By William Fisher
Transparency in government is one of the ‘values’ nobody talked about in the recent election. Yet it is among America’s more important attributes; it distinguishes the United States from most other governments. But, sad to say, transparency has never been one of George W. Bush’s long suits. On the contrary, excessive secrecy has been a hallmark of the Bush Administration since Day One. And unfortunately, it is a characteristic that seems unlikely to change in Mr. Bush’s second term.
The President’s contempt for the media was evident as early as his press conference the day after the election. He made it clear he would not respond to what he termed “multiple questions”. There would be no opportunity for follow-up questions either. In other words, the press will simply have to play by the president’s rules.
Journalists complain that this obsession with secrecy has greatly increased the difficulty of accurately reporting the Bush White House. According to US News and World Report, the Administration has “quietly but efficiently dropped a shroud of secrecy across many critical operations of the federal government --cloaking its own affairs from scrutiny and removing from the public domain important information on health, safety, and environmental matters. The result has been a reversal of a decades-long trend of openness in government…”
Nor are the media the only victims in the president’s secret world. Congress, too, has been short-changed. A report prepared for Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA), says: “On over 100 separate occasions, the Administration has refused to answer the inquiries of, or provide the information requested” by Congressman Waxman in his role as the senior Democrat on the House Committee on Government Reform. The Administration has also refused to provide documents requested by the ranking members of eight House Committees relating to the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, and documents requested by the 9/11 Commission, the Report says.
Bill Moyers, one of America’s most respected broadcast journalists, who was press secretary to President Lyndon B. Johnson when Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act in 1966, notes, “It's always a fight, to find out what the government doesn't want us to know. It's a fight we're once again losing…(President Bush) has clamped a lid on public access... It's not just historians and journalists he wants locked out; it's Congress... and it's you, the public and your representatives…We're told it's all about national security, but that's not so”, he says.
Access to documents under the Freedom of Information Act has been particularly adversely affected by Administration policies. In the 1990s, the Clinton Administration increased public access to government information by restricting the ability of officials to classify information and establishing an improved system for the declassification of information. The Bush Administration has gone the other way, giving more officials more authority to classify more documents. This has “expanded the capacity of the government to operate in secret”, says the Waxman Report.
"Tightly controlling information, from the White House on down, has been the hallmark of this administration", says Roger Pilon, vice president of legal affairs for the conservative Cato Institute, a Washington, DC, think tank.
It’s not as though open government was a new idea in the US. Back in 1915, William Jennings Bryan observed: “The government being the people’s business, it necessarily follows that its operations should be at all times open to the public view. Publicity is therefore as essential to honest administration as freedom of speech is to representative government.” And in 1933, Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis said, “Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.”
Restricting access to information inevitably leads to an appearance of impropriety – the government must be doing something it doesn’t want the people to know about. It doesn’t matter whether the appearance is true or not; the perception becomes the reality.
With all the chatter about ‘values’ in the recent election, the President needs to remember that transparency and accountability are among the most cherished ones we have. They help to give us the moral authority we need to lead.
President Bush would do well to keep that in mind as he begins to think seriously about how history will remember him.
Saturday, November 06, 2004
Friday, November 05, 2004
GEORGE BUSH’S SECRET GOVERNMENT
By William Fisher
“It's always a fight, to find out what the government doesn't want us to know. It's a fight we're once again losing…(President Bush) has clamped a lid on public access... It's not just historians and journalists he wants locked out; it's Congress... and it's you, the public and your representatives.”
These are the words of Bill Moyers, one of America’s most respected broadcast journalists. Moyers was press secretary to President Lyndon B. Johnson when Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 1966. The Freedom of Information Act established the principle that the public should have broad access to government records.
In his “NOW’ program on US public television, Moyers condemns the Bush Administration’s penchant for secrecy. “We're told it's all about national security, but that's not so”, he says.
Now a comprehensive report issued by Congressman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, supports Moyers’ view. It charges that “there has been a systematic effort by the Bush Administration to limit the application of the laws that promote open government and accountability…the Bush Administration has sought to curtail public access to information while expanding the powers of government to operate in secret.”
The Report alleges that both the American people and the US Congress are being denied access to millions of pages of documents to which they are entitled under law. It says, “The actions of the Bush Administration have resulted in an extraordinary expansion of government secrecy. External watchdogs, including Congress, the media, and nongovernmental organizations, have consistently been hindered in their ability to monitor government activities.”
The Report finds that “there has been a consistent pattern in the Administration’s actions: laws that are designed to promote public access to information have been undermined, while laws that authorize the government to withhold information or to operate in secret have repeatedly been expanded. The cumulative result is an unprecedented assault on the principle of open government.”
The Report claims that Administration secrecy has affected the work of the “9/11” Commission. It says that throughout its investigation the Bush Administration “resisted or delayed providing the Commission with important information. For example, the Administration’s refusal to turn over documents forced the Commission to issue subpoenas to the Defense Department and the Federal Aviation Administration. The Administration also refused for months to allow Commissioners to review key presidential intelligence briefing documents.”
The Report also alleges that the Administration has systematically withheld “a vast array“ of records from Congress. Subjects have ranged “from simple census data and routine agency correspondence to presidential and vice presidential records.” The documents that the Administration has refused to release to the public and members of Congress include ”the contacts between energy companies and the Vice President’s energy task force, communications between the Defense Department and the Vice President’s office regarding contracts awarded to Halliburton (a major defense contractor), documents describing the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib, memoranda revealing what the White House knew about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and cost estimates of the Medicare prescription drug legislation withheld from Congress.”
Designating documents as ‘classified’ has frequently provided the executive branch of the US Government with a rationale for concealment. In the 1990s, the Clinton Administration increased public access to government information by restricting the ability of officials to classify information and establishing an improved system for the declassification of information. The Waxman Report says, “These steps have been reversed under the Bush Administration, which has expanded the capacity of the government to classify documents and to operate in secret.”
The Report also alleges that the Administration “has supported amendments to ‘open government‘ laws to create new categories of protected information that can be withheld from the public…The Administration has expanded the authority to classify documents and dramatically increased the number of documents classified. It has used the USA Patriot Act and novel legal theories to justify secret investigations, detentions, and trials.”
The Report charges that the Bush Administration “has issued guidance instructing agencies to withhold a broad and undefined category of ‘sensitive’ information….”
Congress is among the victims, the Report says. “On over 100 separate occasions, the Administration has refused to answer the inquiries of, or provide the information requested” by Congressman Waxman in his role as the senior Democrat on the House Committee on Government Reform.
The information the Administration has refused to provide includes “documents requested by the ranking members of eight House Committees relating to the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere”, the Report says.
The passage of the Patriot Act after the September 11, 2001, attacks gave the Bush Administration new authority to conduct government investigations in secret, the Report notes. One provision of the Act expands the authority of the Justice Department to conduct secret electronic wiretaps. Another authorizes the Justice Department to obtain secret orders requiring the production of ‘books, records, papers, documents, and other items,’ and prohibits the recipient of these orders (such as a telephone company or library) from disclosing their existence. A third provision expands the use of ‘sneak and peak’ search warrants, which allow the Justice Department to search homes and other premises secretly without giving notice to the occupants. A Federal Court has recently overturned some of these provisions.
In addition to expanding secrecy in government by executive order and statute, the Report says the Bush Administration has used “novel legal interpretations” to expand its authority to detain, try, and deport individuals in secret. The Administration asserted the authority to “hold persons designated as ‘enemy combatants’ in secret without a hearing, access to a lawyer, or judicial review; conduct secret military trials of persons held as enemy combatants when deemed necessary by the government; and conduct secret deportation proceedings of aliens deemed ‘special interest cases’ without any notice to the public, the press, or even family members.” The Supreme Court has ruled recently that ‘enemy combatants’ are entitled to hearings and to legal counsel.
The reporting of one of America’s leading news magazines, US News and World Report, supports the Waxman findings. The magazine wrote, “For the past three years, the Bush administration has quietly but efficiently dropped a shroud of secrecy across many critical operations of the federal government--cloaking its own affairs from scrutiny and removing from the public domain important information on health, safety, and environmental matters. The result has been a reversal of a decades-long trend of openness in government…”
Another Administration critic, Roger Pilon, vice president of legal affairs for the Cato Institute, a Washington, DC, think tank, says, "Tightly controlling information, from the White House on down, has been the hallmark of this administration."
And Jane Kirtley, Professor of Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota, says: “Government does make mistakes. And I don't think the public demands infallibility from its government…Accountability is what we demand. And we should have the tools that make it possible for us to compel the government to tell us what it's up to, how it's carrying out our business and to instruct the government to take corrective steps when mistakes are made.”
“It's always a fight, to find out what the government doesn't want us to know. It's a fight we're once again losing…(President Bush) has clamped a lid on public access... It's not just historians and journalists he wants locked out; it's Congress... and it's you, the public and your representatives.”
These are the words of Bill Moyers, one of America’s most respected broadcast journalists. Moyers was press secretary to President Lyndon B. Johnson when Johnson signed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) in 1966. The Freedom of Information Act established the principle that the public should have broad access to government records.
In his “NOW’ program on US public television, Moyers condemns the Bush Administration’s penchant for secrecy. “We're told it's all about national security, but that's not so”, he says.
Now a comprehensive report issued by Congressman Henry Waxman, a California Democrat, supports Moyers’ view. It charges that “there has been a systematic effort by the Bush Administration to limit the application of the laws that promote open government and accountability…the Bush Administration has sought to curtail public access to information while expanding the powers of government to operate in secret.”
The Report alleges that both the American people and the US Congress are being denied access to millions of pages of documents to which they are entitled under law. It says, “The actions of the Bush Administration have resulted in an extraordinary expansion of government secrecy. External watchdogs, including Congress, the media, and nongovernmental organizations, have consistently been hindered in their ability to monitor government activities.”
The Report finds that “there has been a consistent pattern in the Administration’s actions: laws that are designed to promote public access to information have been undermined, while laws that authorize the government to withhold information or to operate in secret have repeatedly been expanded. The cumulative result is an unprecedented assault on the principle of open government.”
The Report claims that Administration secrecy has affected the work of the “9/11” Commission. It says that throughout its investigation the Bush Administration “resisted or delayed providing the Commission with important information. For example, the Administration’s refusal to turn over documents forced the Commission to issue subpoenas to the Defense Department and the Federal Aviation Administration. The Administration also refused for months to allow Commissioners to review key presidential intelligence briefing documents.”
The Report also alleges that the Administration has systematically withheld “a vast array“ of records from Congress. Subjects have ranged “from simple census data and routine agency correspondence to presidential and vice presidential records.” The documents that the Administration has refused to release to the public and members of Congress include ”the contacts between energy companies and the Vice President’s energy task force, communications between the Defense Department and the Vice President’s office regarding contracts awarded to Halliburton (a major defense contractor), documents describing the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib, memoranda revealing what the White House knew about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and cost estimates of the Medicare prescription drug legislation withheld from Congress.”
Designating documents as ‘classified’ has frequently provided the executive branch of the US Government with a rationale for concealment. In the 1990s, the Clinton Administration increased public access to government information by restricting the ability of officials to classify information and establishing an improved system for the declassification of information. The Waxman Report says, “These steps have been reversed under the Bush Administration, which has expanded the capacity of the government to classify documents and to operate in secret.”
The Report also alleges that the Administration “has supported amendments to ‘open government‘ laws to create new categories of protected information that can be withheld from the public…The Administration has expanded the authority to classify documents and dramatically increased the number of documents classified. It has used the USA Patriot Act and novel legal theories to justify secret investigations, detentions, and trials.”
The Report charges that the Bush Administration “has issued guidance instructing agencies to withhold a broad and undefined category of ‘sensitive’ information….”
Congress is among the victims, the Report says. “On over 100 separate occasions, the Administration has refused to answer the inquiries of, or provide the information requested” by Congressman Waxman in his role as the senior Democrat on the House Committee on Government Reform.
The information the Administration has refused to provide includes “documents requested by the ranking members of eight House Committees relating to the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere”, the Report says.
The passage of the Patriot Act after the September 11, 2001, attacks gave the Bush Administration new authority to conduct government investigations in secret, the Report notes. One provision of the Act expands the authority of the Justice Department to conduct secret electronic wiretaps. Another authorizes the Justice Department to obtain secret orders requiring the production of ‘books, records, papers, documents, and other items,’ and prohibits the recipient of these orders (such as a telephone company or library) from disclosing their existence. A third provision expands the use of ‘sneak and peak’ search warrants, which allow the Justice Department to search homes and other premises secretly without giving notice to the occupants. A Federal Court has recently overturned some of these provisions.
In addition to expanding secrecy in government by executive order and statute, the Report says the Bush Administration has used “novel legal interpretations” to expand its authority to detain, try, and deport individuals in secret. The Administration asserted the authority to “hold persons designated as ‘enemy combatants’ in secret without a hearing, access to a lawyer, or judicial review; conduct secret military trials of persons held as enemy combatants when deemed necessary by the government; and conduct secret deportation proceedings of aliens deemed ‘special interest cases’ without any notice to the public, the press, or even family members.” The Supreme Court has ruled recently that ‘enemy combatants’ are entitled to hearings and to legal counsel.
The reporting of one of America’s leading news magazines, US News and World Report, supports the Waxman findings. The magazine wrote, “For the past three years, the Bush administration has quietly but efficiently dropped a shroud of secrecy across many critical operations of the federal government--cloaking its own affairs from scrutiny and removing from the public domain important information on health, safety, and environmental matters. The result has been a reversal of a decades-long trend of openness in government…”
Another Administration critic, Roger Pilon, vice president of legal affairs for the Cato Institute, a Washington, DC, think tank, says, "Tightly controlling information, from the White House on down, has been the hallmark of this administration."
And Jane Kirtley, Professor of Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota, says: “Government does make mistakes. And I don't think the public demands infallibility from its government…Accountability is what we demand. And we should have the tools that make it possible for us to compel the government to tell us what it's up to, how it's carrying out our business and to instruct the government to take corrective steps when mistakes are made.”
Thursday, November 04, 2004
REACHING OUT?
By William Fisher
In his acceptance speech the day after the election, President Bush tried to send a message to the 48 per cent of Americans who voted for Senator Kerry. It was: “To make this nation stronger and better, I will need your support and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust. A new term is a new opportunity to reach out to the whole nation.”
At his press conference the next day, he said: “Americans are expecting a bipartisan effort and results. I will reach out to every one who shares our goals.''
But these are different messages. The president may well be sincere about wanting to unite the nation. The problem is that few among that 48 percent share the president’s goals. Gary Wills, author of " St. Augustine's Conversion”, points out that “even if he wanted to be more conciliatory now, the constituency to which he owes his victory is not a yielding one. He must give them what they want…His helpers are also his keepers.”
Can the 48 per cent expect the President to back off his proposal for a Constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage?
Can they expect him to abandon his faith-based initiative or, for that matter, his faith-based foreign policy?
Can they expect him to nominate wise and moderate souls to the Supreme Court?
Can they expect him to disown the “my God is bigger than your God” rhetoric of a senior Army officer still under the president’s command?
Can they expect him to change his positions on school prayer, embryonic stem cell research, the definition of life, a woman’s right to choose, protection of the flag, and the dozens of other so-called ‘cultural issues’ that lit the huge fire under the president’s evangelical cohorts?
Can they expect him to choose transparency over conspiracy, magically transforming the most secretive government in American history?
Can they expect him to reign in a Justice Department whose infringements on civil liberties have already reached historic proportions?
Can they expect him to admit even a few mistakes?
Well, the 48 per cent can expect it, but they won’t get it.
When the Supreme Court awarded him the presidency in 2000, President Bush promised he would lead a humble country, unite us all, and show us the face of ‘compassionate conservatism’. He has been neither compassionate nor conservative. He has been arrogant, not humble. He has managed to divide us to a degree not seen since the Civil War. And he has turned most of the world against us.
Now he believes he has a ‘mandate’ to justify four more years of the same. It now seems clear that our country has more Creationists than Darwinists, and it is to these very people that the president owes his second term.
As he goes forward, however, he would be well advised to remember that those who voted for his opponent aren’t simply a mathematical construct called ‘the 48 per cent’. They are tens of millions of people every bit as American as Mr. Bush.
In his acceptance speech the day after the election, President Bush tried to send a message to the 48 per cent of Americans who voted for Senator Kerry. It was: “To make this nation stronger and better, I will need your support and I will work to earn it. I will do all I can do to deserve your trust. A new term is a new opportunity to reach out to the whole nation.”
At his press conference the next day, he said: “Americans are expecting a bipartisan effort and results. I will reach out to every one who shares our goals.''
But these are different messages. The president may well be sincere about wanting to unite the nation. The problem is that few among that 48 percent share the president’s goals. Gary Wills, author of " St. Augustine's Conversion”, points out that “even if he wanted to be more conciliatory now, the constituency to which he owes his victory is not a yielding one. He must give them what they want…His helpers are also his keepers.”
Can the 48 per cent expect the President to back off his proposal for a Constitutional amendment banning same sex marriage?
Can they expect him to abandon his faith-based initiative or, for that matter, his faith-based foreign policy?
Can they expect him to nominate wise and moderate souls to the Supreme Court?
Can they expect him to disown the “my God is bigger than your God” rhetoric of a senior Army officer still under the president’s command?
Can they expect him to change his positions on school prayer, embryonic stem cell research, the definition of life, a woman’s right to choose, protection of the flag, and the dozens of other so-called ‘cultural issues’ that lit the huge fire under the president’s evangelical cohorts?
Can they expect him to choose transparency over conspiracy, magically transforming the most secretive government in American history?
Can they expect him to reign in a Justice Department whose infringements on civil liberties have already reached historic proportions?
Can they expect him to admit even a few mistakes?
Well, the 48 per cent can expect it, but they won’t get it.
When the Supreme Court awarded him the presidency in 2000, President Bush promised he would lead a humble country, unite us all, and show us the face of ‘compassionate conservatism’. He has been neither compassionate nor conservative. He has been arrogant, not humble. He has managed to divide us to a degree not seen since the Civil War. And he has turned most of the world against us.
Now he believes he has a ‘mandate’ to justify four more years of the same. It now seems clear that our country has more Creationists than Darwinists, and it is to these very people that the president owes his second term.
As he goes forward, however, he would be well advised to remember that those who voted for his opponent aren’t simply a mathematical construct called ‘the 48 per cent’. They are tens of millions of people every bit as American as Mr. Bush.
Wednesday, November 03, 2004
CAMPAIGN POST-MORTEM
By William Fisher
Political scientists, operatives and junkies will be debating the 2004 US Presidential campaign for decades. But it is unlikely that many will be talking about a set of critical issues virtually ignored by the candidates and their parties: the erosion of civil liberties and human rights.
Surely the candidates knew these issues, albeit they would probably have had widely differing views. And if their polls and focus groups told them the voters were interested in these issues, or cared about them, we can be certain they would have crept into stump speeches, debates, and campaign ads.
They didn’t. They were ignored.
We heard endless rants, though little substance, about how to win ‘the war on terror’. And no sane human would argue that it is a war that must be won, not just for us, but for everyone in the civilized world.
But who can remember hearing anything about Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, or other venues for prisoner abuse? Or about US citizens being held incommunicado, without charge and without access to legal counsel? Or about Attorney General John Ashcroft’s wholesale round-up of 5,000 “suspected terrorists”, held for long periods in immigration prisons without charges or lawyers – and of whom not a single one was ever charged with or convicted of a terror-related crime? Or about the Justice Department’s arrant defiance of the Supreme Court’s finding that ‘the president does not have a blank check’ to arrest and detain anyone and be accountable to no one? Or about the failure of the Congress to demand an independent investigation of prisoner abuses? Or about the failure of the Central Intelligence Agency to produce its promised report on its ‘ghost detainees’, or its despicable practice of ‘rendering’ detainees to countries whose prisons are famous for practicing torture?
In 18 months of largely superficial frothing – much of it about phantom issues – the state of our civil liberties and our respect for human rights took on an eerie silence. Knowing that a candidate’s every move is triggered by a poll or a focus group, one can only conclude that it is the voters who don’t understand why these issues are important -- or don’t care.
As I pondered this thundering silence, two quotations kept popping into my head. The first, author unremembered, says, “Be careful who you choose as your enemies, for you will become like them.” Our enemies couldn’t care less about anyone’s civil liberties. If we take the same view, or allow our leaders to take it, we risk becoming like our enemies. In which case, they will have won.
The second quotation, from Churchill I think, says, “There can be no leadership without moral authority”. We happen to live in the world’s last remaining super-power. That places on us a heavy responsibility for leadership. The only credible way we have to exercise that leadership is by example – by what we do. What we do reflects what we believe, and that is the source of our moral authority.
The voters’ apparent disinterest in what is happening to their civil liberties, and what we are doing to other people’s human rights, have the awful potential to change precisely those attributes that make us different from our enemies. If we allow that to happen, we will sadly get what we deserve.
We deserve better.
Political scientists, operatives and junkies will be debating the 2004 US Presidential campaign for decades. But it is unlikely that many will be talking about a set of critical issues virtually ignored by the candidates and their parties: the erosion of civil liberties and human rights.
Surely the candidates knew these issues, albeit they would probably have had widely differing views. And if their polls and focus groups told them the voters were interested in these issues, or cared about them, we can be certain they would have crept into stump speeches, debates, and campaign ads.
They didn’t. They were ignored.
We heard endless rants, though little substance, about how to win ‘the war on terror’. And no sane human would argue that it is a war that must be won, not just for us, but for everyone in the civilized world.
But who can remember hearing anything about Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, or other venues for prisoner abuse? Or about US citizens being held incommunicado, without charge and without access to legal counsel? Or about Attorney General John Ashcroft’s wholesale round-up of 5,000 “suspected terrorists”, held for long periods in immigration prisons without charges or lawyers – and of whom not a single one was ever charged with or convicted of a terror-related crime? Or about the Justice Department’s arrant defiance of the Supreme Court’s finding that ‘the president does not have a blank check’ to arrest and detain anyone and be accountable to no one? Or about the failure of the Congress to demand an independent investigation of prisoner abuses? Or about the failure of the Central Intelligence Agency to produce its promised report on its ‘ghost detainees’, or its despicable practice of ‘rendering’ detainees to countries whose prisons are famous for practicing torture?
In 18 months of largely superficial frothing – much of it about phantom issues – the state of our civil liberties and our respect for human rights took on an eerie silence. Knowing that a candidate’s every move is triggered by a poll or a focus group, one can only conclude that it is the voters who don’t understand why these issues are important -- or don’t care.
As I pondered this thundering silence, two quotations kept popping into my head. The first, author unremembered, says, “Be careful who you choose as your enemies, for you will become like them.” Our enemies couldn’t care less about anyone’s civil liberties. If we take the same view, or allow our leaders to take it, we risk becoming like our enemies. In which case, they will have won.
The second quotation, from Churchill I think, says, “There can be no leadership without moral authority”. We happen to live in the world’s last remaining super-power. That places on us a heavy responsibility for leadership. The only credible way we have to exercise that leadership is by example – by what we do. What we do reflects what we believe, and that is the source of our moral authority.
The voters’ apparent disinterest in what is happening to their civil liberties, and what we are doing to other people’s human rights, have the awful potential to change precisely those attributes that make us different from our enemies. If we allow that to happen, we will sadly get what we deserve.
We deserve better.
Tuesday, November 02, 2004
Why I Am Scared to Death of George Bush--And Why You Should Be, Too
Elaine Cassel is an attorney practicing in Virginia and Washington, DC. She teaches law and psychology, and is the author of "The War on Civil Liberties: How Bush and Ashcroft Dismantled the Bill of Rights" (Lawrence Hill, 2004,) and "Criminal Behavior," a textbook in criminal psychology. She is a frequent contributor to such journals as FindLaw and Counterpunch. This article is reproduced with the author’s permission.
By Elaine Cassel
In the past almost four years, I have come to fear almost everything the Bush administration does. In one way or the other, it has harmed, perhaps irreparably, virtually every aspect of American life. From raising the acceptable arsenic levels in water (a little arsenic is good for us all) to logging and snowmobiling in America’s formerly treasured parks, to ripping apart the bill of rights and trampling it underfoot, to using the threat of “terrorist” attacks for political gain, to going to war on a lie and not just spending our money outrageously but being responsible for—and proud of—the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers, the maiming of thousands more (a deep and dirty secret) and the slaying of thousands (but who’s counting?) Iraqi civilians. All of this and much, much more literally keeps me awake at night, sick with fear and worry.
But nothing disturbs me more than the case of Ahmed Abu Ali. Abu Ali is an American citizen, born in Texas in 1981. He is a resident of Falls Church, Virginia, where he lives with his parents. He was valedictorian of his 1999 graduating class in a northern Virginia high school. He attends a Saudi university where he is studying for a degree.
Last June, Ahmed was taking an exam at the International University of Medina. In stormed Saudi police who took him away to a Saudi prison where he has been since that day. It has taken a year for the story to make any sense, and during this time his family and lawyer have kept me informed about the case. However, they asked me not to write about it, for fear that it may jeopardize his potential for release.
Now that it appears their son may never come home, at least not if the Bush administration can help it, they have filed a law suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asking that their son be given the same rights as the Supreme Court recently gave Guantanamo prisoners and American citizen Yaser Hamdi—the right to, at a minimum, challenge his detention. They have also given me permission, through their attorney, to write about their son’s case.
Here is the abbreviated version of the undisputed facts, according to court records and discussions with the family and attorney: Ahmed was acquainted with some of the men charged in the notorious case of the Alexandria 11, men who pled guilty or were convicted (all but one of them, and that is important, as you will see) of conspiring to fight for the Muslim cause in the constant battle between India and Pakistan over the territory of Kashmir. The interest in fighting for Kashmir is one that is promoted by many Muslims. The men were friends, and in the course of their friendship play paintball and shoot at targets with guns, all perfectly legal in Northern Virginia. In fact, gun use is so legal in Virginia that the legislature recently passed a law affirmatively making it acceptable (indeed promoting) the carrying of weapons into bars and restaurants.
Initially charged under the seldom-used Neutrality Act, which forbids an American from taking sides with an “enemy” of the United States, those who pled to conspiring to aid Muslims were given sentences of four to ten years in exchange for testifying against the others; the men who did not pled guilty were indicted with aiding and abetting terrorism, upping the ante to life prison terms.
Of the four men who did not plead guilty to the new charges, three were convicted by Judge Leonie Brinkema and sentenced to 85 to 115 years in prison. These were men who were not a threat to the U.S., who were not anti-American, who never took up arms against any one, but who, it is true, were sympathetic to the Muslim cause. They would have fought for the Muslim cause in Kashmir, if the occasion presented itself (India and Pakistan declared a cease fire early in 2004).
One of the men who pled not guilty had been in Saudi Arabia at the same time that Abu Ali was “detained.” He was extradited to the United States, and Judge Brinkema found him not guilty. Though he is free at the moment, he expects to be harassed by prosecutors. Surely, he will be arrested and charged with something—anything to avenge his acquittal by Judge Brinkema.
Abu Ali has been visited in Saudi Arabia by the FBI and perhaps by Alexandria prosecutors. From what little we know (he has been denied an attorney, and the State Department and the Saudi government have conspired to insure that he receives no mail or visits), he was urged to confess to being part of the Alexandria 11, he refused, likely being tortured and mentally and physically abused. He was urged to renounce his U.S. citizenship, in exchange for the promise of being taken to Sweden. (He was smart not to do that; last week it was reported in the Washington Post that the U.S. government aided Swedish officials in “rendering” Saudi citizens back to Saudi Arabia where they were “tried” for “terrorism” crimes and are serving lengthy prison terms. Both maintain their innocence. )
If prosecutors had any case at all against Abu Ali, they would surely have had him extradited at the same time as Sabri Benkhala, who was acquitted by Judge Brinkema. Abu Ali has been threatened with being named an enemy combatant, but that would also mean that he would be brought to the U.S., held like Americans Padilla and Hamdi and, now, entitled to an attorney and the right to file a habeas corpus petition challenging his relief.
But that is not going to happen. The day Abu Ali’s parents filed a petition for habeas corpus and other relief, the U.S. State Department informed them that the Saudis were going to charge Abu Ali with unspecified crimes of “terror.” Days before the case was filed, the Saudis told the family that they were ready to release Abu Ali, but had to have approval from the U.S. to do so. The Saudis said they had no interest in him. The State Department, at that time, it was up to the Saudis.
Clearly, no one is telling the truth. The State Department now says it cannot comment on anything, because Abu Ali never signed “privacy” forms, forms that the Saudis refused to give him (no doubt told to refuse to deliver them by the same State Department that claims they can’t obtain them from their detainee).
Here is why I am scared to death of this administration: Abu Ali will surely never come home. There is no way the U.S. government is going to let a man live to tell the tale of his capture by Saudis at the request of the U.S., his incarceration without a charge, without a lawyer, without access to his family, and, no doubt, his being subject to torture during long periods of interrogation. Maybe Kromberg wanted him at some time, found there was nothing to get him on, then told the Saudis to torture him into confession of anything that would make him extraditable. For the present time, it still takes an actual criminal charge to indict someone.
But it takes nothing but the whims of the government, to “render” an American citizen to another country and demand that that country imprison the American until it says to release him or her. But then the U.S. cannot tolerate the word getting out about the whole story, so it will have to silence Abu Ali by keeping him locked up forever (or worse) in a Saudi jail.
Let’s be clear about this—the Saudis insist that they are holding him only because the U.S. demands it.
Remember Nicholas Berg, who was beheaded shortly after his release by the U.S. government in Iraq? Remember how the U.S. insisted that it never had him in custody but that that “Iraqi police” held him? Forget for a time that the Iraqi police did nothing without the permission of and payment by the U.S. government—the police said that they had seized Berg at the demand of the U.S. and they released Berg to its custody. Finally, after Berg died, the State Department admitted the U.S. had detained him. When Berg refused the request of the U.S. government that it take him out of Iraq, when Berg insisted that he was going to leave Iraq on his own, he was murdered.
You connect the dots. Or not. But don’t turn away from the frightening truth of what your government is up to—successfully, without accountability, violating every right and privilege Americans have under U.S. and international law.
Even if the federal court orders that Abu Ali be brought to the U.S. to have a hearing, don’t expect it to happen. Accidents happen in prison, don’t they? Especially in foreign prisons. The Pentagon is even now making it near impossible for attorneys for the Guantanamo prisoners to meet their clients and file the petitions the Supreme Court gave them the right to file.
Face it. Our government is imprisoning its citizens without cause and without process. Welcome to George Bush’s America.
By Elaine Cassel
In the past almost four years, I have come to fear almost everything the Bush administration does. In one way or the other, it has harmed, perhaps irreparably, virtually every aspect of American life. From raising the acceptable arsenic levels in water (a little arsenic is good for us all) to logging and snowmobiling in America’s formerly treasured parks, to ripping apart the bill of rights and trampling it underfoot, to using the threat of “terrorist” attacks for political gain, to going to war on a lie and not just spending our money outrageously but being responsible for—and proud of—the deaths of hundreds of American soldiers, the maiming of thousands more (a deep and dirty secret) and the slaying of thousands (but who’s counting?) Iraqi civilians. All of this and much, much more literally keeps me awake at night, sick with fear and worry.
But nothing disturbs me more than the case of Ahmed Abu Ali. Abu Ali is an American citizen, born in Texas in 1981. He is a resident of Falls Church, Virginia, where he lives with his parents. He was valedictorian of his 1999 graduating class in a northern Virginia high school. He attends a Saudi university where he is studying for a degree.
Last June, Ahmed was taking an exam at the International University of Medina. In stormed Saudi police who took him away to a Saudi prison where he has been since that day. It has taken a year for the story to make any sense, and during this time his family and lawyer have kept me informed about the case. However, they asked me not to write about it, for fear that it may jeopardize his potential for release.
Now that it appears their son may never come home, at least not if the Bush administration can help it, they have filed a law suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, asking that their son be given the same rights as the Supreme Court recently gave Guantanamo prisoners and American citizen Yaser Hamdi—the right to, at a minimum, challenge his detention. They have also given me permission, through their attorney, to write about their son’s case.
Here is the abbreviated version of the undisputed facts, according to court records and discussions with the family and attorney: Ahmed was acquainted with some of the men charged in the notorious case of the Alexandria 11, men who pled guilty or were convicted (all but one of them, and that is important, as you will see) of conspiring to fight for the Muslim cause in the constant battle between India and Pakistan over the territory of Kashmir. The interest in fighting for Kashmir is one that is promoted by many Muslims. The men were friends, and in the course of their friendship play paintball and shoot at targets with guns, all perfectly legal in Northern Virginia. In fact, gun use is so legal in Virginia that the legislature recently passed a law affirmatively making it acceptable (indeed promoting) the carrying of weapons into bars and restaurants.
Initially charged under the seldom-used Neutrality Act, which forbids an American from taking sides with an “enemy” of the United States, those who pled to conspiring to aid Muslims were given sentences of four to ten years in exchange for testifying against the others; the men who did not pled guilty were indicted with aiding and abetting terrorism, upping the ante to life prison terms.
Of the four men who did not plead guilty to the new charges, three were convicted by Judge Leonie Brinkema and sentenced to 85 to 115 years in prison. These were men who were not a threat to the U.S., who were not anti-American, who never took up arms against any one, but who, it is true, were sympathetic to the Muslim cause. They would have fought for the Muslim cause in Kashmir, if the occasion presented itself (India and Pakistan declared a cease fire early in 2004).
One of the men who pled not guilty had been in Saudi Arabia at the same time that Abu Ali was “detained.” He was extradited to the United States, and Judge Brinkema found him not guilty. Though he is free at the moment, he expects to be harassed by prosecutors. Surely, he will be arrested and charged with something—anything to avenge his acquittal by Judge Brinkema.
Abu Ali has been visited in Saudi Arabia by the FBI and perhaps by Alexandria prosecutors. From what little we know (he has been denied an attorney, and the State Department and the Saudi government have conspired to insure that he receives no mail or visits), he was urged to confess to being part of the Alexandria 11, he refused, likely being tortured and mentally and physically abused. He was urged to renounce his U.S. citizenship, in exchange for the promise of being taken to Sweden. (He was smart not to do that; last week it was reported in the Washington Post that the U.S. government aided Swedish officials in “rendering” Saudi citizens back to Saudi Arabia where they were “tried” for “terrorism” crimes and are serving lengthy prison terms. Both maintain their innocence. )
If prosecutors had any case at all against Abu Ali, they would surely have had him extradited at the same time as Sabri Benkhala, who was acquitted by Judge Brinkema. Abu Ali has been threatened with being named an enemy combatant, but that would also mean that he would be brought to the U.S., held like Americans Padilla and Hamdi and, now, entitled to an attorney and the right to file a habeas corpus petition challenging his relief.
But that is not going to happen. The day Abu Ali’s parents filed a petition for habeas corpus and other relief, the U.S. State Department informed them that the Saudis were going to charge Abu Ali with unspecified crimes of “terror.” Days before the case was filed, the Saudis told the family that they were ready to release Abu Ali, but had to have approval from the U.S. to do so. The Saudis said they had no interest in him. The State Department, at that time, it was up to the Saudis.
Clearly, no one is telling the truth. The State Department now says it cannot comment on anything, because Abu Ali never signed “privacy” forms, forms that the Saudis refused to give him (no doubt told to refuse to deliver them by the same State Department that claims they can’t obtain them from their detainee).
Here is why I am scared to death of this administration: Abu Ali will surely never come home. There is no way the U.S. government is going to let a man live to tell the tale of his capture by Saudis at the request of the U.S., his incarceration without a charge, without a lawyer, without access to his family, and, no doubt, his being subject to torture during long periods of interrogation. Maybe Kromberg wanted him at some time, found there was nothing to get him on, then told the Saudis to torture him into confession of anything that would make him extraditable. For the present time, it still takes an actual criminal charge to indict someone.
But it takes nothing but the whims of the government, to “render” an American citizen to another country and demand that that country imprison the American until it says to release him or her. But then the U.S. cannot tolerate the word getting out about the whole story, so it will have to silence Abu Ali by keeping him locked up forever (or worse) in a Saudi jail.
Let’s be clear about this—the Saudis insist that they are holding him only because the U.S. demands it.
Remember Nicholas Berg, who was beheaded shortly after his release by the U.S. government in Iraq? Remember how the U.S. insisted that it never had him in custody but that that “Iraqi police” held him? Forget for a time that the Iraqi police did nothing without the permission of and payment by the U.S. government—the police said that they had seized Berg at the demand of the U.S. and they released Berg to its custody. Finally, after Berg died, the State Department admitted the U.S. had detained him. When Berg refused the request of the U.S. government that it take him out of Iraq, when Berg insisted that he was going to leave Iraq on his own, he was murdered.
You connect the dots. Or not. But don’t turn away from the frightening truth of what your government is up to—successfully, without accountability, violating every right and privilege Americans have under U.S. and international law.
Even if the federal court orders that Abu Ali be brought to the U.S. to have a hearing, don’t expect it to happen. Accidents happen in prison, don’t they? Especially in foreign prisons. The Pentagon is even now making it near impossible for attorneys for the Guantanamo prisoners to meet their clients and file the petitions the Supreme Court gave them the right to file.
Face it. Our government is imprisoning its citizens without cause and without process. Welcome to George Bush’s America.
Sunday, October 31, 2004
SWIMMING AGAINST THE TIDE IN RUSSIA
By William Fisher
The popular image of Russia in the West these days is of a land of post-Soviet oligarchs, oil company billionaires languishing in jail, President Putin ruthlessly centralizing his power by replacing provincial governors, civil liberties being abused, and of course of the 10-year war in Chechnya with the resulting unthinkable murder of hundreds of Beslan children.
But there are other, more hopeful, crosscurrents in this vast and complicated country. One is a realization by Russia’s entrepreneurs that they must unite to reduce the endemic corruption that has impeded the development of small businesses in Russia since the fall of the USSR.
This new grassroots movement is being led by the Association of Entrepreneurs for Honest Business. Its mission is to unite and educate entrepreneurs across Russia, raise public awareness of the costs of corruption, draft anti-corruption legislation, engage power structures, and force changes in the business environment by running for and getting elected to public office.
This effort is an offshoot of the Productivity Enhancement Program (PEP), the private not-for-profit brainchild of an indefatigable San Francisco grandmother, Sharon Tennison. Tennison founded the Center for Citizen Initiatives (CCI) in 1983 in an attempt to break through barriers between the two superpowers. When the USSR imploded, she continued creating programs like PEP to help democratize Russia.
PEP is an out-of-country business management training program, adapted from the historic Marshall Plan's "Productivity Tours" which brought 24,000 foreigners to US plants after WWII. To date, the PEP program has exposed some 4,000 non-English speaking Russians to the “how to” of American management in more than 10,000 American companies in 500 US cities in 45 states. Another thousand English-speaking Russian entrepreneurs trained in CCI’s Economic Development Program (EDP) from 1989 to 1997. The US has used the EDP model in other former states of the USSR.
CCI’s 5,000 alumni form the nucleus of the new Association of Entrepreneurs for Honest Business – an effort several years in the making. Tennison says: “I've been obsessed with bribe-taking from Russia’s grassroots businesses, because it is suffocating the normal development of small business. Small business owners bemoan this plague endlessly, but have felt totally helpless to address it openly, since their businesses could be shut down overnight by local authorities.”
She adds, “It’s been every Russian entrepreneur for themselves, unlike in other countries with different histories. Complicating the situation is the fact that there is no history of uniting for effecting change in Russia. Those who tried in the past paid for it in the gulags or with their lives. A second complication is that during those times, Russians developed deep fear of one another, not knowing if their next-door neighbor would inform on them. This lack of trust among Russian citizens, combined with their lack of experience with uniting, casts a long shadow into Russia’s Business Life Today”
Transparency International, a highly respected non-governmental organization, reported that in 2002 companies in Russia were more likely to pay bribes to officials than in any other emerging market country in the world. According to Russian entrepreneurs, last year corruption cost businesses US$ 36 billion, or between 10 and 12% of gross domestic product. Bribes made up about 10 percent of the cost of all business transactions in Russia. Individuals paid about $2.8 billion in bribes, generally in order to procure "free" government services such as health care or access to education. The Moscow Times says small business disproportionately bears the brunt of red tape and corrupt officialdom. For big business, the paper says, “corruption may be an irritant, but for (small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) it´s a matter of life or death.”
But now, Tennison says, “The years of fearful compliance with forces beyond their control have begun to give way to a modicum of hope. Russia’s small business owners say they can ‘feel the wind blowing from the top’’. President Putin, whom most of them trust, has come out on their side, warning bureaucrats that corruption can’t coexist with a healthy economy and if they don’t change, then change will come from above.”
Earlier this year, CCI arranged for 100 of its 5,000 alumni to study the world’s experience in reducing corruption. In Washington DC, they held 55 meetings with the world’s experts in this field. Thirteen Embassies of countries with the best anti-corruption records trained the Russians, and international agencies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) provided methodologies successfully used by other countries.
The alumni’s ‘Recommendations to President’ were delivered to Putin’s Economic Advisor, Andre Illarionov, in the Kremlin. Illaronov spent 2.5 hours with these regional entrepreneurs and assured them he would discuss their 33 recommendations with the President. Then he urged them to go back to their regions, unite, create a bold website and use their voices to enlist other entrepreneurs in their struggle.
Bolstered by this high-level moral support, the CCI alumni returned to their regions, organized press conferences with local journalists, held roundtables with district and regional officials, and began the work of uniting themselves locally. In June they convened a second brainstorm to determine their nationwide work, and on September 25, had their Bylaws ready to legalize and register as a new non-commercial association.
The director of the new association is Nonna Barkhatova, a woman who founded and operates a successful small business development center in Novosibirsk, and is the city's best-known supporter of small business development. The new Chair of the Board is Andrei Davidovich, an entrepreneur who built a marketing company from scratch, and now has affiliates in several Russian cities. Tennison describes him as “a highly respected entrepreneur who advocates refusing to pay bribes in all circumstances. Just say NO, is his watchword”, she says. The new association is buttressed by several strong supporters, including John Pepper, recently retired CEO of Procter & Gamble, who is the Honorary Co-chair of the Association.
The Association’s immediate next steps are: creating public awareness, drafting legislation, engaging local officials on these issues, spearheading a national membership campaign, and lobbying all levels of officialdom for change
Tennison is optimistic about the association’s future. “These dynamic young entrepreneurs have trained in business sectors throughout the US, and have seen for themselves the market advantages of uniting for change. Now they are adapting it to Russia’s environment. An uphill climb is ahead, but this association is already a movement in motion. Its volunteers are unstoppable,” she says.
The value of volunteers is underscored by Dr. Jack N. Behrman, emeritus professor of International Business and Ethics at the University of North Carolina School of Business -- and founder and former Chairman of the volunteer MBA Enterprise Corps. Behrman says his studies “show that volunteer action is one of the most effective means of curtailing corruption in both government and business.” Volunteer action “demonstrates that there is grass-roots concern and that the damage is pervasive. Countries where corruption is rife remain on the lower rungs of development, and begin to progress to the degree that they curtail or eliminate it.”
A study by Marek Hessel and Ken Murphy for Transparency International concludes: “Corruption frequently ‘works’ only for those who receive bribes... Corruption breeds on itself: it gives the bureaucrats powerful incentives not only to keep inefficient rules in place (so that they can take more bribes and pass them about the office) but to multiply such rules.”
The new association hopes to turn the tide.
The popular image of Russia in the West these days is of a land of post-Soviet oligarchs, oil company billionaires languishing in jail, President Putin ruthlessly centralizing his power by replacing provincial governors, civil liberties being abused, and of course of the 10-year war in Chechnya with the resulting unthinkable murder of hundreds of Beslan children.
But there are other, more hopeful, crosscurrents in this vast and complicated country. One is a realization by Russia’s entrepreneurs that they must unite to reduce the endemic corruption that has impeded the development of small businesses in Russia since the fall of the USSR.
This new grassroots movement is being led by the Association of Entrepreneurs for Honest Business. Its mission is to unite and educate entrepreneurs across Russia, raise public awareness of the costs of corruption, draft anti-corruption legislation, engage power structures, and force changes in the business environment by running for and getting elected to public office.
This effort is an offshoot of the Productivity Enhancement Program (PEP), the private not-for-profit brainchild of an indefatigable San Francisco grandmother, Sharon Tennison. Tennison founded the Center for Citizen Initiatives (CCI) in 1983 in an attempt to break through barriers between the two superpowers. When the USSR imploded, she continued creating programs like PEP to help democratize Russia.
PEP is an out-of-country business management training program, adapted from the historic Marshall Plan's "Productivity Tours" which brought 24,000 foreigners to US plants after WWII. To date, the PEP program has exposed some 4,000 non-English speaking Russians to the “how to” of American management in more than 10,000 American companies in 500 US cities in 45 states. Another thousand English-speaking Russian entrepreneurs trained in CCI’s Economic Development Program (EDP) from 1989 to 1997. The US has used the EDP model in other former states of the USSR.
CCI’s 5,000 alumni form the nucleus of the new Association of Entrepreneurs for Honest Business – an effort several years in the making. Tennison says: “I've been obsessed with bribe-taking from Russia’s grassroots businesses, because it is suffocating the normal development of small business. Small business owners bemoan this plague endlessly, but have felt totally helpless to address it openly, since their businesses could be shut down overnight by local authorities.”
She adds, “It’s been every Russian entrepreneur for themselves, unlike in other countries with different histories. Complicating the situation is the fact that there is no history of uniting for effecting change in Russia. Those who tried in the past paid for it in the gulags or with their lives. A second complication is that during those times, Russians developed deep fear of one another, not knowing if their next-door neighbor would inform on them. This lack of trust among Russian citizens, combined with their lack of experience with uniting, casts a long shadow into Russia’s Business Life Today”
Transparency International, a highly respected non-governmental organization, reported that in 2002 companies in Russia were more likely to pay bribes to officials than in any other emerging market country in the world. According to Russian entrepreneurs, last year corruption cost businesses US$ 36 billion, or between 10 and 12% of gross domestic product. Bribes made up about 10 percent of the cost of all business transactions in Russia. Individuals paid about $2.8 billion in bribes, generally in order to procure "free" government services such as health care or access to education. The Moscow Times says small business disproportionately bears the brunt of red tape and corrupt officialdom. For big business, the paper says, “corruption may be an irritant, but for (small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) it´s a matter of life or death.”
But now, Tennison says, “The years of fearful compliance with forces beyond their control have begun to give way to a modicum of hope. Russia’s small business owners say they can ‘feel the wind blowing from the top’’. President Putin, whom most of them trust, has come out on their side, warning bureaucrats that corruption can’t coexist with a healthy economy and if they don’t change, then change will come from above.”
Earlier this year, CCI arranged for 100 of its 5,000 alumni to study the world’s experience in reducing corruption. In Washington DC, they held 55 meetings with the world’s experts in this field. Thirteen Embassies of countries with the best anti-corruption records trained the Russians, and international agencies such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) provided methodologies successfully used by other countries.
The alumni’s ‘Recommendations to President’ were delivered to Putin’s Economic Advisor, Andre Illarionov, in the Kremlin. Illaronov spent 2.5 hours with these regional entrepreneurs and assured them he would discuss their 33 recommendations with the President. Then he urged them to go back to their regions, unite, create a bold website and use their voices to enlist other entrepreneurs in their struggle.
Bolstered by this high-level moral support, the CCI alumni returned to their regions, organized press conferences with local journalists, held roundtables with district and regional officials, and began the work of uniting themselves locally. In June they convened a second brainstorm to determine their nationwide work, and on September 25, had their Bylaws ready to legalize and register as a new non-commercial association.
The director of the new association is Nonna Barkhatova, a woman who founded and operates a successful small business development center in Novosibirsk, and is the city's best-known supporter of small business development. The new Chair of the Board is Andrei Davidovich, an entrepreneur who built a marketing company from scratch, and now has affiliates in several Russian cities. Tennison describes him as “a highly respected entrepreneur who advocates refusing to pay bribes in all circumstances. Just say NO, is his watchword”, she says. The new association is buttressed by several strong supporters, including John Pepper, recently retired CEO of Procter & Gamble, who is the Honorary Co-chair of the Association.
The Association’s immediate next steps are: creating public awareness, drafting legislation, engaging local officials on these issues, spearheading a national membership campaign, and lobbying all levels of officialdom for change
Tennison is optimistic about the association’s future. “These dynamic young entrepreneurs have trained in business sectors throughout the US, and have seen for themselves the market advantages of uniting for change. Now they are adapting it to Russia’s environment. An uphill climb is ahead, but this association is already a movement in motion. Its volunteers are unstoppable,” she says.
The value of volunteers is underscored by Dr. Jack N. Behrman, emeritus professor of International Business and Ethics at the University of North Carolina School of Business -- and founder and former Chairman of the volunteer MBA Enterprise Corps. Behrman says his studies “show that volunteer action is one of the most effective means of curtailing corruption in both government and business.” Volunteer action “demonstrates that there is grass-roots concern and that the damage is pervasive. Countries where corruption is rife remain on the lower rungs of development, and begin to progress to the degree that they curtail or eliminate it.”
A study by Marek Hessel and Ken Murphy for Transparency International concludes: “Corruption frequently ‘works’ only for those who receive bribes... Corruption breeds on itself: it gives the bureaucrats powerful incentives not only to keep inefficient rules in place (so that they can take more bribes and pass them about the office) but to multiply such rules.”
The new association hopes to turn the tide.
Friday, October 29, 2004
After Arafat, Upheaval
By David Ignatius
Washington Post
Friday, October 29
For more than 30 years, Yasser Arafat has symbolized the Age of Immobilism in Arab politics. The goal of leaders from Rabat to Baghdad was survival, and whatever their nominal ideology, their real object was to maintain the status quo. And until Sept. 11, the United States -- as adept as the Arabs at status-quo politics -- fit right in.
This week's news that Arafat is seriously ill is a reminder that Arabs are entering a new era. The icebergs that have frozen Arab political life are breaking up. That melting of the status quo may sound liberating, but a turbulent passage lies ahead. Even Arafat, for all his iconic status as a symbol of Palestinian nationalism, hasn't been able to cope with the forces of change.
I first interviewed Arafat in 1981 at his headquarters in Beirut. He arrived after 1 a.m., as was his habit, surrounded by gun-toting aides. Looking back, what's striking is how much of the conversation could have taken place this year. Arafat had spent that day juggling political pressures from different Arab regimes; he talked with me about peace plans, but always with caveats; he sought to woo U.S. support, rather than negotiate openly with Israel. "We are not the red Indians," he told me, using a phrase he has probably repeated a thousand times since.
Summarizing that interview, I wrote that Arafat had learned an unfortunate lesson: "It is much easier to stand still than to try to move forward." That could be the epitaph for a whole generation of Arab leaders. With the connivance of the United States, and with the permanent excuse of the Arab-Israeli conflict, they clung to the status quo year after year, decade after decade.
America's invasion of Iraq shattered the status quo -- toppling Saddam Hussein, the cruelest symbol of the Age of Immobilism. The Bush administration had concluded that the status quo was deadly -- for Americans and Israelis, and most of all for the Arab people. The idea was to open the door to what I described optimistically in my prewar columns as "the Arab future."
The past 20 months have been a painful education in how violent and unpredictable those forces of change can be. But the turmoil sweeping Iraq is driven by forces much deeper and more powerful than a hatred of America. We have become an object of that rage for change, but we didn't create it. Nor should we necessarily want to stop it.
Hussein, like Arafat, was a cap on a bottle that was ready to explode. Because the United States chose to pry it off in Iraq, it has gotten caught by the percussion. President Bush's decision to force open the bottle may prove as unwise as kicking over a bee's nest. But Sept. 11 showed that the violence of the Islamic world was coming to America anyway.
What will follow the politics of immobilism? The only certainty is that it will be messy. The Arab world is in a period of revolutionary turmoil; the best analogy I've heard recently is to 1848 -- the year that Europe was swept by a vortex of revolution and rage. The anarchy was contained, mostly from a distance, by the leading status-quo power of the time, Britain. But what really stabilized Europe was that revolutionary France, the nation that had set the turmoil in motion, gradually came of age and became a status-quo power itself.
That may be the best we can hope for in the Arab world: It is finally living its own history. The process of change will be violent and will almost certainly be accompanied by a virulent anti-Americanism. The United States, unfortunately, will remain a target for decades. But if America and its allies are sensible, the Muslim world could evolve as 19th-century Europe did, toward modern and democratic nations.
Americans will vote Tuesday as if their decisions could alter this violent history. It's an important election, to be sure, because it could determine whether the United States struggles alone to contain the Islamic volcano or does so in concert with its European allies. But it's a mistake to think that either candidate can change the forces that are loose in the Islamic world. We are on the roller coaster of history now; there's no easy exit.
Arafat has been a symbolic figure of the era that is passing, because he managed to stay so long on the lip of the volcano. But even he could not contain the eruption. It's coming, and the job for wise leaders is to channel the flow and avoid getting burned.
Washington Post
Friday, October 29
For more than 30 years, Yasser Arafat has symbolized the Age of Immobilism in Arab politics. The goal of leaders from Rabat to Baghdad was survival, and whatever their nominal ideology, their real object was to maintain the status quo. And until Sept. 11, the United States -- as adept as the Arabs at status-quo politics -- fit right in.
This week's news that Arafat is seriously ill is a reminder that Arabs are entering a new era. The icebergs that have frozen Arab political life are breaking up. That melting of the status quo may sound liberating, but a turbulent passage lies ahead. Even Arafat, for all his iconic status as a symbol of Palestinian nationalism, hasn't been able to cope with the forces of change.
I first interviewed Arafat in 1981 at his headquarters in Beirut. He arrived after 1 a.m., as was his habit, surrounded by gun-toting aides. Looking back, what's striking is how much of the conversation could have taken place this year. Arafat had spent that day juggling political pressures from different Arab regimes; he talked with me about peace plans, but always with caveats; he sought to woo U.S. support, rather than negotiate openly with Israel. "We are not the red Indians," he told me, using a phrase he has probably repeated a thousand times since.
Summarizing that interview, I wrote that Arafat had learned an unfortunate lesson: "It is much easier to stand still than to try to move forward." That could be the epitaph for a whole generation of Arab leaders. With the connivance of the United States, and with the permanent excuse of the Arab-Israeli conflict, they clung to the status quo year after year, decade after decade.
America's invasion of Iraq shattered the status quo -- toppling Saddam Hussein, the cruelest symbol of the Age of Immobilism. The Bush administration had concluded that the status quo was deadly -- for Americans and Israelis, and most of all for the Arab people. The idea was to open the door to what I described optimistically in my prewar columns as "the Arab future."
The past 20 months have been a painful education in how violent and unpredictable those forces of change can be. But the turmoil sweeping Iraq is driven by forces much deeper and more powerful than a hatred of America. We have become an object of that rage for change, but we didn't create it. Nor should we necessarily want to stop it.
Hussein, like Arafat, was a cap on a bottle that was ready to explode. Because the United States chose to pry it off in Iraq, it has gotten caught by the percussion. President Bush's decision to force open the bottle may prove as unwise as kicking over a bee's nest. But Sept. 11 showed that the violence of the Islamic world was coming to America anyway.
What will follow the politics of immobilism? The only certainty is that it will be messy. The Arab world is in a period of revolutionary turmoil; the best analogy I've heard recently is to 1848 -- the year that Europe was swept by a vortex of revolution and rage. The anarchy was contained, mostly from a distance, by the leading status-quo power of the time, Britain. But what really stabilized Europe was that revolutionary France, the nation that had set the turmoil in motion, gradually came of age and became a status-quo power itself.
That may be the best we can hope for in the Arab world: It is finally living its own history. The process of change will be violent and will almost certainly be accompanied by a virulent anti-Americanism. The United States, unfortunately, will remain a target for decades. But if America and its allies are sensible, the Muslim world could evolve as 19th-century Europe did, toward modern and democratic nations.
Americans will vote Tuesday as if their decisions could alter this violent history. It's an important election, to be sure, because it could determine whether the United States struggles alone to contain the Islamic volcano or does so in concert with its European allies. But it's a mistake to think that either candidate can change the forces that are loose in the Islamic world. We are on the roller coaster of history now; there's no easy exit.
Arafat has been a symbolic figure of the era that is passing, because he managed to stay so long on the lip of the volcano. But even he could not contain the eruption. It's coming, and the job for wise leaders is to channel the flow and avoid getting burned.
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