only in areas where the Egyptian government has demonstrated the will to reform, or in critical areas where the U.S. government is prepared to work hard on persuading the Egyptian government to open up; retaining enough flexibility in the assistance program to be able to respond to opportunities or challenges that arise; that is, avoid committing all the funds to large, multiyear projects; carving out funds that the U.S. government can disburse directly, with the Egyptian government agreeing only to general program guidelines; and seeking alternative destinations for funds should the U.S. and Egyptian governments be unable to agree on meaningful programs.”
Many other experts from universities and think-tanks have wrestled with the question of how to encourage democratic liberalization in Egypt. President Bush has arguably been more outspoken than previous U.S. administrations. But the bottom line may be that having Egypt as an ally in the “Global War on Terror” – and a supporter of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – will trump the democratization process. Middle East observers say that, despite the billions the U.S. dispenses in aid to Egypt, America may have less leverage than conventional wisdom perceives.
Sunday, December 25, 2005
May a Flock of Thrushes Disrupt Your Hologram This Yuletide Season
Jason Miller is a 39 year old activist writer with a degree in liberal arts. When he is not spending time with his wife and three sons, researching, or writing, he is working as a loan counselor. He is a member of Amnesty International and an avid supporter of Oxfam International. He welcomes responses at willpowerful@hotmail.com or comments on his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.
By Jason Miller
It's Still a Wonderful Life, in Spite of Potter
"It's a Wonderful Life" is my favorite movie. I have watched it so many times I have lost count. Last night, in celebration of Christmas Eve, I watched it again. As I felt my "Christmas Spirit" reviving from the drain of the hustle and bustle of the holidays, it occurred to me how odd it is that I have not exhausted this precious resource of personal spiritual renewal. Frank Capra's idealistic portrayal of the triumph of the "common man" over the greed and avarice of America's plutocracy has yet to wear thin with me.
It's a Long Way Down, But It Doesn't Take Long to Get There
Despite its exaggerated nature, Capra's film captured some fundamental truths about humanity and the dynamics of America's social and political structure. When I was a naive, confused, and very depressed freshman in college at the University of Missouri in 1985, I discovered "It's a Wonderful Life" when a friend taking a film studies course took me to see it. For reasons which evaded my consciousness at the time, the movie buoyed my sinking soul. Despite having found that life preserver, the powerful undertow of my bipolar disorder eventually sucked me deep into a sea of self-destruction and despair. I completed three years of school before dropping out of the university and out of my relatively privileged lower middle class life. Through my spiritual and emotional crisis, I made choices leading me to financial bankruptcy, a serious industrial accident which left me with severe chemical and thermal burns, chemical dependency, abandonment of my family and responsibilities, temporary homelessness, six years of "servitude" in menial manufacturing jobs with poverty level wages and pathetic benefits, and an emotional pain so profound that I seriously contemplated suicide. The Valedictorian of his high school class and Eagle Scout had hit rock bottom. And what a blessing it proved to be!
Starting in the early 90's, under the tutelage of one of the finest humanity had to offer, I learned to manage my bipolar condition. Lynn Barnett, my counselor, gave me the tools I needed to reclaim my soul and my life. Guided by Lynn's compassionate tough love, cognitive behavioral techniques, and the principles of the Twelve Step programs, little by little I scaled the face of the cliff toward the plateau of spiritual and emotional stability. I repaid my child support arrearage, regained joint legal custody of my twin boys, quit drinking (1991) and smoking (1997), found decent employment, found a beautiful and decent human being with whom to begin marriage anew, completed a degree in liberal arts (by taking classes while I was working), read and studied voraciously, taught myself Spanish (the language of the poor and oppressed), adopted my new wife's son, and became an activist writer on behalf of social justice, human rights, and intellectual freedom (while continuing to work to help support our family). Plumbing the depths of despair and striving to return from the "underworld" gave me the gifts of humility, appreciation, independence, and determination to pursue my goals. It also endowed me with insight and empathy, which were sorely lacking in my character before my "fall".
Aside from my obvious personal challenges arising from the manifestations of my bipolar disorder, it has become quite apparent to me that my spiritual crisis (and subsequent epiphany) was also rooted in the collective cry of a metaphorical flock of thrushes which flew into my subconscious and decimated the hologram of the Simulacrum Republic (click on this link for a "must read" article by Joe Bageant which explains the metaphor of the thrushes and the hologram). As is often the case in the human psyche, my unconscious mind was several steps ahead of my conscious mind as my inner being vigorously rejected the American Nightmare of violence, militarism, instant gratification, over-consumption, bigotry, insularity from other cultures, short-sightedness, xenophobia, hubris, and avarice force fed to us as the highly palatable "American Dream" by our government, text-book manufacturers, corporate-controlled media, Madison Avenue, and corporate America. In short, I take responsibility for my choices and their consequences, but understand that I made them in the context of having a disorder with which I had few tools to cope effectively, and that my self-destructive, irresponsible acts were in part an unconscious rebellion against the perverse psychological and economic oppression of America's corporatocracy. I am not letting myself off the hook for what harm I caused, but I understand my motivations, have made amends, and have forgiven myself.
Once Again Inanity Dominates the Public Consciousness
During this holiday season, as Fundamentalist Christians clash with secular forces over the petty issue of the appropriate way to express one's Yuletide greetings, I pose the question,
In light of the myriad challenges facing humanity today, why are people wasting their time and energy on this absurd "War on Christmas?"
While people feud over the appropriate words to use at a time of year which means something different to almost everyone, the Mr. Potters of the world, embodied by amoral and immoral corporations which have attained the rights of personhood, continue in their steady march to squelch human rights and enslave humanity.
You Mean They Don't Really Have Our Best Interests in Mind?
Retailers like Wal-Mart give us "Always Low Prices". All they demand in return is that Americans look the other way while they continue to: compensate their "associates" with sub-standard wages and benefits, crush the economies of the towns and communities where they locate, run their competitors out of business, and import $15 billion worth of goods from China each year. Energy titans like Exxon keep us dependent on fossil fuels, spend millions "debunking the myth of global warming", plunder the resources of other nations, and keep the prices of gasoline artificially high by limiting refining capacity. Monsanto and their ilk poison our bodies and the environment as they work religiously to fatten their bottom line without regard for humanity or the Earth. Obscene entities like the Carlyle Group, which derive their profits from murder, beat the drums of war to lead both soldiers and innocent civilians on a lemming-like march to their deaths.
Campaign finance, lobbying, think tanks, advertising, propaganda blitzes, the rights of corporate personhood, and so-called "free trade agreements" coalesce to enable these and many other repugnant corporations to act with callous indifference toward human rights and environmental concerns. During the Christmas/Holiday season, the efforts of individuals to embody and advocate truly meaningful values (like those depicted by the character of George Bailey) are too often drowned out by the Potters of the world joining together in cacophonous calls for spending, consuming, and pursuing one's narcissistic desires. Projected to spend $435 billion during the holidays, US consumers will do their part to ensure the perpetuation of the fiscal empires of the embodiments of Lionel Barrymore's despicable character.
Thomas Jefferson gave us a prescient warning about the power of banks (recent deregulation has significantly blurred the line between banks and other types of financial corporations) and corporations:
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
--from his Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)
Robber Barons: of Yesteryear and Today
In his book Thomas Paine and the Promise of America, Harvey Kaye (the Rosenberg Professor of Social Change and Development at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay) discussed the extent to which the power of America's corporatocracy and plutocracy had grown by the time of the Gilded Age (about 100 years after Jefferson's admonition):
The concentration of wealth and power and the growth of large, hierarchical corporations fundamentally denied America's eighteenth-century republican ideal of small producers and independent citizens and the belief that political equality would engender economic equality. With its new extremes of rich and poor, it seemed the United States was coming to resemble Europe, the only difference being that whereas aristocrats ruled Europe, "plutocrats"--a far wealthier and more vigorous breed--ruled America.
Despite the valiant struggles of the muckrakers, the women's movement, the labor movement, the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement of the Twentieth Century, Old Man Potter is alive and well. Today, America's plutocrats are more avaricious and powerful than the Rockefellers or the Carnegies. America's plutocrats' deeply incestuous ties with the government (and the media) coupled with their carefully honed images of corporate benevolence afford them the power to manipulate "We the People" to a degree that would even have shocked a man like John Pierpoint Morgan.
As I continue to work, to parent, to write, to maintain my blog (Thomas Paine's Corner), and to engage in my activism to advance social justice, economic justice, human rights, and intellectual freedom, I will celebrate the Yuletide season as a time to focus on peace, goodwill to fellow humans, giving and family. I give thanks to my concept of the Higher Power for the many blessings bestowed upon my family and me (in spite of the fact that my wife and I are amongst Potter's so-called "rabble" who does "most of the working and paying and living and dying"). My spiritual journey through the chaos and pain of bipolar disorder has been arduous, and is far from over as I work each day to manage my condition, but the character and spiritual freedom I have earned enable me to joyfully exist in the less appealing, but much more fulfilling reality which lies beneath the corporate-manufactured hologram of the Simulacrum Republic.
In 1947, the FBI mentioned "It's a Wonderful Life" in its investigation of Communist infiltration into America's film industry. In the United States, it was, and still is "Un-American" to portray the plutocracy in a negative light. Instead, our sick mainstream media glorifies hollow men like Donald Trump, while tantalizing the masses with the incredibly remote possibility that they could have what "the Donald" has by completing courses at "Trump University". Meanwhile, our information gods mock and demonize people like Ralph Nader, a man who has diligently fought for consumers, the common people, and the environment for years.
George Bailey could just as easily have been talking to Lee Scott, Wal-Mart's CEO, when he said:
You sit around here and you spin your little webs and you think the whole world revolves around you and your money. Well, it doesn't, Mr. Potter. In the whole vast configuration of things, I'd say you were nothing but a scurvy little spider.
Thanks to the efforts of "Communist" labor unions on behalf of working people, my grandfather (a man of strength and integrity who only had an eighth grade education) provided a decent living for his family by working at a General Motors assembly plant for 25 years. As I grew up listening to him decry the injustices in the world and watching him shun opportunities to better himself financially when they would have violated his principles or jeopardized his family's security, my powerful sense of justice and affinity for integrity were forged. I thought of my grandfather when Harry Bailey proclaimed:
A toast to my big brother George: The richest man in town.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Hanukkah, and a Joyous Winter Solstice to you!
By Jason Miller
It's Still a Wonderful Life, in Spite of Potter
"It's a Wonderful Life" is my favorite movie. I have watched it so many times I have lost count. Last night, in celebration of Christmas Eve, I watched it again. As I felt my "Christmas Spirit" reviving from the drain of the hustle and bustle of the holidays, it occurred to me how odd it is that I have not exhausted this precious resource of personal spiritual renewal. Frank Capra's idealistic portrayal of the triumph of the "common man" over the greed and avarice of America's plutocracy has yet to wear thin with me.
It's a Long Way Down, But It Doesn't Take Long to Get There
Despite its exaggerated nature, Capra's film captured some fundamental truths about humanity and the dynamics of America's social and political structure. When I was a naive, confused, and very depressed freshman in college at the University of Missouri in 1985, I discovered "It's a Wonderful Life" when a friend taking a film studies course took me to see it. For reasons which evaded my consciousness at the time, the movie buoyed my sinking soul. Despite having found that life preserver, the powerful undertow of my bipolar disorder eventually sucked me deep into a sea of self-destruction and despair. I completed three years of school before dropping out of the university and out of my relatively privileged lower middle class life. Through my spiritual and emotional crisis, I made choices leading me to financial bankruptcy, a serious industrial accident which left me with severe chemical and thermal burns, chemical dependency, abandonment of my family and responsibilities, temporary homelessness, six years of "servitude" in menial manufacturing jobs with poverty level wages and pathetic benefits, and an emotional pain so profound that I seriously contemplated suicide. The Valedictorian of his high school class and Eagle Scout had hit rock bottom. And what a blessing it proved to be!
Starting in the early 90's, under the tutelage of one of the finest humanity had to offer, I learned to manage my bipolar condition. Lynn Barnett, my counselor, gave me the tools I needed to reclaim my soul and my life. Guided by Lynn's compassionate tough love, cognitive behavioral techniques, and the principles of the Twelve Step programs, little by little I scaled the face of the cliff toward the plateau of spiritual and emotional stability. I repaid my child support arrearage, regained joint legal custody of my twin boys, quit drinking (1991) and smoking (1997), found decent employment, found a beautiful and decent human being with whom to begin marriage anew, completed a degree in liberal arts (by taking classes while I was working), read and studied voraciously, taught myself Spanish (the language of the poor and oppressed), adopted my new wife's son, and became an activist writer on behalf of social justice, human rights, and intellectual freedom (while continuing to work to help support our family). Plumbing the depths of despair and striving to return from the "underworld" gave me the gifts of humility, appreciation, independence, and determination to pursue my goals. It also endowed me with insight and empathy, which were sorely lacking in my character before my "fall".
Aside from my obvious personal challenges arising from the manifestations of my bipolar disorder, it has become quite apparent to me that my spiritual crisis (and subsequent epiphany) was also rooted in the collective cry of a metaphorical flock of thrushes which flew into my subconscious and decimated the hologram of the Simulacrum Republic (click on this link for a "must read" article by Joe Bageant which explains the metaphor of the thrushes and the hologram). As is often the case in the human psyche, my unconscious mind was several steps ahead of my conscious mind as my inner being vigorously rejected the American Nightmare of violence, militarism, instant gratification, over-consumption, bigotry, insularity from other cultures, short-sightedness, xenophobia, hubris, and avarice force fed to us as the highly palatable "American Dream" by our government, text-book manufacturers, corporate-controlled media, Madison Avenue, and corporate America. In short, I take responsibility for my choices and their consequences, but understand that I made them in the context of having a disorder with which I had few tools to cope effectively, and that my self-destructive, irresponsible acts were in part an unconscious rebellion against the perverse psychological and economic oppression of America's corporatocracy. I am not letting myself off the hook for what harm I caused, but I understand my motivations, have made amends, and have forgiven myself.
Once Again Inanity Dominates the Public Consciousness
During this holiday season, as Fundamentalist Christians clash with secular forces over the petty issue of the appropriate way to express one's Yuletide greetings, I pose the question,
In light of the myriad challenges facing humanity today, why are people wasting their time and energy on this absurd "War on Christmas?"
While people feud over the appropriate words to use at a time of year which means something different to almost everyone, the Mr. Potters of the world, embodied by amoral and immoral corporations which have attained the rights of personhood, continue in their steady march to squelch human rights and enslave humanity.
You Mean They Don't Really Have Our Best Interests in Mind?
Retailers like Wal-Mart give us "Always Low Prices". All they demand in return is that Americans look the other way while they continue to: compensate their "associates" with sub-standard wages and benefits, crush the economies of the towns and communities where they locate, run their competitors out of business, and import $15 billion worth of goods from China each year. Energy titans like Exxon keep us dependent on fossil fuels, spend millions "debunking the myth of global warming", plunder the resources of other nations, and keep the prices of gasoline artificially high by limiting refining capacity. Monsanto and their ilk poison our bodies and the environment as they work religiously to fatten their bottom line without regard for humanity or the Earth. Obscene entities like the Carlyle Group, which derive their profits from murder, beat the drums of war to lead both soldiers and innocent civilians on a lemming-like march to their deaths.
Campaign finance, lobbying, think tanks, advertising, propaganda blitzes, the rights of corporate personhood, and so-called "free trade agreements" coalesce to enable these and many other repugnant corporations to act with callous indifference toward human rights and environmental concerns. During the Christmas/Holiday season, the efforts of individuals to embody and advocate truly meaningful values (like those depicted by the character of George Bailey) are too often drowned out by the Potters of the world joining together in cacophonous calls for spending, consuming, and pursuing one's narcissistic desires. Projected to spend $435 billion during the holidays, US consumers will do their part to ensure the perpetuation of the fiscal empires of the embodiments of Lionel Barrymore's despicable character.
Thomas Jefferson gave us a prescient warning about the power of banks (recent deregulation has significantly blurred the line between banks and other types of financial corporations) and corporations:
I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. The issuing power should be taken from the banks and restored to the people, to whom it properly belongs.
--from his Letter to the Secretary of the Treasury Albert Gallatin (1802)
Robber Barons: of Yesteryear and Today
In his book Thomas Paine and the Promise of America, Harvey Kaye (the Rosenberg Professor of Social Change and Development at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay) discussed the extent to which the power of America's corporatocracy and plutocracy had grown by the time of the Gilded Age (about 100 years after Jefferson's admonition):
The concentration of wealth and power and the growth of large, hierarchical corporations fundamentally denied America's eighteenth-century republican ideal of small producers and independent citizens and the belief that political equality would engender economic equality. With its new extremes of rich and poor, it seemed the United States was coming to resemble Europe, the only difference being that whereas aristocrats ruled Europe, "plutocrats"--a far wealthier and more vigorous breed--ruled America.
Despite the valiant struggles of the muckrakers, the women's movement, the labor movement, the civil rights movement and the anti-war movement of the Twentieth Century, Old Man Potter is alive and well. Today, America's plutocrats are more avaricious and powerful than the Rockefellers or the Carnegies. America's plutocrats' deeply incestuous ties with the government (and the media) coupled with their carefully honed images of corporate benevolence afford them the power to manipulate "We the People" to a degree that would even have shocked a man like John Pierpoint Morgan.
As I continue to work, to parent, to write, to maintain my blog (Thomas Paine's Corner), and to engage in my activism to advance social justice, economic justice, human rights, and intellectual freedom, I will celebrate the Yuletide season as a time to focus on peace, goodwill to fellow humans, giving and family. I give thanks to my concept of the Higher Power for the many blessings bestowed upon my family and me (in spite of the fact that my wife and I are amongst Potter's so-called "rabble" who does "most of the working and paying and living and dying"). My spiritual journey through the chaos and pain of bipolar disorder has been arduous, and is far from over as I work each day to manage my condition, but the character and spiritual freedom I have earned enable me to joyfully exist in the less appealing, but much more fulfilling reality which lies beneath the corporate-manufactured hologram of the Simulacrum Republic.
In 1947, the FBI mentioned "It's a Wonderful Life" in its investigation of Communist infiltration into America's film industry. In the United States, it was, and still is "Un-American" to portray the plutocracy in a negative light. Instead, our sick mainstream media glorifies hollow men like Donald Trump, while tantalizing the masses with the incredibly remote possibility that they could have what "the Donald" has by completing courses at "Trump University". Meanwhile, our information gods mock and demonize people like Ralph Nader, a man who has diligently fought for consumers, the common people, and the environment for years.
George Bailey could just as easily have been talking to Lee Scott, Wal-Mart's CEO, when he said:
You sit around here and you spin your little webs and you think the whole world revolves around you and your money. Well, it doesn't, Mr. Potter. In the whole vast configuration of things, I'd say you were nothing but a scurvy little spider.
Thanks to the efforts of "Communist" labor unions on behalf of working people, my grandfather (a man of strength and integrity who only had an eighth grade education) provided a decent living for his family by working at a General Motors assembly plant for 25 years. As I grew up listening to him decry the injustices in the world and watching him shun opportunities to better himself financially when they would have violated his principles or jeopardized his family's security, my powerful sense of justice and affinity for integrity were forged. I thought of my grandfather when Harry Bailey proclaimed:
A toast to my big brother George: The richest man in town.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy Kwanzaa, Happy Hanukkah, and a Joyous Winter Solstice to you!
Friday, December 23, 2005
IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION:STATE IN, PENTAGON OUT
By William Fisher
After a thousand days of widely acknowledged failure in the job of rebuilding Iraq, the Department of Defense has quietly been relieved of that responsibility, with the State Department taking over as America’s lead reconstruction agency and coordinating the work of all other government departments.
While supporters of the policies of President George W. Bush dismiss the change as an administrative adjustment, others suggest it is symbolic of a decades-old turf battle between the two departments, and the administration’s increasing frustration with the reconstruction performance of the DOD and its contractors.
They also point to the switch as an example of how the president goes about making policy changes in Iraq: exhorting the public to “stay the course” while changing it without fanfare.
Steven Aftergood, who heads the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists, told IPS, "It's a belated recognition that existing policy on reconstruction and stabilization has been woefully inadequate."
The switch was made through a little-noticed December 7 Presidential National Security Directive. Its objective is “to promote the security of the United States through improved coordination, planning, and implementation for reconstruction and stabilization assistance for foreign states and regions at risk of, in, or in transition from conflict or civil strife.”
The Directive says, “The Secretary of State shall coordinate and lead integrated United States Government efforts”, coordinating these efforts with the Secretary of Defense to ensure harmonization with any planned or ongoing U.S. military operations across the spectrum of conflict.”
It explains that to maximize the effectiveness of U.S. rebuilding efforts, “a focal point is needed (i) to coordinate and strengthen efforts of the United States Government to prepare, plan for, and conduct reconstruction and stabilization assistance and related activities in a range of situations that require the response capabilities of multiple United States Government entities and (ii) to harmonize such efforts with U.S. military plans and operations.”
To achieve the objectives of the Directive, the Secretary of State will appoint a Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization with wide-ranging responsibilities.
These include “developing and approving strategies…for reconstruction and stabilization activities directed towards foreign states at risk of, in, or in transition from conflict or civil strife: develop guiding precepts and implementation procedures for reconstruction and stabilization which, where appropriate, may be integrated with military contingency plans and doctrine; and coordinate reconstruction and stabilization activities and preventative strategies with foreign countries, international and regional organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and private sector entities…(and) identify lessons learned and integrate them into operations.”
While reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan have been made far more difficult by security concerns, they have also been plagued by massive corruption, overcharging by many American contractors, lack of transparency and accountability in the contracting process, and confusion about lines of responsibility among U.S. Government agencies, and between the U.S. and Iraqi governments.
The State Department has now been tasked to “resolve relevant policy, program, and funding disputes among United States Government Departments and Agencies with respect to U.S. foreign assistance and foreign economic cooperation, related to reconstruction and stabilization….”
The Bush Directive, which is global in scope and not limited to Iraq and Afghanistan, also established a Policy Coordination Committee (PCC) for Reconstruction and Stabilization Operations. The PCC will be chaired by the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization and a member of the National Security Council (NSC) staff.
The State Department will lead U.S. Government efforts to prevent countries at risk “from being used as a base of operations or safe haven for extremists, terrorists, organized crime groups, or others who pose a threat to U.S. foreign policy, security, or economic interests.”
Problems with contractors and with financial management in general have dogged the DOD for many years. The agency’s contracting procedures have been widely condemned and, in one much-publicized case, the department’s most senior contracting official received a prison term for conflicts of interest and other offenses involving the Boeing Corporation, one of the largest military contractors. Other DOD contractors have also proved problematic; in particular, the Halliburton Company has been accused of substantial over-charges on many of its no-bid contracts and has become the poster child for a broken system.
Government accountants have never been able complete a satisfactory audit of DOD expenditures.
Most recently, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) revealed that DOD contractors have received $8 billion over five years in bonuses on weapons programs that were often plagued by significant cost overruns, performance problems and delays.
The GAO, an independent auditor for Congress, reviewed 93 of 597 military contracts in force between 1999 and 2004 that included the possibility of a bonus. Contractors on average were awarded about 90 percent of the bonus money available, the agency said.
For example, Lockheed Martin and Boeing received $1.7 billion, or about 91 percent of $1.847 billion available on four major programs, including the Joint Strike Fighter, even as these programs "experienced significant cost increases, technical problems and development delays," the GAO said.
The GAO report also cited the Boeing-United Technologies RAH-66 Comanche helicopter, canceled in April 2004, and two other Lockheed programs: the F/A-22 fighter and a satellite system to detect enemy missile launches.
Bonuses paid on these troubled programs ranged from 74 percent to 100 percent of the potential award, the agency said. "These practices undermine the effectiveness of fees as a motivational tool and marginalize their use in holding contractors accountable," the audit agency said. "They also serve to waste taxpayer funds."
After a thousand days of widely acknowledged failure in the job of rebuilding Iraq, the Department of Defense has quietly been relieved of that responsibility, with the State Department taking over as America’s lead reconstruction agency and coordinating the work of all other government departments.
While supporters of the policies of President George W. Bush dismiss the change as an administrative adjustment, others suggest it is symbolic of a decades-old turf battle between the two departments, and the administration’s increasing frustration with the reconstruction performance of the DOD and its contractors.
They also point to the switch as an example of how the president goes about making policy changes in Iraq: exhorting the public to “stay the course” while changing it without fanfare.
Steven Aftergood, who heads the Project on Government Secrecy for the Federation of American Scientists, told IPS, "It's a belated recognition that existing policy on reconstruction and stabilization has been woefully inadequate."
The switch was made through a little-noticed December 7 Presidential National Security Directive. Its objective is “to promote the security of the United States through improved coordination, planning, and implementation for reconstruction and stabilization assistance for foreign states and regions at risk of, in, or in transition from conflict or civil strife.”
The Directive says, “The Secretary of State shall coordinate and lead integrated United States Government efforts”, coordinating these efforts with the Secretary of Defense to ensure harmonization with any planned or ongoing U.S. military operations across the spectrum of conflict.”
It explains that to maximize the effectiveness of U.S. rebuilding efforts, “a focal point is needed (i) to coordinate and strengthen efforts of the United States Government to prepare, plan for, and conduct reconstruction and stabilization assistance and related activities in a range of situations that require the response capabilities of multiple United States Government entities and (ii) to harmonize such efforts with U.S. military plans and operations.”
To achieve the objectives of the Directive, the Secretary of State will appoint a Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization with wide-ranging responsibilities.
These include “developing and approving strategies…for reconstruction and stabilization activities directed towards foreign states at risk of, in, or in transition from conflict or civil strife: develop guiding precepts and implementation procedures for reconstruction and stabilization which, where appropriate, may be integrated with military contingency plans and doctrine; and coordinate reconstruction and stabilization activities and preventative strategies with foreign countries, international and regional organizations, nongovernmental organizations, and private sector entities…(and) identify lessons learned and integrate them into operations.”
While reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan have been made far more difficult by security concerns, they have also been plagued by massive corruption, overcharging by many American contractors, lack of transparency and accountability in the contracting process, and confusion about lines of responsibility among U.S. Government agencies, and between the U.S. and Iraqi governments.
The State Department has now been tasked to “resolve relevant policy, program, and funding disputes among United States Government Departments and Agencies with respect to U.S. foreign assistance and foreign economic cooperation, related to reconstruction and stabilization….”
The Bush Directive, which is global in scope and not limited to Iraq and Afghanistan, also established a Policy Coordination Committee (PCC) for Reconstruction and Stabilization Operations. The PCC will be chaired by the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization and a member of the National Security Council (NSC) staff.
The State Department will lead U.S. Government efforts to prevent countries at risk “from being used as a base of operations or safe haven for extremists, terrorists, organized crime groups, or others who pose a threat to U.S. foreign policy, security, or economic interests.”
Problems with contractors and with financial management in general have dogged the DOD for many years. The agency’s contracting procedures have been widely condemned and, in one much-publicized case, the department’s most senior contracting official received a prison term for conflicts of interest and other offenses involving the Boeing Corporation, one of the largest military contractors. Other DOD contractors have also proved problematic; in particular, the Halliburton Company has been accused of substantial over-charges on many of its no-bid contracts and has become the poster child for a broken system.
Government accountants have never been able complete a satisfactory audit of DOD expenditures.
Most recently, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) revealed that DOD contractors have received $8 billion over five years in bonuses on weapons programs that were often plagued by significant cost overruns, performance problems and delays.
The GAO, an independent auditor for Congress, reviewed 93 of 597 military contracts in force between 1999 and 2004 that included the possibility of a bonus. Contractors on average were awarded about 90 percent of the bonus money available, the agency said.
For example, Lockheed Martin and Boeing received $1.7 billion, or about 91 percent of $1.847 billion available on four major programs, including the Joint Strike Fighter, even as these programs "experienced significant cost increases, technical problems and development delays," the GAO said.
The GAO report also cited the Boeing-United Technologies RAH-66 Comanche helicopter, canceled in April 2004, and two other Lockheed programs: the F/A-22 fighter and a satellite system to detect enemy missile launches.
Bonuses paid on these troubled programs ranged from 74 percent to 100 percent of the potential award, the agency said. "These practices undermine the effectiveness of fees as a motivational tool and marginalize their use in holding contractors accountable," the audit agency said. "They also serve to waste taxpayer funds."
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