Bush's Legacy: Pragmatic Internationalism?

Barack Obama's foreign policy approach mirrors that of George W. Bush's second term, according to Christian Brose, a chief speechwriter and policy advisor for Condoleezza Rice. "Pragmatic internationalism" are the words Brose uses to describe Bush's second term.

Really, pragmatic internationalism. The arrival of Sec. Gates to Bush's team as well as more cooperative engagement at international institutions has been a welcome improvement. Yet, I would argue the changes in Bush's foreign policy have been out of necessity rather than enlightenment.

For instance, take Iran. With international support for the U.S. in the toilet, military action against Iran came off the table. The Bush Administration turned to the international organizations it had once chided for "failing to act" against Iraq to turn the heat on Iran. Pragmatic yes, but even more so would be real negotiations and normalization of ties, as advocated by five former Secretary's of State.

On Middle East Peace, Brose says that" Obama will inherit a Middle East peace process finally proceeding on both tracks at once: state-building and peacemaking." Oops! Must have written that part before the latest conflagration.

On Guantanamo, Brose says Obama will close this facility, something "some in the Bush Administration tried to do but couldn't." Rubbish.

On terrorism, Brose claims that the administration is now focused on "not just fighting terrorists but building conditions of security, opportunity and justice for societies that terrorists seek to radicalize." This certainly would be a pragmatic position if only policies and funds supported this rhetoric.

In Somalia, for instance, military action and a green light for Ethiopia's invasion was supported over any attempt to help rebuild this broken society.

Uncritical support for Musharraf's existed even while he assaulted democracy and the rule of law in Pakistan. The bulk of assistance going to Pakistan is military and security aid, when it should be assistance for development and education as well as trade preferences.

Yet, the Administration has radically boosted foreign aid, a central tool to preventing terror, says Brose. The untold story is that the majority of the foreign aid increase has been for HIV/AID's, security aid and politically motivated assistance. While Bush's massive PEPFAR plan has helped treat millions, it hasn't done a thing for preventing terrorism.

Development and human security based accounts have only seen a slight boost. The much heralded Millennium Challenge Corporation - a new institution designed to ensure accountability from recipient states - was created outside of U.S. aid structures, and confused an already entangled aid bureaucracy.

Brose's central contention, that Obama's foreign policy, will look like Mr. Bush's second term remains unknown. Some things will stay the same. Gates will remain. Obama will likely to continue to fund U.S. soft power tools. Troops will remain in Iraq and Afghanistan for some time. But, on issues like engagement with Iran, Darfur, climate change, I think we will see a big difference -- real leadership.

Email the Author | Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook

An Episode in an Airport

While most of us were out of town or distracted by the atrocious violence happening in Israel and Palestine last week, a small atrocity happened right here in Washington, at Reagan National Airport.

The Post covered the story of 9 muslim patrons of an airline who were asked to leave a plane after commenting on the safety of their seats and their proximity to the aircraft's jets. Incidentally, the women with wearing head scarves, and the men beards.

Now, obviously, I wasn't on the plane, didn't hear the conversation, and am prone to snap judgments (usually about fashion choices) myself. We can't be sure exactly what happened, but the story did get me thinking.

It reminded me that even though I am safely ensconced in a hyper-politically correct environment I will be presented with opportunities when I can choose to behave with respect, tolerance, and compassion, or choose to be motivated with fear, bigotry, and ignorance.

I hope that in the new year I can rise to the standards of tolerance and open-mindedness that make me and those around me feel respected and acknowledged as equal partners in this country and world. Sounds like a resolution to me (and much better than my original one, which was to take better care of my leather shoes.)

Email the Author | Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook

U.S. Weapons Targeting Civilians Living Off Grass and Painkillers in Gaza

"Gaza is on the threshold of becoming the first territory to be intentionally reduced to a state of abject destitution, with the knowledge, acquiescence and - some would say - encouragement of the international community."
~The Head of the UN Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) Karen Koning Abu Zayd (emphasis added)

Even before the December 27th "Black Sabbath" when 200 Palestinians were killed in 10 minutes, Ms. Abu Zayd alerted us all to the mass suffering of Gazans living under an increasingly tightened blockade of food, medicine, natural gas, and other basic necessities of life. Since Hamas was democratically elected in January 2006, Israel, backed by the United States, imposed a blockade that has reduced Gaza, as Amnesty International put it, to bare survival.

Now, UNRWA warns us that Gaza is on the verge of real starvation and death UNRWA has been unable to deliver food aid for the last 2 weeks because of a shortage of supplies and Israel's aerial bombardment.

Many Gazans--the ones lucky enough to still be alive even before the latest Israeli blitzkreig--are living off grass and painkillers.

FACTS ON THE GROUND IN GAZA & ISRAEL (as of this writing)

*500 Palestinians have been killed, at least a quarter of whom the UN estimates are civilians. Israel has intentionally targeted civilian infrastructure on a massive scale, which is a war crime. Israel has attacked transportation, education, and police government buildings. The justification is that it is just attacking Hamas--not mentioning of course that Hamas is the (democratically elected) government of Gaza. I haven't yet found Israel's justification for bombing an American International School in Gaza.

*3 Israeli civilians and 1 Israeli soldier have been killed--all killed AFTER Israel broke the truce that had sharply decreased violence since June 19th. Not one Israeli civilian was killed during the truce. Hamas and other Palestinian militant groups have fired hundreds of rockets and mortars at Israeli civilians, which is also a war crime.

* Gaza has one of the highest unemployment rates in the entire world That was the unemployment situation last July. To put that in perspective, the highest unemployment rate during the Great Depression in U.S. was 25%. The unemployment rate of Weimer Germany was about 33%--that was the height of Germany's economic depression before the Nazi takeover. It should be self-evident (but obviously it isn't or the bombs would not be falling on Gaza today) that massive and particularly inflicted poverty leads people to take desperate measures.

* Gaza is densely populated. It is about the size of Detroit, or twice the size of D.C., with nearly 1.5 million people living there. (Mostly concentrated in Gaza City--Israel has been bombing A CITY.)

For more a great backgrounder on the recent attacks, see Adams Sheets on "The Facts about Israel's War in Gaza".

b>Email the Author | Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook

We Cannot be Silent About the Attack on Gaza

"These are historic crimes, and we cannot be silent about them." -Ali Abunimah, author of One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse in an interview on Democracy Now!

I have trouble believing that Israel's four-day attack on Gaza that has killed 368 Palestinians, including at least 64 civilians, is self-defense, or justice for the rocket attacks that have killed 4 Israelis. For 6 months there has been a ceasefire between Israel and Palestine and the Israelis are blaming Hamas for breaking the ceasefire. Yes; Hamas has fired lots of rockets into Israel, tragically killing 4 people. But does that justify killing 368 Palestinians?

Much of the U.S. response to the current situation is that both sides need to stop the fighting, which is true. However, I am hesitant to place blame equally between Israel and Palestine (or even Hamas). Israel claims that the current attack, with the threat of a ground offensive is to thwart Hamas rocket bombings, but these bombings have only increased since Israel's attack. As a matter of fact, there had been remarkable few rocket attacks before Israel started its offensive.

The past four days has made me seriously wonder how U.S. public opinion can be so pro-Israel. Can't we see that Israel is murdering many more innocent civilians than Hamas is? Obama has said very little about the recent attacks, but his policy in the past has also been very pro-Israel. I am not suggesting that the U.S. should be anti-Israel, but I agree with Abunimah above that we cannot stay silent about Israel's recent actions. The U.S. should condemn Israel's unnecessarily brutal attack on Gaza.

Urge your member of Congress to end the killing, support diplomacy, and end the blockade on Gaza. These steps will be major progress toward Middle East peace in 2009. Check out FCNL's new Middle East page that has great resources and actions to continue working toward peace in the Middle East.

Email the Author Del.icio.us Digg

Facebook

U.S Weapons Bombing Gaza: Civilians on Both Sides Will Pay the Price

Five Gazan girls dying beneath the rubble of their home, in a "precision strike" (Getty images)

Israel has rejected a call for a truce, even a 48 hour one to let humanitarian supplies in, and the number of Palestinians dead will soon surpass 400. The one government in the world that could pressure Israel to stop the attacks has this to say thus far:

“...Avoid civilian casualties as it targets Hamas in Gaza.”
~White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe's regarding the most massive aerial bombardment in Gaza ever.

My advice to Mr. Johndroe and Israel: If you want to 'avoid civilian casualities' don't launch aerial assaults on Gaza--its one of the most densely populated areas on the planet. Another tip: if you actually want to protect your citizens, don't break 5 months of a ceasefire that sharply reduced violence. The major breach in the ceasefire was from Israel--not Hamas--on Nov.4th when Israel's launched its first air strike on Gaza killing four people in Gaza it claimed were digging a tunnel to smuggle weapons.

The first Israeli killed since the June ceasefire agreement was on December 27th--that's AFTER Israel's massive aerial bombardment of Gazans. (And two more Israeli civilians and one Israeli soldier have been killed since.)

Ceasefire results for Israeli security = No Israeli deaths, dramatic reduction in violence, and most of the rockets that were fired into Israel were from splinter groups--not Hamas itself.

Of course Gaza benefited from the ceasefire that stopped Israel's aerial bombardment as well--until the November 5th bombardment that broke the truce.

But other aspects of life for Gazans did not change--the blockade only tightened. Every calorie of food coming through their borders and whether or not they have electricity is subject to Israeli control. The lucky ones had one meal a day of grass seed and cooking oil. Now Israel is putting even more restrictions on humanitarian aid--since according to an aide to Prime Minister Olmert: “Gaza is not undergoing a humanitarian crisis.” I'd love then, to know what you would call a place where 80% of its residents are dependent on food aid to keep them from starvation.

With "Made-in-the-USA" F-18s, Hellfire missiles, and even GBU-39 "bunker buster" bombs, Israel targeted:

* Police stations--including the police headquarters in the midst of a graduation ceremony
* A university--including a sports club and a science laboratory
* A mosque--a "precision strike" which killed the 5 sisters above in their sleep.

This kind of devastation and the trauma it will bring to Palestinians, Israelis, and everyone else in the region for generations, would not be at all possible without U.S. military and diplomatic support. It's not only President Obama's responsibility (which it is, read the Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee's brilliant op-ed in the Chicago Tribune on what he needs to do); there is a special responsibility that U.S. taxpayers and citizens have in this conflict (which I will have to go more into depth another time...but suffice it to say that according to the Congressional Research Service, "U.S. grants to Israel represent over 20% of the overall Israeli defense budget".

SO (let me put on my FCNL lobbyist hat...)

TAKE ACTION! Urge your member of Congress to support a ceasefire, robust and inclusive diplomacy, and an end to the blockade of Gaza.

It is so critical that when the 111th Congress begins, members speak out in favor of robust U.S. diplomatic efforts to quickly restore a ceasefire that would:

* end Israeli airstrikes and prevent a ground assault on Gaza;
* end all rocket fire into Israel by Hamas and other Palestinian groups;
* engage diplomatically with Hamas, a policy supported by two-thirds of Israelis according to a poll taken last February;
* end the blockade of Gaza.

Email the Author | Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook

Off for the Holidays - But read Karyn's post!

I don't want to overshadow Karyn's post by writing a lot, but just wanted to let everyone know that FCNL is closed for the next week. We wish everyone a happy holiday week! It's the perfect time to catch up on old Of Peace and Politics posts you may have missed :)

Email the Author | Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook

First Americans Public Liason

Email the Author | Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook

Barack Obama has said many things about respecting Native Americans in concrete ways during his campaign. I had decided not to hold my breath...it seems like a good thing to say and then ignore without much political fall out. That's why I was plesently surprised when Obama named a First Americans Public Liason to his transition team -- a position representin the need to correpsond nation to nation. His name is Wizipan Garriot, a member of the Rosebud Sioux tribe in South Dakota. Wizi is young (only 28!) but extremely competent (having already worked for Tom Dashle and graduated with a Yale law degree).

While Barack Obama should be celebrated for becoming the first African American President -- he should also be praised for understanding the needs of the American Indian communities -- and respecting tribes as sovereign nations.

The Bush Administration Announces the Completion of 500 Miles of the Berlin Wall

Here in its final month of executive power, the Bush administration just announced that 500 miles of the US border wall have been completed...and they expect to get another 100 more done before President-elect Obama is sworn into office.

Nice to know our democracy continues to be crushed even in the waning hours of this "lame duck" session.

As hate crimes are on the rise towards the Latino population, immigrants are being abused and even dying in the poor conditions of our immigrant detention system, and hundreds of people are being killed along the US border, our government celebrates spending BILLIONS of dollars on a wall which has desecrated the sacred sites of native peoples, violated numerous environmental and religious freedom laws, and on top of it all is not even effective in reaching its purported (though faulty) goal of stopping undocumented immigration.

Is this really the vision we have for our country?

Email the Author | Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook

Tim Wise on White Privilege

While doing some work on immigration today, I came across this speech by Tim Wise on youtube.

He does a great job at articulating oppression and intersectionality both in a historical and contemporary setting. In particular, I like the way he ties the concept of white privilege to current anti-immigration rhetoric.

In case you don't have time to watch the whole video, here are a few key quotes:

"At some level, again, working class white people are being harmed by white privilege. Relatively, being advantaged, right? Being given a leg up, being given a membership to the club, but in absolute terms, being kept economically subordinated by the very thing that gave them a sense of superiority. How's that for irony?

Then, in the present era, this hasn't stopped, this is not ancient history. Now, we have people running around insisting that we should close the border with Mexico because if we don't the wages of working class people will continue to fall. The implication being that the only reason workers are paid like crap in this country, is because the border is open.

But if you believe that, you would actually have to believe, that if that border were closed, that all these owners of capital and industry would just say, 'Oh well you figured us out. Here it's a raise.'

Do we really believe that the only thing keeping bosses from paying people more is the presence of low-wage medium semi-skilled labor from South of this artificial border? Is that really what we believe? We know that if that border is closed, it isn't going to be closed to capital. It isn't going to be closed to goods. If you have a border that can be crossed by capital looking for the highest return on investment, or goods looking for the highest price, but labor is chained to it's country of origin, how is that going to work to the benefit of working people? By definition it doesn't. By definition it immiserates the working class. Divide and conquer."

Email the Author | Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook

Panel Urges Obama to Re-structure U.S. Gov't to Prevent Genocide

I am admittedly late in getting to this, but its been busy around here!

Several weeks ago, a panel led by former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and former Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen, released a report on genocide prevention.

While I haven't gone through enough of the report to provide a thorough analysis, at first glance, many of these recommendations look similiar to a sign on letter Bridget and I wrote last month.

However, there was one really great highlight that occurred at the press conference. When asked about the military aspect of genocide prevention, Madeline Albright stressed the need and importance of early, flexible and robust non-military efforts to prevent crises from spiraling into mass killing. Bill Cohen reaffirmed Albright's comment, by saying we need to increase U.S. efforts to stop genocide before it happens. Wow, this sounds familiar to what Caroline A. wrote in FCNL's press release on The Responsibility to Prevent!

It also is provides a far more nuanced perspective on U.S. foreign policy and genocide prevention. Madeline Albright, who once asked "whats the point of saving this superb military for, Colin, if we can't use it?" is now advocating for what FCNL and others have been saying for years. While genocide can occur very quickly, as it did in Rwanda, the conditions in which genocide and ethnic cleansing occur are capable of being spotted much earlier. By increasing international efforts to assess and address these conditions, we can truly live up to our collective responsibility to say "Never Again."

President Obama's administration should move quickly to implement these recommendations, and make prevention of these crimes a priority of his administration.

Email the Author | Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook

Snapshot of 2004: Can war work?

One evening in early September I decided to do my laundry. I had just set up the wash cycle and was returning to my apartment when something in the free magazine pile caught my eye. Believer. The fantastically entertaining and notoriously expensive literary magazine. Goldmine! Yes, this issue was from April of 2004 (ah, freshman year of college), but I never pass up free culture and pretension.

I picked up my treasure and perused the cover as I walked upstairs. One title screamed out at me: "On antiwar ambivalence and a belated reading of The Gulag Archipelago" by Tom Bissell.

The reading that followed was partly enjoyable and partly infuriating, but most notably a time machine back to rapidly darkening but generally optimistic days of early 2004. I was engrossed by his description of The Gulag Archipelago, a three-part book about the horrors and injustices of the Soviet Union, hearkening back to when I spent my Tuesday afternoons in seminars with titles like "Life under Communism." When I neared the end of the article Bissell somewhat inexplicably turned to his own anti-war ambivalence. This is when I began to grow skeptical and frustrated. This passage crystallizes his take on the early Iraq War and the antiwar movement:

"I found myself less antiwar than anti-antiwar, which did not make me prowar but left me much less antiwar than I wanted to be. For The Gulag Archipelago had told me this: one must fight totalitarianism and never apologize for doing so. The sick brilliance of totalitarian regimes is that they are beyond diplomacy. They are removable only by war..."
(Believer, April 2004, p.15)

This passage frustrates and frightens me because it demonstrates a kind of reverse idealistic belief that war can fix totalitarian regimes. Of course I have the benefit of knowing what transpired in Iraq in the years that followed this article. War introduced a new injustice and horror into Iraqi life. But is that chaos really better than the freedom crushing regime of Sadaam Hussein? Neither is good, and clearly war is not the answer for dealing with totalitarian regimes. As Bissell himself points out, when a society has lived under a controlling regime for many years, it is not effective to "liberate" it by throwing the doors open and announcing freedom. Totalitarinism inflicts severe pschological wounds -- wounds that are not healed by subjecting the sufferer to war.

I agree with Bissell that, "one must fight totalitarianism and never apologize for doing so." But does war fight totalitarianism? No! If we use 1920s and 30s Germany as an example, one could argue that it in fact promotes totalitarian regimes.

Bissell's attitude in this article is 'totalitarianism happens. We have a resposibility to stop it." But totalitarianism doesn't just happen. Conditions of inequality, chaos, and unrest allow dictators and controlling regimes to rise to power. We shouldn't waste time feeling ambivalent about the antiwar movement -- we should be over the moon about removing the causes of war. People should get out in the streets demanding more money for the State Department and civilian control of foreign relations.

Think out of the box Bissell! Iraq is just another example that the "stop injustice with war" model doesn't work. Try prevention. Try diplomacy, economic development, education, equality, and cooperation among nations. Then you will stop totalitarianism and war in one move.

Email the Author | Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook

Fox News Tries to Make Hate and Racism Sexy

My peers and I all probably remember when "reality tv" as we know it went big time. MTV started showing "The Real World" allowing us all to experience what it was like for seven strangers with different backgrounds to live together in the same house. The concept exploded. Today we have reality TV on everything from deserted island survival to fashion design to gay men.

And it's become sexy.

Today reality tv shows are much more graphic and explicit than they ever were back in the early 90s, playing up the drama of sex, drugs, friendship and betrayal. In many ways, it seems like participants in the shows cater to what they think the audience will want to see. In other words, they try to make it sexy. And I have no doubt that the producers encourage that as well.

But what are the consequences of the popularization and sexy-ilization of certain "reality" concepts?

Fox News is planning to air a new reality tv show called "Smile-- You're Under Arrest" two days after Christmas documenting the work of Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona, the notorious "America's Toughest Sheriff" who turned his police department into an immigration enforcement agency.

Yet Sheriff Arpaio's tactics are known internationally for openly racially profiling latinos throughout Arizona and spending vast amounts of money for large-scale immigration sweeps.



Since 2004, over 2,700 lawsuits have been filed against Arpaio for his racist and illegal tactics and Arizona's governor has cut funding to his unit. Yet he continues, just driving his county into a $1.3 million deficit.

And now, Fox News is parading his work all over television.

But do you think they'll mention the consequences of Arpaio's tactics? Like the fact that in exchange for focusing on immigration, he has ignored 40,000 felony arrest warrants? Or that response times to 911 calls have increased because he has pulled his "immigration enforcement team" from emergency responders and patrol units?

Immigrants are not criminals. And we endanger the physical safety of our communities by making people scared to report crime to the police for fear of being deported. We damage the moral character of our community by permitting hate and racial profiling to be the rule of law.

Some news for Fox News: Hate and Racism are NOT sexy.

Email the Author | Del.icio.us | Digg | Facebook