By William Fisher
Anticipating that the U.S. federal government would invoke the so-called "state secrets" privilege to block any lawsuit calling for the disclosure of details about allegations that phone companies shared customer records with the government's biggest spy agency, a major civil rights group has embarked on an alternate course.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has filed complaints in more than 20 individual states demanding that their utility commissions and attorneys general convene public hearings and call phone company executives to testify.
The ACLU action in Massachusetts is typical of the approach being taken by the civil rights group. Carol Rose, executive director of the ACLU in Massachusetts, said four mayors had complained to the state's utility regulatory board, where. State law requires the board to conduct public hearings when a mayor complains.
Michael D. Bissonnette, mayor of Chicopee, Massachusetts, said he joined the requests because privacy was fast becoming the key civil rights issue.
"This is likely the greatest invasion of consumer privacy in our nation's history," he said.
The ACLU filed similar complaints in Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.
Typically, state utilities commissions are mandated to regulate the activities of telephone and other electronic carriers operating in their respective states.
A full-frontal legal assault on the National Security Agency would likely hit the brick wall of the "state secrets" doctrine - through which the government is able to keep sensitive cases from ever coming to trial because public disclosures would compromise national security. Once rarely used, the state secrets privilege has become one of the staple defenses used by the Bush Administration to maintain secrecy.
As the ACLU filed its state complaints, it also launched a nationwide campaign to encourage citizens to make their utility commissions aware of their privacy concerns. This campaign is being conducted through an online complaint form available at the ACLU website (www.aclu.org).
The group is also running full-page ads in eight large-city newspapers asking the public to join the complaints. The ads claim that telecommunications companies including "AT&T, Verizon and Other Phone Companies May Have Illegally Sent Your Phone Records to the National Security Agency."
The ACLU said its complaints were filed in the states of Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Iowa, Kansas, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, and Washington.
Ads were taken out in newspapers in Portland, Oregon, Seattle, Washington, New York City, New York, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Chicago, Illinois, Miami, Florida, Boston, Massachusetts, and San Francisco, California.
The civil rights group has also asked the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to reconsider its recent decision not to investigate the alleged provision of tens of millions of telephone records to the National Security Agency (NSA). The NSA is the largest of the government's spy agencies and both the creator and executor of the massive program.
The phone-records issue was exposed after a newspaper, USA Today, reported the program on May 11. It charged that three major national phone companies -- AT&T, Verizon, and BellSouth -- had turned over the call records of millions of Americans to the US government in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.
President George W. Bush and other administration officials have neither confirmed nor denied the USA Today report that the NSA is collecting the calling records of ordinary Americans in its effort to detect the plans of al-Qaida and other terrorist organizations. But Bush has said the administration's anti-terrorism surveillance programs are legal and constitutional.
Meanwhile, attorneys who specialize in class action lawsuits are preparing to file a blizzard of suits against the phone companies purportedly involved with the NSA program. The ACLU of Illinois has already filed suit against one of the suspect phone companies, AT&T, charging that its actions in the NSA program violated customer privacy.
But it remains unclear which phone firms handed over what records to whom. Some companies have denied involvement - but the ACLU notes that those denials have carefully worded and some have referred to the national security interests involved.
All the companies named by USA Today have disputed the newspaper's account. AT&T has neither confirmed nor denied it, but has said that no information was released illegally.
Verizon has flatly denied involvement in the NSA program. But it has left open the issue of whether MCI, the long-distance subsidiary it acquired in January, has turned over records to the government.
BellSouth issued a statement earlier this month that said, "Based on our review to date, we have confirmed no such contract exists and we have not provided bulk customer calling records to the NSA." Civil rights groups are saying that the use of the word "contract" in this denial appears to be a hedge.
If legal claims against the phone companies continue to gain momentum, their costs could be enormous - reminiscent of such past actions as litigation against the major tobacco companies.
In response to an ACLU letter, the FCC -- the agency charged with overseeing the entire U.S. telecommunications industry - said it does not have the authority to look into the phone records program because its members lack the necessary security clearances.
The ACLU believes the phone program is the latest example of "a longer-term abuse of power by the executive branch," said executive director Anthony D. Romero.
In response to a question during a telephone press conference, an ACLU spokesman accused the federal government and the named phone companies of "hiding behind the 'state secrets privilege' " to keep critical information about citizens' privacy from being made public.
Civil liberties lawyers have questioned the legal basis that Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales has used to justify the constitutionality of collecting domestic telephone records as part of the Bush administration's anti-terrorism program.
Gonzales said such an activity would not require a court warrant under a 1979 Supreme Court ruling because it involved obtaining "business records." Under the 27-year-old court ruling in Smith v. Maryland, "those kinds of records do not enjoy Fourth Amendment protection," Gonzales said. "There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in those kinds of records," he added.
But other legal experts disagree. For example, G. Jack King Jr. of the National
Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers noted that Congress in 1986 passed the Electronic Communications Privacy Act requiring court orders before turning over call records to the government. He said Gonzales is correct in saying "the administration isn't violating the Fourth Amendment" (which prohibits unlawful searches and seizures without a warrant based on probable cause). But he added that Gonzales is "failing to acknowledge that it is breaking" the 1986 law, which requires a court order "with a few very narrow exceptions."
The phone records at issue do not contain the names or contents of calls, but do list which numbers called which other numbers, both internationally and domestically, and how those calls were routed.
According to USA Today, this information was then sifted by powerful computers in an attempt to discover a pattern that might reveal the presence of terrorists in the US. The newspaper reported that the NSA had used the phone records of the known 9/11 conspirators to try to establish a model of how terrorists communicate.
In April, the ACLU and other civil rights, journalism and business advocacy groups who frequently communicate by phone and e-mail with people in the Middle East, filed suit against another NSA program, the so-called Domestic Surveillance Program, through which the NSA eavesdrops on international telephone calls and emails, one end of which is in the U.S.
Oral arguments are currently scheduled for June 12, and it is widely expected that the government will invoke its "state secrets privilege" to keep the case out of court.
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Monday, May 22, 2006
THE SILENCE OF THE SHAMS
By William Fisher
Two years ago, with great fanfare, Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, set up a new organization called the Egyptian Supreme Council for Human Rights. The aging dictator named Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former secretary-general of the United Nations, as the Council’s chairman.
The government-backed body was greeted with widespread skepticism from the Egyptian and international human rights community. The Council had no independent authority to investigate allegations of human rights abuses committed by the government. Its role was strictly advisory. And it did not report to the president, rather to a body known as the Shura Council, which is roughly like Britain’s House of Lords.
While many non-governmental human rights organizations characterized the Council as a cosmetic sham and refused to cooperate with it, others were hopeful that the mere creation of such a council by a government with a long and sordid history of human rights abuses represented a dramatic 180-degree turn away from past policies.
Many observers viewed the Council’s creation as a direct result of pressure from the United States, which provides Egypt with some $2 billion a year in military and economic aid. The US had quietly and successfully used its leverage to press the Egyptians to re-try Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, an Egyptian-American sociology professor and human rights advocate, whose think-tank had been convicted of conspiring to influence the electoral process, using illegal contributions from the European Union. Dr. Ibrahim was sentenced to seven years in prison, but later cleared.
The Council’s birth also came at a time when human rights issues, along with more accountable, more transparent governance, were rapidly being incorporated into the lexicon of Middle East political dialogue. This phenomenon was hastened by the publication of the Arab Development Report. Written by a group of Arab scholars under the aegis of the World Bank, the report exposed a wide array of freedom deficits across the Middle East and North Africa.
So the thinking among the more hopeful Egyptian human rights non-governmental advocates was that perhaps the Mubarak regime had concluded it could no longer navigate the rising tide. And their view appeared to be vindicated when the Council issued its first annual report a year later.
That report gave credence to widespread allegations of torture by Egyptian police and security forces. It called for an end to the state of emergency, which has been in force since 1981, saying it provided a loophole by which the authorities prevented Egyptians from enjoying their right to personal security. It charged that 2,000 people were being detained without charge. It alleged torture of detainees. It said that thousands of members of Islamist groups had been in jail since the 1990s, even after they completed their sentences. It described in detail the deaths in detention of nine Egyptians during the year and called them "regrettable violations of the right to life." It also corroborated reports that the authorities detained large numbers of people in north Sinai, and tortured many of them, after the bombings in Sinai resorts.
And it said that in Egyptian police stations suspects were given electric shocks, hung by their arms or legs from the ceiling or from doors, sprayed with cold water, made to stand naked in cold weather for many hours, or beaten with sticks, belts, electric cables, whips or rifle butts. It reported that it was normal investigative practice to arrest everyone around the scene of a crime and torture them to obtain information.
The report added that it spent the year asking government departments to respond to citizens' complaints, but that the response was patchy: The Interior Ministry, which runs the police force and the prisons, answered only 27 of the 242 requests it received from the council; on torture allegations, it answered only three out of 75.
Perhaps predictably, the government rejected the first draft of the report. But it finally capitulated. So?
So nothing.
Since that report was completed human rights in Egypt are arguably in worse shape than they were before it was written – or the Council was created. The Great God Mubarak caved to US and international pressure to hold the first multi-party presidential elections in the country’s history, then rigged the process so that only a limited number of political parties could participate. He threw his principal opponent, Ayman Nour, in jail for five years on trumped-up charges of forging signatures on petitions to register his party to run.
The subsequent Parliamentary elections were arguably worse. Heavily armed police intimidated prospective voters, closed polling places, and attacked peaceful demonstrators. When judges demanded they be allowed to examine the election results, two were stripped of their judicial immunity and charged. But in spite of widespread abuses, the banned Muslim Brotherhood won a record number of seats in Parliament.
Then there were the terrorist bombings in Sinai, which set off a mass round-up of “suspects” – most of them affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Protest demonstrations were disrupted by police, hundreds were beaten, and thousands arrested – most of them still in jail.
And the country’s 25-year-old Emergency Law – adopted in 1981 after an Islamic extremist assassinated then President Anwar Sadat – has just been extended despite repeated pledges by Mubarak during his presidential campaign to repeal it and enact anti-terrorist legislation in its place.
So what has changed in Egypt is exactly nothing. Journalists, peaceful demonstrators, bloggers, and human rights advocates are still being rounded-up, arrested, and sentenced to prison terms. Or, all too often, not charged with anything, but simply detained indefinitely.
And, during all this upheaval, where has the courageous Egyptian Supreme Council for Human Rights been? A.W.O.L. Silent. Waiting, no doubt, to include these more recent outrages in its next annual report, which will be read by many, but acted on by none.
Meanwhile, the world’s former premiere diplomat has hunkered down while his country’s non-governmental human rights community risks its very existence to bring public attention to the outrageous transgressions of the Mubarak regime. One has to wonder whether the effete Dr. Boutros-Ghali is so hard-up that he is forced to accept even a job that is so demonstrably a sham.
But, these days, organizing government-sponsored human rights organizations appears to be the fig leaf de jour. Other governments in the Middle East and North Africa have done likewise – and with results much like that in Egypt.
Latest to join the pack is Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Human Rights Commission – which the government characterizes as an independent rights watchdog -- came into existence last October, but has just gotten around to naming its chairman. He is Turki Ibn Khaled Al-Sudairi, who previously worked as a state minister and Cabinet member.
The new commission operates under the supervision of the prime minister (read “the king”), and has been directed to "protect human rights and create awareness about them ... in keeping with the provisions of Islamic law." The commission's board will include at least 18 full-time members and six part-time members. The king will name the board members.
Lest we think this new body is about to create a revolution in our close oil ally, Minister Al-Sudairi reassures us there will be no women on the commission’s board of directors. Addressing a group of academics in Riyadh, he said a board member should possess vast experience and knowledge about the rights and problems of the people in various walks of life, as well as a personality suited to the nature of his task.
Which presumably excludes women.
Well, I suppose one has to have a certain sympathy for Minister Al-Sudairi. He has been handed a virtually impossible job. Maybe a little bit like Karen Hughes’s predicament.
The new chief reported that his group has so far received 400 petitions from the public on various alleged rights violations. We will have to wait to see what becomes of these petitions.
Lamenting the negligence of many Muslims in upholding the principles of human rights, the Minister reportedly said, “I have found that 85 percent of the rights outlined by human rights organizations are advocated by Islam.”
But the most recent Human Rights report on Saudi Arabia from the US State Department was a lot less positive. It declared, “ The government's human rights record remained poor overall with continuing serious problems, despite some progress.”
It reported human rights violations including “no right to change the government, infliction of severe pain by judicially sanctioned corporal punishments, beatings and other abuses, arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detention, denial of fair public trials, exemption from the rule of law for some individuals and lack of judicial independence, political prisoners, infringement of privacy rights, significant restriction of civil liberties -- freedoms of speech and press, assembly, association, and movement, no religious freedom, widespread perception of corruption, lack of government transparency, legal and societal discrimination against women, religious and other minorities, and strict limitations on worker rights. “
And Human Rights Watch added in a memorandum to the Saudi Government, “The absence of legal guarantees is one of the main causes of Saudi Arabia’s serious human rights problems. Without specific legal protections, neither the government nor judges, not to mention ordinary citizens, can know with certainty what is permissible and what is forbidden. As a result, government practices often violate basic rights, the judiciary often acts unfairly, and citizens and residents are unable to seek redress for violations they suffer.”
To cite just a few of hundreds of specific abuses provided by Human Rights Watch:
Last month, secret police arrested a liberal journalist and Al-Qa’ida critic for ‘Destructive Thoughts’. He is still in prison.
Some 126 children are reportedly on Death Row. Saudi Arabia has not publicly committed to ending the execution of juvenile offenders, as recommended by the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child.
A Saudi court orders the eye of an Indian migrant worker to be gouged out.
A Saudi court sentences a high school chemistry teacher to more than three years in prison and 750 lashes for talking to his pupils about his views on a number of current topics, such as Christianity, Judaism and the causes of terrorism.
An Egyptian boy, resident in Dammam, is convicted for a crime committed when he was thirteen years, and sentenced to death.
A court in Riyadh sentences three reformers to lengthy prison terms for circulating a petition calling for the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in Saudi Arabia.
More than 100 men are sentenced to imprisonment and flogging after unfair trials for reported homosexual conduct.
The Saudi government sentences 15 anti-government protestors to flogging.
Minister Al-Sudairi recently pointed out the similarity between the first article of the UN Charter of Human Rights of 1948, which states, “All men are born free,” and a famous statement by Caliph Omar that “You enslave people though they are born free.”
We should all be hopeful that the Minister will keep the words of the Caliph front-and-center. But if past is prologue, we shouldn’t be holding our breath.
Two years ago, with great fanfare, Egypt’s president, Hosni Mubarak, set up a new organization called the Egyptian Supreme Council for Human Rights. The aging dictator named Boutros Boutros-Ghali, the former secretary-general of the United Nations, as the Council’s chairman.
The government-backed body was greeted with widespread skepticism from the Egyptian and international human rights community. The Council had no independent authority to investigate allegations of human rights abuses committed by the government. Its role was strictly advisory. And it did not report to the president, rather to a body known as the Shura Council, which is roughly like Britain’s House of Lords.
While many non-governmental human rights organizations characterized the Council as a cosmetic sham and refused to cooperate with it, others were hopeful that the mere creation of such a council by a government with a long and sordid history of human rights abuses represented a dramatic 180-degree turn away from past policies.
Many observers viewed the Council’s creation as a direct result of pressure from the United States, which provides Egypt with some $2 billion a year in military and economic aid. The US had quietly and successfully used its leverage to press the Egyptians to re-try Dr. Saad Eddin Ibrahim, an Egyptian-American sociology professor and human rights advocate, whose think-tank had been convicted of conspiring to influence the electoral process, using illegal contributions from the European Union. Dr. Ibrahim was sentenced to seven years in prison, but later cleared.
The Council’s birth also came at a time when human rights issues, along with more accountable, more transparent governance, were rapidly being incorporated into the lexicon of Middle East political dialogue. This phenomenon was hastened by the publication of the Arab Development Report. Written by a group of Arab scholars under the aegis of the World Bank, the report exposed a wide array of freedom deficits across the Middle East and North Africa.
So the thinking among the more hopeful Egyptian human rights non-governmental advocates was that perhaps the Mubarak regime had concluded it could no longer navigate the rising tide. And their view appeared to be vindicated when the Council issued its first annual report a year later.
That report gave credence to widespread allegations of torture by Egyptian police and security forces. It called for an end to the state of emergency, which has been in force since 1981, saying it provided a loophole by which the authorities prevented Egyptians from enjoying their right to personal security. It charged that 2,000 people were being detained without charge. It alleged torture of detainees. It said that thousands of members of Islamist groups had been in jail since the 1990s, even after they completed their sentences. It described in detail the deaths in detention of nine Egyptians during the year and called them "regrettable violations of the right to life." It also corroborated reports that the authorities detained large numbers of people in north Sinai, and tortured many of them, after the bombings in Sinai resorts.
And it said that in Egyptian police stations suspects were given electric shocks, hung by their arms or legs from the ceiling or from doors, sprayed with cold water, made to stand naked in cold weather for many hours, or beaten with sticks, belts, electric cables, whips or rifle butts. It reported that it was normal investigative practice to arrest everyone around the scene of a crime and torture them to obtain information.
The report added that it spent the year asking government departments to respond to citizens' complaints, but that the response was patchy: The Interior Ministry, which runs the police force and the prisons, answered only 27 of the 242 requests it received from the council; on torture allegations, it answered only three out of 75.
Perhaps predictably, the government rejected the first draft of the report. But it finally capitulated. So?
So nothing.
Since that report was completed human rights in Egypt are arguably in worse shape than they were before it was written – or the Council was created. The Great God Mubarak caved to US and international pressure to hold the first multi-party presidential elections in the country’s history, then rigged the process so that only a limited number of political parties could participate. He threw his principal opponent, Ayman Nour, in jail for five years on trumped-up charges of forging signatures on petitions to register his party to run.
The subsequent Parliamentary elections were arguably worse. Heavily armed police intimidated prospective voters, closed polling places, and attacked peaceful demonstrators. When judges demanded they be allowed to examine the election results, two were stripped of their judicial immunity and charged. But in spite of widespread abuses, the banned Muslim Brotherhood won a record number of seats in Parliament.
Then there were the terrorist bombings in Sinai, which set off a mass round-up of “suspects” – most of them affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood. Protest demonstrations were disrupted by police, hundreds were beaten, and thousands arrested – most of them still in jail.
And the country’s 25-year-old Emergency Law – adopted in 1981 after an Islamic extremist assassinated then President Anwar Sadat – has just been extended despite repeated pledges by Mubarak during his presidential campaign to repeal it and enact anti-terrorist legislation in its place.
So what has changed in Egypt is exactly nothing. Journalists, peaceful demonstrators, bloggers, and human rights advocates are still being rounded-up, arrested, and sentenced to prison terms. Or, all too often, not charged with anything, but simply detained indefinitely.
And, during all this upheaval, where has the courageous Egyptian Supreme Council for Human Rights been? A.W.O.L. Silent. Waiting, no doubt, to include these more recent outrages in its next annual report, which will be read by many, but acted on by none.
Meanwhile, the world’s former premiere diplomat has hunkered down while his country’s non-governmental human rights community risks its very existence to bring public attention to the outrageous transgressions of the Mubarak regime. One has to wonder whether the effete Dr. Boutros-Ghali is so hard-up that he is forced to accept even a job that is so demonstrably a sham.
But, these days, organizing government-sponsored human rights organizations appears to be the fig leaf de jour. Other governments in the Middle East and North Africa have done likewise – and with results much like that in Egypt.
Latest to join the pack is Saudi Arabia. The Saudi Human Rights Commission – which the government characterizes as an independent rights watchdog -- came into existence last October, but has just gotten around to naming its chairman. He is Turki Ibn Khaled Al-Sudairi, who previously worked as a state minister and Cabinet member.
The new commission operates under the supervision of the prime minister (read “the king”), and has been directed to "protect human rights and create awareness about them ... in keeping with the provisions of Islamic law." The commission's board will include at least 18 full-time members and six part-time members. The king will name the board members.
Lest we think this new body is about to create a revolution in our close oil ally, Minister Al-Sudairi reassures us there will be no women on the commission’s board of directors. Addressing a group of academics in Riyadh, he said a board member should possess vast experience and knowledge about the rights and problems of the people in various walks of life, as well as a personality suited to the nature of his task.
Which presumably excludes women.
Well, I suppose one has to have a certain sympathy for Minister Al-Sudairi. He has been handed a virtually impossible job. Maybe a little bit like Karen Hughes’s predicament.
The new chief reported that his group has so far received 400 petitions from the public on various alleged rights violations. We will have to wait to see what becomes of these petitions.
Lamenting the negligence of many Muslims in upholding the principles of human rights, the Minister reportedly said, “I have found that 85 percent of the rights outlined by human rights organizations are advocated by Islam.”
But the most recent Human Rights report on Saudi Arabia from the US State Department was a lot less positive. It declared, “ The government's human rights record remained poor overall with continuing serious problems, despite some progress.”
It reported human rights violations including “no right to change the government, infliction of severe pain by judicially sanctioned corporal punishments, beatings and other abuses, arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detention, denial of fair public trials, exemption from the rule of law for some individuals and lack of judicial independence, political prisoners, infringement of privacy rights, significant restriction of civil liberties -- freedoms of speech and press, assembly, association, and movement, no religious freedom, widespread perception of corruption, lack of government transparency, legal and societal discrimination against women, religious and other minorities, and strict limitations on worker rights. “
And Human Rights Watch added in a memorandum to the Saudi Government, “The absence of legal guarantees is one of the main causes of Saudi Arabia’s serious human rights problems. Without specific legal protections, neither the government nor judges, not to mention ordinary citizens, can know with certainty what is permissible and what is forbidden. As a result, government practices often violate basic rights, the judiciary often acts unfairly, and citizens and residents are unable to seek redress for violations they suffer.”
To cite just a few of hundreds of specific abuses provided by Human Rights Watch:
Last month, secret police arrested a liberal journalist and Al-Qa’ida critic for ‘Destructive Thoughts’. He is still in prison.
Some 126 children are reportedly on Death Row. Saudi Arabia has not publicly committed to ending the execution of juvenile offenders, as recommended by the U.N. Committee on the Rights of the Child.
A Saudi court orders the eye of an Indian migrant worker to be gouged out.
A Saudi court sentences a high school chemistry teacher to more than three years in prison and 750 lashes for talking to his pupils about his views on a number of current topics, such as Christianity, Judaism and the causes of terrorism.
An Egyptian boy, resident in Dammam, is convicted for a crime committed when he was thirteen years, and sentenced to death.
A court in Riyadh sentences three reformers to lengthy prison terms for circulating a petition calling for the establishment of a constitutional monarchy in Saudi Arabia.
More than 100 men are sentenced to imprisonment and flogging after unfair trials for reported homosexual conduct.
The Saudi government sentences 15 anti-government protestors to flogging.
Minister Al-Sudairi recently pointed out the similarity between the first article of the UN Charter of Human Rights of 1948, which states, “All men are born free,” and a famous statement by Caliph Omar that “You enslave people though they are born free.”
We should all be hopeful that the Minister will keep the words of the Caliph front-and-center. But if past is prologue, we shouldn’t be holding our breath.
Sunday, May 14, 2006
BLOCKING JUSTICE LEGALLY
By William Fisher
The U.S. Government has once again invoked the "state secrets" privilege, arguing that a public trial of a lawsuit against a former head of the Central Intelligence Agency for abducting and imprisoning a German citizen would lead to disclosure of information harmful to U.S. national security.
Once rarely used, the "state secrets" privilege has over the past five years become a routine defense used by the U.S. Government to keep cases from being tried.
The current case involves a suit brought by Khalid El-Masri. El-Masri was on vacation in Macedonia when he was kidnapped and transported to a CIA-run "black site" in Afghanistan. After several months of confinement in squalid conditions, he was abandoned on a hill in Albania with no explanation. He was never charged with a crime.
El-Masri, who is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), is seeking an apology and money damages from the CIA. The first - and perhaps the last -- hearing on the case took place last week before a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia.
The lawsuit charges former CIA director George Tenet, other CIA officials and four U.S.-based aviation corporations with violations of US and universal human rights laws. It claims El-Masri was "victimized by the CIA's policy of 'extraordinary rendition'."
The Lebanese-born Al-Masri says he took a bus from Germany to Macedonia, where Macedonian agents confiscated his passport and detained him for 23 days, without access to anyone, including his wife.
He says he was then put in a diaper, a belt with chains to his wrists and ankles, earmuffs, eye pads, a blindfold and a hood. He was put into a plane, his legs and arms spread-eagled and secured to the floor. He was drugged and flown to Afghanistan, where he was held in solitary confinement for five months before being dropped off in a remote rural section of Albania. He claims it was a CIA-leased aircraft that flew him to Afghanistan, and CIA agents who were responsible for his rendition to Afghanistan.
The aviation companies accused of transporting him during his detention are also protected by the "state secrets" privilege. A federal judge must decide whether to grant the government's motion to dismiss the case, but an ACLU spokesperson told IPS this could take weeks or months.
A parliamentary inquiry into El-Masri's kidnapping is also currently ongoing in Germany.
Speaking from Germany during a telephone news conference called last Friday by the ACLU, El-Masri said in response to our question that his objective is an explanation and an apology from the CIA.
According to Dr. Beau Grosscup, professor of international relations at California State University and an expert on terrorism, "Diplomatic assurances are trumped by the military, police and intelligence 'counterinsurgency' programs that the two Cold War superpowers instituted and still run in many of these countries that train police and military personnel in torture."
"The real attitude driving the 'rendition' efforts is: 'Having paid to train them in torture, why not get our money's worth'," he told us.
During her first meeting with the newly-elected German chancellor Angela Merkel several months ago, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice admitted El-Masri's kidnapping and detention was the result of a "mistake" by the CIA. The incident threatened to again sour US relations with Germany, which Rice traveled to Europe to repair following Germany's opposition to the American invasion of Iraq.
But Rice has defended the practice of rendition, saying it was a vital tool in the war on terror. However, she has said the U.S. does not "send anyone to a country to be tortured."
"The United States has not transported anyone, and will not transport anyone, to a country when we believe he will be tortured," she said. "Where appropriate, the United States seeks assurances that transferred persons will not be tortured."
But most human rights and foreign affairs experts believe that such "diplomatic assurances" are worthless. They say there is ample evidence that detainees who are "rendered" to other countries are frequently subjected to torture. The US has rendered prisoners to a number of countries that have notoriously poor human rights records, including Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Afghanistan and Algeria, as well as to suspected CIA secret prisons in Eastern Europe.
The existence of the Eastern European prisons was revealed by the Washington Post. The Post reported that prisoners were routinely tortured, using such techniques as "waterboarding" - submerging a prisoner in restraints in water to convince him he was drowning -- mock execution, prolonged shackling, being threatened with dogs, and "cold cell," in which prisoners are held naked in low temperatures and doused with cold water.
Last week, a special committee of the European Parliament issued an interim report concluding that the CIA has on several occasions illegally kidnapped and detained individuals in European countries. The report also found that the CIA detained and then secretly used airlines to transfer persons to countries like Egypt and Afghanistan, which routinely use torture during interrogations.
Rendition is known to have been a CIA practice for some years. But its frequency increased exponentially after 9/11, with reportedly dozens of prisoners being kidnapped from Italy, Sweden and other European countries. Italy is currently suing the US for kidnapping an Italian citizen on Italian soil.
The US Senate has passed an amendment mandating that the Defense Secretary inform Congress about U.S.-run secret prison facilities in foreign countries.
Last week, the US again refused the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to terrorism suspects held in secret detention centers.
Jakob Kellenberger, President of the ICRC, deplored the fact that the U.S. authorities had not moved closer to granting the ICRC access to persons held in undisclosed locations," the Geneva-based agency said.
Kellenberger said: "No matter how legitimate the grounds for detention, there exists no right to conceal a person's whereabouts or to deny that he or she is being detained."
The former senior Swiss diplomat said that the ICRC would continue to seek access to such people as a matter of priority.
Earlier, a report by investigators for the European Parliament said last month they had evidence that the CIA had flown 1,000 undeclared flights over Europe since 2001, in some cases transporting terrorist suspects abducted within the European Union to countries known to use torture.
But in an appearance before the UN Committee on Torture, the body that monitors compliance with the Geneva Convention, the lead State Department attorney labeled as "absurd" charges that prisoners being rendered were on all these flights.
He added that terrorist suspects could pose a threat to security if allowed to meet with ICRC representatives.
Addressing reporters after the hearing concluded, Bellinger said that provisions in the torture convention that prohibit transferring detainees to countries where they could be tortured do not apply to detainee "transfers that take place outside of the United States." He added, however, that the U.S. has "as a policy matter, applied exactly the same standards" to such transfers.
The "state secrets" privilege being used by the Government in the El-Masri case is a series of U.S. legal precedents allowing the federal government to dismiss legal cases that it claims would threaten foreign policy, military intelligence, or national security.
A relic of the Cold War with the then-Soviet Union, it has been invoked several times since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Judges have denied the privilege on only five occasions.
It was used against Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator, who was fired in retaliation for reporting security breaches and possible espionage within the Bureau. Lower courts dismissed the case when former Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the state secrets privilege and the Supreme Court upheld that decision. It has also been used to block legal actions by other "whistleblowers" who work in the national security field.
The ACLU told us, "There is an acute need for clarification of the state secrets doctrine because the government is increasingly using the privilege to cover up its own wrongdoing and to keep legitimate cases out of court."
One of the hallmarks of the Bush Administration has been its use of legal opinions to block the due process protections that are basic to the American justice system. It can apparently find lawyers who will agree with just about any position the White House wishes to take. This dubious and secretive process - plus the abdication of any meaningful oversight by the Congress - has contributed to and continues to attempt to justify practices such as "rendition."
These practices have steadily eroded the credibility the US once had in observing the rule of law and championing the cause of human rights. This is a problem that won't be resolved through so-called public diplomacy. It goes to the heart of President Bush's foreign policy.
The U.S. Government has once again invoked the "state secrets" privilege, arguing that a public trial of a lawsuit against a former head of the Central Intelligence Agency for abducting and imprisoning a German citizen would lead to disclosure of information harmful to U.S. national security.
Once rarely used, the "state secrets" privilege has over the past five years become a routine defense used by the U.S. Government to keep cases from being tried.
The current case involves a suit brought by Khalid El-Masri. El-Masri was on vacation in Macedonia when he was kidnapped and transported to a CIA-run "black site" in Afghanistan. After several months of confinement in squalid conditions, he was abandoned on a hill in Albania with no explanation. He was never charged with a crime.
El-Masri, who is represented by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), is seeking an apology and money damages from the CIA. The first - and perhaps the last -- hearing on the case took place last week before a federal court in Alexandria, Virginia.
The lawsuit charges former CIA director George Tenet, other CIA officials and four U.S.-based aviation corporations with violations of US and universal human rights laws. It claims El-Masri was "victimized by the CIA's policy of 'extraordinary rendition'."
The Lebanese-born Al-Masri says he took a bus from Germany to Macedonia, where Macedonian agents confiscated his passport and detained him for 23 days, without access to anyone, including his wife.
He says he was then put in a diaper, a belt with chains to his wrists and ankles, earmuffs, eye pads, a blindfold and a hood. He was put into a plane, his legs and arms spread-eagled and secured to the floor. He was drugged and flown to Afghanistan, where he was held in solitary confinement for five months before being dropped off in a remote rural section of Albania. He claims it was a CIA-leased aircraft that flew him to Afghanistan, and CIA agents who were responsible for his rendition to Afghanistan.
The aviation companies accused of transporting him during his detention are also protected by the "state secrets" privilege. A federal judge must decide whether to grant the government's motion to dismiss the case, but an ACLU spokesperson told IPS this could take weeks or months.
A parliamentary inquiry into El-Masri's kidnapping is also currently ongoing in Germany.
Speaking from Germany during a telephone news conference called last Friday by the ACLU, El-Masri said in response to our question that his objective is an explanation and an apology from the CIA.
According to Dr. Beau Grosscup, professor of international relations at California State University and an expert on terrorism, "Diplomatic assurances are trumped by the military, police and intelligence 'counterinsurgency' programs that the two Cold War superpowers instituted and still run in many of these countries that train police and military personnel in torture."
"The real attitude driving the 'rendition' efforts is: 'Having paid to train them in torture, why not get our money's worth'," he told us.
During her first meeting with the newly-elected German chancellor Angela Merkel several months ago, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice admitted El-Masri's kidnapping and detention was the result of a "mistake" by the CIA. The incident threatened to again sour US relations with Germany, which Rice traveled to Europe to repair following Germany's opposition to the American invasion of Iraq.
But Rice has defended the practice of rendition, saying it was a vital tool in the war on terror. However, she has said the U.S. does not "send anyone to a country to be tortured."
"The United States has not transported anyone, and will not transport anyone, to a country when we believe he will be tortured," she said. "Where appropriate, the United States seeks assurances that transferred persons will not be tortured."
But most human rights and foreign affairs experts believe that such "diplomatic assurances" are worthless. They say there is ample evidence that detainees who are "rendered" to other countries are frequently subjected to torture. The US has rendered prisoners to a number of countries that have notoriously poor human rights records, including Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Afghanistan and Algeria, as well as to suspected CIA secret prisons in Eastern Europe.
The existence of the Eastern European prisons was revealed by the Washington Post. The Post reported that prisoners were routinely tortured, using such techniques as "waterboarding" - submerging a prisoner in restraints in water to convince him he was drowning -- mock execution, prolonged shackling, being threatened with dogs, and "cold cell," in which prisoners are held naked in low temperatures and doused with cold water.
Last week, a special committee of the European Parliament issued an interim report concluding that the CIA has on several occasions illegally kidnapped and detained individuals in European countries. The report also found that the CIA detained and then secretly used airlines to transfer persons to countries like Egypt and Afghanistan, which routinely use torture during interrogations.
Rendition is known to have been a CIA practice for some years. But its frequency increased exponentially after 9/11, with reportedly dozens of prisoners being kidnapped from Italy, Sweden and other European countries. Italy is currently suing the US for kidnapping an Italian citizen on Italian soil.
The US Senate has passed an amendment mandating that the Defense Secretary inform Congress about U.S.-run secret prison facilities in foreign countries.
Last week, the US again refused the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) access to terrorism suspects held in secret detention centers.
Jakob Kellenberger, President of the ICRC, deplored the fact that the U.S. authorities had not moved closer to granting the ICRC access to persons held in undisclosed locations," the Geneva-based agency said.
Kellenberger said: "No matter how legitimate the grounds for detention, there exists no right to conceal a person's whereabouts or to deny that he or she is being detained."
The former senior Swiss diplomat said that the ICRC would continue to seek access to such people as a matter of priority.
Earlier, a report by investigators for the European Parliament said last month they had evidence that the CIA had flown 1,000 undeclared flights over Europe since 2001, in some cases transporting terrorist suspects abducted within the European Union to countries known to use torture.
But in an appearance before the UN Committee on Torture, the body that monitors compliance with the Geneva Convention, the lead State Department attorney labeled as "absurd" charges that prisoners being rendered were on all these flights.
He added that terrorist suspects could pose a threat to security if allowed to meet with ICRC representatives.
Addressing reporters after the hearing concluded, Bellinger said that provisions in the torture convention that prohibit transferring detainees to countries where they could be tortured do not apply to detainee "transfers that take place outside of the United States." He added, however, that the U.S. has "as a policy matter, applied exactly the same standards" to such transfers.
The "state secrets" privilege being used by the Government in the El-Masri case is a series of U.S. legal precedents allowing the federal government to dismiss legal cases that it claims would threaten foreign policy, military intelligence, or national security.
A relic of the Cold War with the then-Soviet Union, it has been invoked several times since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Judges have denied the privilege on only five occasions.
It was used against Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator, who was fired in retaliation for reporting security breaches and possible espionage within the Bureau. Lower courts dismissed the case when former Attorney General John Ashcroft invoked the state secrets privilege and the Supreme Court upheld that decision. It has also been used to block legal actions by other "whistleblowers" who work in the national security field.
The ACLU told us, "There is an acute need for clarification of the state secrets doctrine because the government is increasingly using the privilege to cover up its own wrongdoing and to keep legitimate cases out of court."
One of the hallmarks of the Bush Administration has been its use of legal opinions to block the due process protections that are basic to the American justice system. It can apparently find lawyers who will agree with just about any position the White House wishes to take. This dubious and secretive process - plus the abdication of any meaningful oversight by the Congress - has contributed to and continues to attempt to justify practices such as "rendition."
These practices have steadily eroded the credibility the US once had in observing the rule of law and championing the cause of human rights. This is a problem that won't be resolved through so-called public diplomacy. It goes to the heart of President Bush's foreign policy.
Saturday, May 13, 2006
CAN'T WE HAVE ANY FUN ANYMORE?
By William Fisher
Drat! It sounded so fun.
But just as our pre-schoolers were starting to get excited about this exciting new attraction came news that it's being shut down.
The attraction that's giving our little ones all the grief is called "waterboarding."
I only wish you could have seen the light in my little granddaughter's eyes when I suggested, "Let's go waterboarding, child."
So you can imagine how disappointed she was when, without so much as a by your leave, the sponsors announced they were discontinuing this novel entertainment.
What shall we do? What shall we do? We may yet have to take our little ones to Disneyworld!
The impresario of waterboarding, you see, is the U.S. Government - the Army to be specific, and it's working on an updated edition of its field manual for interrogations. Waterboarding, they tell us, not only won't be one of the attractions - it will be banned and banished forever.
My granddaughter's dismay notwithstanding, maybe it's just as well; waterboarding is not for the faint of heart. It involves submerging one's head in water until he's sure he's going to drown.
The government has said that banning this stellar attraction isn't an admission that anyone ever used it. But if that's so, we have to wonder why the Army feels it needs to be mentioned in its new manual.
And just to make matters worse for my granddaughter, the water-boarding ban will extend to the Central Intelligence Agency and others who might be playing the game. So no CIA theme parks either. Unless they can find some way to get around it.
My granddaughter has only John McCain to blame. Last fall, the Senator introduced a new law that would ban waterboarding and similar amusements. President Bush was very cross with the Senator, but he signed the law anyway (though adding a "signing statement" that gave us hope he didn't actually intend to obey it). That law requires all American agencies to use only those fun and games specified in the Army's field manual. Waterboarding won't be one of them.
The good news for my granddaughter is that release of the new Field Manual has been delayed. The reason is that congress objects to several provisions, including one that would allow tougher fun and games for unlawful combatants than for traditional prisoners of war.
While my granddaughter won't understand this (a lot of us grown-ups don't either), the civilian leaders at the Defense Department -- who are supervising the rewriting of the new manual - believe along with the president that the Geneva Convention does not apply to terrorists or irregular fighters. They think the government should have greater latitude when they're interrogating people who refuse to play by the rules.
Others, particularly in Congress, think that creating different rules for enemy prisoners of war and irregular fighters contradicts the McCain law, which requires a "uniform standard."
I assure you my granddaughter hasn't the slightest interest in unlawful combatants versus traditional prisoners of war - or the Geneva Convention, for that matter (unless maybe it's another theme park).
What she cares about is that a bunch of grown-ups are bickering while she gets shipped off to Seven Flags.
Kids these days just can't catch a break!
Drat! It sounded so fun.
But just as our pre-schoolers were starting to get excited about this exciting new attraction came news that it's being shut down.
The attraction that's giving our little ones all the grief is called "waterboarding."
I only wish you could have seen the light in my little granddaughter's eyes when I suggested, "Let's go waterboarding, child."
So you can imagine how disappointed she was when, without so much as a by your leave, the sponsors announced they were discontinuing this novel entertainment.
What shall we do? What shall we do? We may yet have to take our little ones to Disneyworld!
The impresario of waterboarding, you see, is the U.S. Government - the Army to be specific, and it's working on an updated edition of its field manual for interrogations. Waterboarding, they tell us, not only won't be one of the attractions - it will be banned and banished forever.
My granddaughter's dismay notwithstanding, maybe it's just as well; waterboarding is not for the faint of heart. It involves submerging one's head in water until he's sure he's going to drown.
The government has said that banning this stellar attraction isn't an admission that anyone ever used it. But if that's so, we have to wonder why the Army feels it needs to be mentioned in its new manual.
And just to make matters worse for my granddaughter, the water-boarding ban will extend to the Central Intelligence Agency and others who might be playing the game. So no CIA theme parks either. Unless they can find some way to get around it.
My granddaughter has only John McCain to blame. Last fall, the Senator introduced a new law that would ban waterboarding and similar amusements. President Bush was very cross with the Senator, but he signed the law anyway (though adding a "signing statement" that gave us hope he didn't actually intend to obey it). That law requires all American agencies to use only those fun and games specified in the Army's field manual. Waterboarding won't be one of them.
The good news for my granddaughter is that release of the new Field Manual has been delayed. The reason is that congress objects to several provisions, including one that would allow tougher fun and games for unlawful combatants than for traditional prisoners of war.
While my granddaughter won't understand this (a lot of us grown-ups don't either), the civilian leaders at the Defense Department -- who are supervising the rewriting of the new manual - believe along with the president that the Geneva Convention does not apply to terrorists or irregular fighters. They think the government should have greater latitude when they're interrogating people who refuse to play by the rules.
Others, particularly in Congress, think that creating different rules for enemy prisoners of war and irregular fighters contradicts the McCain law, which requires a "uniform standard."
I assure you my granddaughter hasn't the slightest interest in unlawful combatants versus traditional prisoners of war - or the Geneva Convention, for that matter (unless maybe it's another theme park).
What she cares about is that a bunch of grown-ups are bickering while she gets shipped off to Seven Flags.
Kids these days just can't catch a break!
Friday, May 12, 2006
OUR $2 BILLION LEVERAGE
By William Fisher
This is a big day for me: I am publicly confessing to agreeing with Max Boot.
The often conservative-leaning foreign policy expert from the Council on Foreign Relations wrote last week in the Los Angeles Times, "If Bush wants to show that he is still serious about promoting 'the expansion of freedom', he could begin by making an example of Egypt...Why, oh why, is this repugnant regime still getting $2 billion a year in American subsidies?"
Bravo, Max.
The genesis of that $2 billion in military and economic aid was Egypt's decision to recognize the State of Israel back in 1982. It was the first such decision in the Arab world, and not an easy one for Egypt to make. It resulted from the courageous visit of then President Anwar Sadat to Israel in 1977 --courage that Sadat paid for with his life. The two countries haven't exactly been pals since then, but they have exchanged ambassadors and maintained proper, if often cool, diplomatic relations. The U.S. expected Egypt to play a "moderating role" to cool Middle East tensions.
The $2 billion was Egypt's reward - and it has been the gift that keeps on giving - despite the steady flow of anti-Semitic rhetoric that emanates from Egypt's largely state-controlled press.
Part of that $2 billion is spent on programs administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development - USAID. I know about these programs up close and personal - I managed a couple of them for several years in the late 1990s and the earlier years of this century.
Like most USAID programs, it has really helpful components like improving physical infrastructure, rural agricultural practices, and maternal and children's health. It has hopeful but largely ineffective components designed to help Egypt's bureaucracy to adopt more rational policies, promote public sector accountability, and curb runaway public and private corruption.
The largest slice of these programs is built on the premise that strengthening the country's private sector will create jobs, introduce equity into the banking system, enhance capital formation, encourage transparency, and help the country to develop the skills it needs to benefit from globalization.
Despite USAID's best efforts, these programs have to be judged to have failed. For many years, Egypt has had one of the highest rates of unemployment in the Middle East. More than 75% per cent of college graduates remain unemployed for years after graduation. Until the U.S. and Europe dramatically pulled back on granting visas to Middle Easterners, the country suffered a debilitating brain-drain. And, despite a few show trials, corruption has remained rampant in both public and private sectors. The middle class has shrunk, the super-rich have gotten richer, and the gulf between the super-rich and the ordinary citizen has become the Grand Canyon of the Middle East.
So despite our $2 billion, Egypt remains an economic basket case.
And as for democracy-promotion programs, forget it: USAID has never been able to sponsor any such programs. There are three reasons.
First, Egypt has a substantial, courageous and vocal community of non-governmental organizations that advocate for human rights, gender equality, labor and consumer protection, and educational and health care reform. But these organizations are forced to operate under a draconian NGO law that demands that they register with the government and that places severe restrictions on what they can do, who they can accept contributions from, and who sits on their boards of directors.
Second, it is one of the daily frustrations USAID faces that any proposed aid program must have the agreement of the host country. So it is Egypt, not the U.S., who decides what USAID can and can't do. USAID had tried many times to use its $2 billion leverage to introduce, for example, programs to reform the country's distorted educational curriculum. But these efforts have thus far been in vain, and many have questioned the extent to which the U.S. is prepared to use its leverage.
Third, the whole country continues to live under the so-called Emergency Law, passed 25 years ago to protect the population from Islamic extremists, such as the one that assassinated Anwar Sadat. Under this law, the average Egyptian citizen has zero civil liberties. Parliament - dominated for years by the president's National Democratic Party -- defines political parties and, ergo, who can run for what. The emergency law empowers the government to arrest and indefinitely detain anyone it considers a 'dissident' - without charges, without lawyers, and without trials.
Which brings us to today.
In his second inaugural, President Bush vowed to spread freedom throughout the world. Egypt's aging dictator, Hosni Mubarak, responded with a pledge to open the country's presidential election to multiple political parties. The result was Mubarak getting more than 80 per cent of a small turnout, and his principal challenger ending up with five years in the slammer on dubious charges of forging signatures to get on the ballot.
The U.S. said is was "disappointed."
Then followed a parliamentary election - marked by widespread violence and electoral fraud. Mubarak's party toadies forced voters away from polling places and violently broke up rallies to minimize the gains of the main opposition group, the once-violent Muslim Brotherhood. The banned Brotherhood won 88 seats anyway.
Again, the U.S. said it was "disappointed."
When two judges demanded that they be allowed to investigate the rigged election, they were stripped of their judicial immunity, opening the way to their being questioned by the dreaded Security Services and criminally charged. And when peaceful demonstrators gathered to express their support for the judges, the cops descended with clubs and teargas.
And, once again, the U.S. said it was "disappointed."
Then came King Mubarak pushing a two-year extension of the Emergency Law through parliament, despite his repeated pre- and post-election promises to repeal it and replace it with a rational anti-terrorist law.
When human rights groups protected, Egyptian security officials broke up their demonstration and arrested eleven of them, including an award-winning blogger, Alaa Ahmed Seif al-Islam. Human Rights Watch reported that more than 100 people had been detained over the previous two weeks "for exercising their rights to freedom of assembly and expression." Approximately half of those arrested were members of the Muslim Brotherhood who were putting up posters and distributing leaflets protesting the emergency rule extension. The others were detained for demonstrating in support of a group of judges campaigning for greater judicial independence.
"These new arrests indicate that President Mubarak intends to silence all peaceful opposition," said Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa division.
The U.S. again expressed its "disappointment."
What happened to Dubya's fervor for spreading freedom? Is "disappointment" synonymous with actually using the leverage gained by $2 billion a year?
Now we learn that the State Department wants to spend $75 million supporting pro-democracy groups in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East. As reported by my colleagues at InterPress News Service (IPS), the money is to be spent on empowering civil society, providing supplemental requests, broadcasting into Iran, promoting democracy, offering scholarships and fellowships, and enhancing communication.
Max Boot is right about the obscenity of our $2 billion support for the Mubarak regime - and funding for many other Mubaraks in the Middle East and elsewhere. But I'm sorry to say I have to characterize as wishful thinking his suggestion to "Take the money away from Mubarak and give it to democracy-promotion programs across the Middle East. That would be a shot heard 'round the world."
Because guess what? Nobody wants it.
Nobel Peace Prize-winner and Iranian human rights advocate and dissident Shirin Ebadi was asked about the State Department appropriation on PBS last week. "Will such a program be helpful to assist democracy advocates like yourself?" asked the News Hour's Margaret Warner.
Ebadi's response: "No, I don't think it will benefit people like me because whoever speaks about democracy will be accused of having been paid by the U.S."
Ebadi is not alone.
Her position is not surprisingly held by governments in the Middle East. But it is also held by many civil society activists in the region.
The official governmental responses of countries in the Middle East to this new State Department initiative are predictable. They all contain a huge element of hypocrisy. None of these countries - none - are anything even remotely approaching democracies. None allow dissent, freedom of speech or association. None have a free press. None do much to protect women's rights or any other kinds of rights.
But all of them have courageous communities of NGOs and individual rights activists who risk their freedom every day simply by speaking out.
For many of these advocates, refusing State Department funds stems not from the threat of still more repression - they're used to that. For these rights defenders, they don't want our money because they feel that America has forfeited the legitimacy to be a credible champion of their values.
By invading Iraq. By preaching human rights while abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. By running secret CIA prisons. By waging a silent war on Muslims at home. By snooping on its own citizens. By extolling democracy while cozying up to dictators like Hosni Mubarak as long as they pledge fealty in the Global War on Terror. By failing to show any consistent, high-level commitment to getting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict back on the two-state roadmap. By a bring-it-on president who dismisses critics as unpatriotic while exhorting his citizens to "stay the course."
These U.S. actions have come at a high price. They have cost us our once-vaunted position as the world's most consistent advocate for human rights.
Reputation, once lost, is exceeding difficult to regain. It may take us a generation of policy-change to reclaim it.
But why not begin this journey of a thousand miles with the single step of using the leverage we still have to stand up against the Mubaraks of the world? That would, as Max Boot writes, be "a shot heard 'round the world."
This is a big day for me: I am publicly confessing to agreeing with Max Boot.
The often conservative-leaning foreign policy expert from the Council on Foreign Relations wrote last week in the Los Angeles Times, "If Bush wants to show that he is still serious about promoting 'the expansion of freedom', he could begin by making an example of Egypt...Why, oh why, is this repugnant regime still getting $2 billion a year in American subsidies?"
Bravo, Max.
The genesis of that $2 billion in military and economic aid was Egypt's decision to recognize the State of Israel back in 1982. It was the first such decision in the Arab world, and not an easy one for Egypt to make. It resulted from the courageous visit of then President Anwar Sadat to Israel in 1977 --courage that Sadat paid for with his life. The two countries haven't exactly been pals since then, but they have exchanged ambassadors and maintained proper, if often cool, diplomatic relations. The U.S. expected Egypt to play a "moderating role" to cool Middle East tensions.
The $2 billion was Egypt's reward - and it has been the gift that keeps on giving - despite the steady flow of anti-Semitic rhetoric that emanates from Egypt's largely state-controlled press.
Part of that $2 billion is spent on programs administered by the U.S. Agency for International Development - USAID. I know about these programs up close and personal - I managed a couple of them for several years in the late 1990s and the earlier years of this century.
Like most USAID programs, it has really helpful components like improving physical infrastructure, rural agricultural practices, and maternal and children's health. It has hopeful but largely ineffective components designed to help Egypt's bureaucracy to adopt more rational policies, promote public sector accountability, and curb runaway public and private corruption.
The largest slice of these programs is built on the premise that strengthening the country's private sector will create jobs, introduce equity into the banking system, enhance capital formation, encourage transparency, and help the country to develop the skills it needs to benefit from globalization.
Despite USAID's best efforts, these programs have to be judged to have failed. For many years, Egypt has had one of the highest rates of unemployment in the Middle East. More than 75% per cent of college graduates remain unemployed for years after graduation. Until the U.S. and Europe dramatically pulled back on granting visas to Middle Easterners, the country suffered a debilitating brain-drain. And, despite a few show trials, corruption has remained rampant in both public and private sectors. The middle class has shrunk, the super-rich have gotten richer, and the gulf between the super-rich and the ordinary citizen has become the Grand Canyon of the Middle East.
So despite our $2 billion, Egypt remains an economic basket case.
And as for democracy-promotion programs, forget it: USAID has never been able to sponsor any such programs. There are three reasons.
First, Egypt has a substantial, courageous and vocal community of non-governmental organizations that advocate for human rights, gender equality, labor and consumer protection, and educational and health care reform. But these organizations are forced to operate under a draconian NGO law that demands that they register with the government and that places severe restrictions on what they can do, who they can accept contributions from, and who sits on their boards of directors.
Second, it is one of the daily frustrations USAID faces that any proposed aid program must have the agreement of the host country. So it is Egypt, not the U.S., who decides what USAID can and can't do. USAID had tried many times to use its $2 billion leverage to introduce, for example, programs to reform the country's distorted educational curriculum. But these efforts have thus far been in vain, and many have questioned the extent to which the U.S. is prepared to use its leverage.
Third, the whole country continues to live under the so-called Emergency Law, passed 25 years ago to protect the population from Islamic extremists, such as the one that assassinated Anwar Sadat. Under this law, the average Egyptian citizen has zero civil liberties. Parliament - dominated for years by the president's National Democratic Party -- defines political parties and, ergo, who can run for what. The emergency law empowers the government to arrest and indefinitely detain anyone it considers a 'dissident' - without charges, without lawyers, and without trials.
Which brings us to today.
In his second inaugural, President Bush vowed to spread freedom throughout the world. Egypt's aging dictator, Hosni Mubarak, responded with a pledge to open the country's presidential election to multiple political parties. The result was Mubarak getting more than 80 per cent of a small turnout, and his principal challenger ending up with five years in the slammer on dubious charges of forging signatures to get on the ballot.
The U.S. said is was "disappointed."
Then followed a parliamentary election - marked by widespread violence and electoral fraud. Mubarak's party toadies forced voters away from polling places and violently broke up rallies to minimize the gains of the main opposition group, the once-violent Muslim Brotherhood. The banned Brotherhood won 88 seats anyway.
Again, the U.S. said it was "disappointed."
When two judges demanded that they be allowed to investigate the rigged election, they were stripped of their judicial immunity, opening the way to their being questioned by the dreaded Security Services and criminally charged. And when peaceful demonstrators gathered to express their support for the judges, the cops descended with clubs and teargas.
And, once again, the U.S. said it was "disappointed."
Then came King Mubarak pushing a two-year extension of the Emergency Law through parliament, despite his repeated pre- and post-election promises to repeal it and replace it with a rational anti-terrorist law.
When human rights groups protected, Egyptian security officials broke up their demonstration and arrested eleven of them, including an award-winning blogger, Alaa Ahmed Seif al-Islam. Human Rights Watch reported that more than 100 people had been detained over the previous two weeks "for exercising their rights to freedom of assembly and expression." Approximately half of those arrested were members of the Muslim Brotherhood who were putting up posters and distributing leaflets protesting the emergency rule extension. The others were detained for demonstrating in support of a group of judges campaigning for greater judicial independence.
"These new arrests indicate that President Mubarak intends to silence all peaceful opposition," said Joe Stork, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa division.
The U.S. again expressed its "disappointment."
What happened to Dubya's fervor for spreading freedom? Is "disappointment" synonymous with actually using the leverage gained by $2 billion a year?
Now we learn that the State Department wants to spend $75 million supporting pro-democracy groups in Iran and elsewhere in the Middle East. As reported by my colleagues at InterPress News Service (IPS), the money is to be spent on empowering civil society, providing supplemental requests, broadcasting into Iran, promoting democracy, offering scholarships and fellowships, and enhancing communication.
Max Boot is right about the obscenity of our $2 billion support for the Mubarak regime - and funding for many other Mubaraks in the Middle East and elsewhere. But I'm sorry to say I have to characterize as wishful thinking his suggestion to "Take the money away from Mubarak and give it to democracy-promotion programs across the Middle East. That would be a shot heard 'round the world."
Because guess what? Nobody wants it.
Nobel Peace Prize-winner and Iranian human rights advocate and dissident Shirin Ebadi was asked about the State Department appropriation on PBS last week. "Will such a program be helpful to assist democracy advocates like yourself?" asked the News Hour's Margaret Warner.
Ebadi's response: "No, I don't think it will benefit people like me because whoever speaks about democracy will be accused of having been paid by the U.S."
Ebadi is not alone.
Her position is not surprisingly held by governments in the Middle East. But it is also held by many civil society activists in the region.
The official governmental responses of countries in the Middle East to this new State Department initiative are predictable. They all contain a huge element of hypocrisy. None of these countries - none - are anything even remotely approaching democracies. None allow dissent, freedom of speech or association. None have a free press. None do much to protect women's rights or any other kinds of rights.
But all of them have courageous communities of NGOs and individual rights activists who risk their freedom every day simply by speaking out.
For many of these advocates, refusing State Department funds stems not from the threat of still more repression - they're used to that. For these rights defenders, they don't want our money because they feel that America has forfeited the legitimacy to be a credible champion of their values.
By invading Iraq. By preaching human rights while abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. By running secret CIA prisons. By waging a silent war on Muslims at home. By snooping on its own citizens. By extolling democracy while cozying up to dictators like Hosni Mubarak as long as they pledge fealty in the Global War on Terror. By failing to show any consistent, high-level commitment to getting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict back on the two-state roadmap. By a bring-it-on president who dismisses critics as unpatriotic while exhorting his citizens to "stay the course."
These U.S. actions have come at a high price. They have cost us our once-vaunted position as the world's most consistent advocate for human rights.
Reputation, once lost, is exceeding difficult to regain. It may take us a generation of policy-change to reclaim it.
But why not begin this journey of a thousand miles with the single step of using the leverage we still have to stand up against the Mubaraks of the world? That would, as Max Boot writes, be "a shot heard 'round the world."
Monday, May 08, 2006
DEFENDING THE INDEFENSIBLE
By William Fisher
After years of ignoring the United Nations panel charged with oversight of the Convention Against Torture (CAT) -- a centerpiece of international human rights law -- the U.S. government turned up at a meeting of the group in Geneva with a delegation of more than two dozen lawyers and other officials to affirm that the U.S. is "absolutely committed to uphold its national and international obligations to eradicate torture" and that "there are no exceptions to this prohibition."
That's what I call chutzpah!
The government's theory must be that the more lawyers you bring to Geneva, the easier it will be to bob and weave your way around those pesky questions people keep asking about Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Guantanamo, renditions and secret prisons in Eastern Europe.
Especially if your delegation doesn't include anyone from the CIA.
Heading this delegation of representatives from the departments of State, Defense, Justice and Homeland Security, is State Department legal adviser John B. Bellinger III.
With an absolutely straight face, Bellinger told the Committee Against Torture that despite instances of abuse in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the U.S. has not systematically mistreated prisoners and remained committed to a global ban on torture.
But members of the panel referred to a report by investigators for the European Parliament who said last month they had evidence that the C.I.A. had flown 1,000 undeclared flights over Europe since 2001, in some cases transporting terrorist suspects abducted within the European Union to countries known to use torture.
Bellinger said he could not answer questions about intelligence-related activities, but asserted that the allegation that those planes carried terror suspects was an "absurd insinuation."
He added that in cases where the government has "rendered" prisoners to countries with poor human rights records, it has sought assurances that they will not be tortured.
But the panel wasn't buying the "diplomatic assurances" argument. "The very fact that you are asking for diplomatic assurances means you are in doubt," said Andreas Mavrommatis, chairman of the committee.
The "diplomatic assurances" charade has been known - and discredited -- for years. But "rendition" is a policy the administration defends, saying it helps to get dangerous individuals out of the U.S.
In one of the better-publicized cases of "rendition", Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, was detained by U.S. authorities after arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport from a vacation in North Africa. Instead of being allowed to continue his journey to Canada, he was detained by U.S. officials, then shipped off to Syria, where he was imprisoned for a year and tortured. He tried to sue the U.S. government, but his suit was dismissed because the Justice Department argued that trial would involve divulging "state secrets" in open court.
In another "rendition" case, a German citizen, Khaled el-Masri, was abducted while on vacation in Macedonia in December 2003, flown to Afghanistan where he remained in jail without charge until late May 2004, when he was taken to a deserted country road and set free. He too has brought suit against the U.S. government.
Bellinger also defended the U.S. decision not to grant prisoners held in Guantánamo Bay, Afghanistan and Iraq rights under the Geneva Conventions.
Terrorist suspects could pose a threat to security if allowed to meet with
representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, as stipulated by the Geneva Conventions, he said.
Such a security threat has clearly been applied by the Bush administration to the alleged key figures in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 -- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubeida. These men are being held in undisclosed locations without access to the Red Cross or to legal counsel, and have reportedly been subjected to "aggressive interrogation" techniques such as "waterboarding," in which the prisoner is led to believe he is drowning. And at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the government has Mohamed al-Qahtani, who it now claims is the real would-be 20th hijacker.
Many legal experts believe that U.S. treatment of these suspects is the principal reason they will never be tried in a court of law, civilian or military. It is unlikely that either would admit evidence obtained through torture.
That's one reason the Justice Department made such a big deal of the trial, conviction and sentencing of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was clearly a bit player in Al-Quida who had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. He was found guilty of conspiracy and of lying to the FBI, thus preventing the government from taking actions to prevent the 9/11 attacks. The government sought the death penalty but the jury sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of release.
Meanwhile, back in Geneva, attorney Bellinger offered a self-congratulatory tribute to U.S. commitment to the rule of law. "The timing of our report comes at a difficult time for the United States," he said. "But we did not shy away from coming."
Members of the panel were clearly unimpressed. Some expressed skepticism about aspects of the American presentation. For example, Fernando Mariño Menendez of Spain cited data from human rights groups saying that of 600 American service members or intelligence officers accused of having been involved in the torture or murder of detainees, only 10 have received prison terms of a year or more.
Addressing reporters after the hearing concluded, Bellinger said that provisions in the torture convention that prohibit transferring detainees to countries where they could be tortured do not apply to detainee "transfers that take place outside of the United States." He added, however, that the U.S. has "as a policy matter, applied exactly the same standards" to such transfers.
Members of the U.S. delegation also emphasized that there have been "relatively few actual cases of abuse" of terror detainees and Bellinger said that some allegations have been widely exaggerated.
Deputy US Assistant Defense Secretary Charles Stimson told the UN panel that of the 120 detainee deaths that have occurred in Afghanistan and Iraq, abuse was suspected in only 29 cases. He said that the deaths had been investigated and appropriate action taken. Stimson also said that no detainees have died at Guantanamo Bay.
For years, Bush administration officials have argued that international human rights laws should not constrain the conduct of United States forces. By sending its oversized delegation to Geneva, the administration is belatedly seeking to restore credibility to its record on prisoner treatment by affirming support for the CAT.
But pulling off that sleight of hand is going to take a lot more than a couple of dozen lawyers turning up in Geneva.
They could start by including a CIA representative in our next delegation to Geneva.
Then President Bush could rescind the "signing statement" he attached to the McCain anti-torture legislation, effectively giving himself the right to ignore the law whenever he says it's in the interest of national security.
That's known as Dubya's Rule of Law.
After years of ignoring the United Nations panel charged with oversight of the Convention Against Torture (CAT) -- a centerpiece of international human rights law -- the U.S. government turned up at a meeting of the group in Geneva with a delegation of more than two dozen lawyers and other officials to affirm that the U.S. is "absolutely committed to uphold its national and international obligations to eradicate torture" and that "there are no exceptions to this prohibition."
That's what I call chutzpah!
The government's theory must be that the more lawyers you bring to Geneva, the easier it will be to bob and weave your way around those pesky questions people keep asking about Abu Ghraib, Bagram, Guantanamo, renditions and secret prisons in Eastern Europe.
Especially if your delegation doesn't include anyone from the CIA.
Heading this delegation of representatives from the departments of State, Defense, Justice and Homeland Security, is State Department legal adviser John B. Bellinger III.
With an absolutely straight face, Bellinger told the Committee Against Torture that despite instances of abuse in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, the U.S. has not systematically mistreated prisoners and remained committed to a global ban on torture.
But members of the panel referred to a report by investigators for the European Parliament who said last month they had evidence that the C.I.A. had flown 1,000 undeclared flights over Europe since 2001, in some cases transporting terrorist suspects abducted within the European Union to countries known to use torture.
Bellinger said he could not answer questions about intelligence-related activities, but asserted that the allegation that those planes carried terror suspects was an "absurd insinuation."
He added that in cases where the government has "rendered" prisoners to countries with poor human rights records, it has sought assurances that they will not be tortured.
But the panel wasn't buying the "diplomatic assurances" argument. "The very fact that you are asking for diplomatic assurances means you are in doubt," said Andreas Mavrommatis, chairman of the committee.
The "diplomatic assurances" charade has been known - and discredited -- for years. But "rendition" is a policy the administration defends, saying it helps to get dangerous individuals out of the U.S.
In one of the better-publicized cases of "rendition", Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen, was detained by U.S. authorities after arriving at John F. Kennedy International Airport from a vacation in North Africa. Instead of being allowed to continue his journey to Canada, he was detained by U.S. officials, then shipped off to Syria, where he was imprisoned for a year and tortured. He tried to sue the U.S. government, but his suit was dismissed because the Justice Department argued that trial would involve divulging "state secrets" in open court.
In another "rendition" case, a German citizen, Khaled el-Masri, was abducted while on vacation in Macedonia in December 2003, flown to Afghanistan where he remained in jail without charge until late May 2004, when he was taken to a deserted country road and set free. He too has brought suit against the U.S. government.
Bellinger also defended the U.S. decision not to grant prisoners held in Guantánamo Bay, Afghanistan and Iraq rights under the Geneva Conventions.
Terrorist suspects could pose a threat to security if allowed to meet with
representatives of the International Committee of the Red Cross, as stipulated by the Geneva Conventions, he said.
Such a security threat has clearly been applied by the Bush administration to the alleged key figures in the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 -- Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and Abu Zubeida. These men are being held in undisclosed locations without access to the Red Cross or to legal counsel, and have reportedly been subjected to "aggressive interrogation" techniques such as "waterboarding," in which the prisoner is led to believe he is drowning. And at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the government has Mohamed al-Qahtani, who it now claims is the real would-be 20th hijacker.
Many legal experts believe that U.S. treatment of these suspects is the principal reason they will never be tried in a court of law, civilian or military. It is unlikely that either would admit evidence obtained through torture.
That's one reason the Justice Department made such a big deal of the trial, conviction and sentencing of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was clearly a bit player in Al-Quida who had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks. He was found guilty of conspiracy and of lying to the FBI, thus preventing the government from taking actions to prevent the 9/11 attacks. The government sought the death penalty but the jury sentenced him to life in prison without the possibility of release.
Meanwhile, back in Geneva, attorney Bellinger offered a self-congratulatory tribute to U.S. commitment to the rule of law. "The timing of our report comes at a difficult time for the United States," he said. "But we did not shy away from coming."
Members of the panel were clearly unimpressed. Some expressed skepticism about aspects of the American presentation. For example, Fernando Mariño Menendez of Spain cited data from human rights groups saying that of 600 American service members or intelligence officers accused of having been involved in the torture or murder of detainees, only 10 have received prison terms of a year or more.
Addressing reporters after the hearing concluded, Bellinger said that provisions in the torture convention that prohibit transferring detainees to countries where they could be tortured do not apply to detainee "transfers that take place outside of the United States." He added, however, that the U.S. has "as a policy matter, applied exactly the same standards" to such transfers.
Members of the U.S. delegation also emphasized that there have been "relatively few actual cases of abuse" of terror detainees and Bellinger said that some allegations have been widely exaggerated.
Deputy US Assistant Defense Secretary Charles Stimson told the UN panel that of the 120 detainee deaths that have occurred in Afghanistan and Iraq, abuse was suspected in only 29 cases. He said that the deaths had been investigated and appropriate action taken. Stimson also said that no detainees have died at Guantanamo Bay.
For years, Bush administration officials have argued that international human rights laws should not constrain the conduct of United States forces. By sending its oversized delegation to Geneva, the administration is belatedly seeking to restore credibility to its record on prisoner treatment by affirming support for the CAT.
But pulling off that sleight of hand is going to take a lot more than a couple of dozen lawyers turning up in Geneva.
They could start by including a CIA representative in our next delegation to Geneva.
Then President Bush could rescind the "signing statement" he attached to the McCain anti-torture legislation, effectively giving himself the right to ignore the law whenever he says it's in the interest of national security.
That's known as Dubya's Rule of Law.
Sunday, May 07, 2006
REMEMBER THE EDSEL!
By William Fisher
Nobel Peace Prize-winner and Iranian human rights advocate and dissident Shirin Ebadi was asked on PBS last week about the $75 million the U.S. State Department intends to spend supporting pro-democracy groups in her country.
“Will such a program be helpful to assist democracy advocates like yourself?” asked the News Hour’s Margaret Warner.
Ebadi’s response: “No, I don’t think it will benefit people like me because whoever speaks about democracy will be accused of having been paid by the U.S.” She went on to ask, “Can democracy be brought to people by bombs? Democracy is a culture. It has to come from within a society, not brought by America to a society.”
That’s about as good a capsule summary of America’s public diplomacy dilemma as I’ve heard.
The essence of that dilemma is that the U.S. is spending a great deal of money on getting its messages out -- $597 million last year alone, much of it in the Middle East. Yet successive opinion polls show that people in the neighborhood have increasingly negative opinions about American policies.
Those of us who live in the U.S. know that there are gazillion positive stories to tell about our country. And no doubt Karen Hughes and her public diplomacy colleagues at the State Department are trying hard to tell them.
But these stories are being drowned out by the realities and perceptions of our target audiences.
The U.S. is now thought of in the Middle East not just as the country that brought jazz and hamburgers, Hollywood movies, and the Bill of Rights to the world. We are thought of as the country that cooked the intelligence books to sell the American people on invading Iraq. That preached about human rights while abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. That is waging a silent war on Muslims at home. That is seen as ignoring Palestinians while helping Israelis. That is led by a swaggering Texas-style “bring it on” president who dismisses critics as unpatriotic as he exhorts his citizens to “stay the course.”
Against that incessant background of “white noise,” how can the U.S. hope to be heard?
The truth is it can’t. Not now. Not until the policies change.
Because every credible poll in the Middle East tells us that Arabs and other Muslims don’t hate the American people or American culture – they hate the policies of the Bush Administration.
And that would be true even if the strategies, tactics, and mechanics of our public diplomacy efforts were impeccably crafted. But they aren’t.
Last week, the Government Accountability Office weighed in on the subject with a new report. It found the State Department’s efforts to reach more than 1.5 billion Muslims in 58 countries lack a strong central message and a strategic plan of communication, and that as many as 30 percent of public diplomacy posts in the Middle East are filled by officers with limited language skills.
It reported that Public Diplomacy officers abroad don’t spend enough time talking to local audiences and, while the program is aimed primarily at younger audiences, there is a shortage of basic, core messages, and a lack of analysis of the program's results.
To explain U.S. foreign policy more effectively, the GAO recommended that
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice provide our embassies and consulates with clear written guidance on priority goals and tactics.
At the end of the day, however, it’s not going to matter how professionally our public diplomacy efforts are organized and executed, or how much more money we throw at this activity.
Karen Hughes, longtime Bush friend and confidante, has been dealt a lousy hand by the President. He asked her to take on an impossible job for which nothing in her background equips her. I’m sure she is working hard and really trying, but the enemy she faces is not the difficulty of actually getting anything done in the Washington bureaucracy. Her enemy is the very U.S. foreign policy she was brought on board to sell.
So the problem is not the messenger or the message. It’s the product. It’s U.S. policy. Until that changes, we’re kidding ourselves if we believe we’re going to be able to win Muslim hearts and minds.
Isn’t it amazing that the country that invented modern marketing doesn’t understand that sales of a flawed product can’t be sustained?
That’s what we just don’t seem to get.
Remember the Edsel!
Nobel Peace Prize-winner and Iranian human rights advocate and dissident Shirin Ebadi was asked on PBS last week about the $75 million the U.S. State Department intends to spend supporting pro-democracy groups in her country.
“Will such a program be helpful to assist democracy advocates like yourself?” asked the News Hour’s Margaret Warner.
Ebadi’s response: “No, I don’t think it will benefit people like me because whoever speaks about democracy will be accused of having been paid by the U.S.” She went on to ask, “Can democracy be brought to people by bombs? Democracy is a culture. It has to come from within a society, not brought by America to a society.”
That’s about as good a capsule summary of America’s public diplomacy dilemma as I’ve heard.
The essence of that dilemma is that the U.S. is spending a great deal of money on getting its messages out -- $597 million last year alone, much of it in the Middle East. Yet successive opinion polls show that people in the neighborhood have increasingly negative opinions about American policies.
Those of us who live in the U.S. know that there are gazillion positive stories to tell about our country. And no doubt Karen Hughes and her public diplomacy colleagues at the State Department are trying hard to tell them.
But these stories are being drowned out by the realities and perceptions of our target audiences.
The U.S. is now thought of in the Middle East not just as the country that brought jazz and hamburgers, Hollywood movies, and the Bill of Rights to the world. We are thought of as the country that cooked the intelligence books to sell the American people on invading Iraq. That preached about human rights while abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. That is waging a silent war on Muslims at home. That is seen as ignoring Palestinians while helping Israelis. That is led by a swaggering Texas-style “bring it on” president who dismisses critics as unpatriotic as he exhorts his citizens to “stay the course.”
Against that incessant background of “white noise,” how can the U.S. hope to be heard?
The truth is it can’t. Not now. Not until the policies change.
Because every credible poll in the Middle East tells us that Arabs and other Muslims don’t hate the American people or American culture – they hate the policies of the Bush Administration.
And that would be true even if the strategies, tactics, and mechanics of our public diplomacy efforts were impeccably crafted. But they aren’t.
Last week, the Government Accountability Office weighed in on the subject with a new report. It found the State Department’s efforts to reach more than 1.5 billion Muslims in 58 countries lack a strong central message and a strategic plan of communication, and that as many as 30 percent of public diplomacy posts in the Middle East are filled by officers with limited language skills.
It reported that Public Diplomacy officers abroad don’t spend enough time talking to local audiences and, while the program is aimed primarily at younger audiences, there is a shortage of basic, core messages, and a lack of analysis of the program's results.
To explain U.S. foreign policy more effectively, the GAO recommended that
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice provide our embassies and consulates with clear written guidance on priority goals and tactics.
At the end of the day, however, it’s not going to matter how professionally our public diplomacy efforts are organized and executed, or how much more money we throw at this activity.
Karen Hughes, longtime Bush friend and confidante, has been dealt a lousy hand by the President. He asked her to take on an impossible job for which nothing in her background equips her. I’m sure she is working hard and really trying, but the enemy she faces is not the difficulty of actually getting anything done in the Washington bureaucracy. Her enemy is the very U.S. foreign policy she was brought on board to sell.
So the problem is not the messenger or the message. It’s the product. It’s U.S. policy. Until that changes, we’re kidding ourselves if we believe we’re going to be able to win Muslim hearts and minds.
Isn’t it amazing that the country that invented modern marketing doesn’t understand that sales of a flawed product can’t be sustained?
That’s what we just don’t seem to get.
Remember the Edsel!
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