The Progressive Response

The Progressive Response (PR) is a weekly service of Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF)—a "Think Tank Without Walls." A joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Institute for Policy Studies, FPIF is an international network of analysts and activists dedicated to "making the U.S. a more responsible global leader and partner by advancing citizen movements and agendas." We encourage responses to the opinions expressed in the PR and may print them in the "Letters and Comments" section. For more information on FPIF and joining our network, please consider visiting the FPIF website at http://www.fpif.org/.

Tom Barry, editor of Progressive Response, is a senior analyst with the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) www.irc-online.org and codirector of Foreign Policy In Focus. He can be contacted at <tom@irc-online.org>.

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Editor: Tom Barry (IRC)

Table of Contents

I. Updates and Out-Takes

CHALLENGES OF BUILDING PEACE MOVEMENT IN TIME OF WAR
By Stephen Zunes

POST 9-11: OPTIMISM OF THE WILL
By John Gershman

NEW FROM SELF-DETERMINATION IN FOCUS

II. Outside the U.S.

PAKISTAN'S DESPOT IN WASHINGTON
By Najum Mushtaq

III. Letters and Comments

U.S. & THE GENERAL: ROUND 2

GLOBAL JUSTICE, ANTIGLOBALIZATION, JUST GLOBALIZATION

NEED TO FATHOM THE DEPTHS

I. Updates and Out-takes

(Editor's Note: In this issue of the Progressive Response, we continue to examine the state of citizen organizing as part of FPIF's commitment to reflect on the successes, shortcomings, and challenges of the movements in which we are involved. In the last issue, we focused on the future of the global justice or antiglobalization movement, offering an assessment by John Cavanagh, director of the Institute for Policy Studies. We invite readers to review (and respond to) the assessment of other presenters at the FPIF forum on this subject by visiting http://www.fpif.org/discussion/0201globalization/index.html . In this issue, we offer excerpts of analysis of the new peace or justice not war movement that has emerged, in the context of the new war on terrorism.)

CHALLENGES OF BUILDING PEACE MOVEMENT IN TIME OF WAR
By Stephen Zunes

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from an FPIF Global Affairs Commentary, available in its entirety at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0202peace.html .)

The September 11 attacks have placed traditional critics of U.S. militarism and interventionism in a bind. In refusing to support military action, such critics can easily be portrayed as naively acquiescing to dangerous forces that have demonstrated both the willingness and the ability to do enormous harm to many thousands of innocent people in our own country.

As a result, many former peace activists--even while cautioning against the more large-scale military actions advocated by administration hawks--are, for the first time, endorsing at least some sort of military response. At the same time, there are still very real moral and legal questions regarding certain aspects military action, even among non-pacifists. Furthermore, supporting military action feeds the very militarization of U.S. foreign policy that helped create the backlash so frighteningly manifested in the Al-Qaeda movement and other extremist activities.

Perhaps the greatest contribution progressives can make to the current situation in the short- to medium-term is exposing how the Bush administration is using the crisis to advance its right-wing ideological agenda. For example, no other country besides Taliban-ruled Afghanistan has been shown to have harbored or given any other kind of direct support to Al-Qaeda. However, there have been a series of threats by the Bush administration to extend the war to Iraq, Somalia, Yemen, and elsewhere, in an apparent desire to use counterterrorism as an excuse to punish regimes it doesn't like and to extend American military power.

Such attacks would create a widespread anti-American backlash in the region that would severely compromise the non-military but more crucial counterterrorism efforts on which the United States must concentrate at this stage. Those opposing further U.S. military intervention must emphasize that the struggle against terrorism is too important to be sabotaged by ideologues wishing to settle old scores.

Another example regards the enormous increase in military spending advocated by the Bush administration--with apparent support from leading congressional Democrats--that has been justified as necessary to fund the war on terrorism. However, the vast majority of the proposed spending is for weapons systems and other expenditures having nothing to do with counterterrorism; indeed, many were originally designed to counter Soviet weapons that no longer exist. Activists can point out that, at a time of national crisis where a singularity of purpose is required, the two major parties are taking advantage of the American people and their hard-earned tax dollars to subsidize the arms industry. For example, if the terrorist attacks of September 11 proved anything, it is the folly of the assertion that a nuclear missile defense can protect us. The use of missiles, bombers, and other heavy high-tech equipment may have been partially successful in Afghanistan, where there were some tangible, if limited, targets in the form of training camps for Al-Qaeda and other military installations belonging to the allied Taliban regime.

However, such weapons will be of little use against the majority of Al-Qaeda that remains intact as a network of decentralized, underground cells. As a result, antiwar activists can point out that the emphasis on heavy high-tech weaponry in the proposed federal budget is based not on its need to protect Americans from terrorism but because such weaponry is extremely profitable for arms manufacturers.

From fiscal policy to civil liberties to trade issues to environmental concerns, the entire agenda of the political right is being advanced in the name of fighting terrorism. Indeed, many progressives barely had time to grieve the tragedies of September 11 before we had to start worrying about the frightening political implications of our government's response. In addition to the threat of war, few progressives could doubt that there would soon be assaults on such areas as civil liberties, immigrant rights, saner budget priorities, human rights, international law, and arms control. Antiterrorism has become what anticommunism was during the cold war: the manipulation of an outside threat to pursue a right-wing agenda, including the suppression of legitimate dissent. Also as during the cold war, most prominent liberals have timidly accepted many of the assumptions and policies put forward by right-wing Republicans and thereby made thoughtful debate of the policies that resulted in this terrorist threat extremely difficult.

At the same time, few things make people angrier than being taken advantage of in time of genuine need. Progressives must acknowledge the reality of the terrorist threat and the necessity of a strong and effective response from our government, while at the same time exposing the perfidy of the Bush administration in cynically manipulating our genuine need for security for the sake of its rigid ideological constructs and its wealthy financial supporters.

In most previous cases of U.S. military intervention abroad, it was generally enough to simply demand the U.S. stay out. The current crisis, however, does require some credible alternatives to the Bush administration policy. Successful activism against war has to proceed from good policy prescriptions to introduce this shift. In previous campaigns regarding military intervention, antiwar forces have been mostly reacting to U.S. policy. To win this struggle, those desiring a more enlightened foreign policy must also be on the offensive.

(Stephen Zunes <zunes@usfca.edu> is a Middle East Editor of Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org).)

POST 9-11: OPTIMISM OF THE WILL
By John Gershman

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from an FPIF Global Affairs Commentary, available in its entirety at: http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0202wmd.html .)

I'd like to offer these comments in the vein of presenting some "optimism of the will" to complement the "pessimism of the intellect" of the previous speakers at this FPIF conference on weapons of mass destruction http://www.fpif.org/presentations/wmd01/index.html . This is not to contradict their generally gloomy analysis of the state of affairs since September 11th, but simply to try and identify where I think new opportunities exist, and to address more systematically the issue of how much has actually changed since September 11th.

I think our opportunities are greater than we might otherwise think.

Vision of Security: Our vision of security needs to shift away from a militarized vision that emphasizes the maintenance of U.S. military supremacy as the route to security, as opposed to a multilevel network of multilateral institutions and mechanisms that embed the U.S. and other states in institutions that promote collective and cooperative security efforts. The current administration seems committed to undermining multilateral arms control through such actions as pursuing missile defenses and undermining the Biological Weapons Convention. After September 11th we should be able to show that attempting to buy security through technical panaceas like missile defenses are chimerical at best, and destabilizing at worst, and that verifiable multilateral arms control regimes for the entire spectrum of weapons of mass destruction must be a central component to a rational security policy in the 21st century.

We must also engage systematically in the debate over defining and implementing homeland security and not simply cede this to the security establishment. The pursuit of hegemony and supremacy is a double-edged sword. It most certainly doesn't insure security. The strategic debate for progressives, however, remains: Do we argue that the U.S. should exercise its hegemonic power for beneficent ends, or should we be working to end U.S. hegemony?

Security has ceased to be a concern of only the federal government, as state and local governments have become involved. This provides new opportunities to use the renewed rhetorical respect the public sector has achieved to insure that it receives the funds necessary to meet legitimate security needs, particularly in those areas where these efforts strengthen the civilian sector and have important, positive side-effects on both the economy and social infrastructure. The public health system is the most immediate example, where strengthening surveillance mechanisms and laboratory capabilities of public health systems can aid in combating infectious disease outbreaks as well as bioterrorism.

The opportunity to revisit the U.S. development strategy is evident both by the September 11th attacks and the recession. This involves crucially U.S. energy policy, which has both domestic and international implications, and enables us to go after the president and the administration even though he's gained in popularity because of the war.

Now more than ever we need to go on the offensive with respect to the debate on globalization, illustrating how the contradictions of corporate-led globalization have contributed to the current situation, and re-focusing the "anti-globalization" movement's agenda on controlling capital as opposed to trade issues. The opportunity is there: witness the new expansion of regulations on international capital flows that emerged in the aftermath of September 11th as an effort to combat the flows of terrorist finances. This was an administration opposed to increased international regulation of money laundering and tax havens prior to September 11th, and now it has taken them up with vigor. Such efforts also indicate that regulating capital flows is more a question of political priorities and power and less one of the "irreversible, inevitable" globalization of capital. In the process we need to distinguish more clearly between globalization and capitalism, highlighting the class character of the Bush administration and ending forever any association that some in the antiglobalization movement have with rhetoric that is less than internationalist.

Money: While money isn't everything, it is something. As the administration launches on a major spending spree for the Pentagon, we need to be more aggressive in identifying where we think additional spending needs to take place in both domestic and foreign policy. The recession is another opportunity for us to offer a positive vision for the public sector and to contrast an agenda that focuses on broad visions of security with the more narrow and militarized version advocated by the administration. We need to be at least as bold as Jeff Sachs in being willing to call for significant increases in funding for certain types of foreign aid programs while still maintaining our traditional critiques of foreign aid.

Terrorism as a Public Relations Failure: We need to smash the canard that the September 11th attacks and similar attacks occur because "they" don't know us--as if terrorism were the result of a flawed PR strategy. The real problem is many people in the U.S. don't know the rest of the world, not the reverse (a problem at the national level where some congressional representatives brag about not having passports and our current president is lacking in direct overseas experience). For example, the U.S. hosts more foreign students than any other country at its universities and colleges. Yet, foreign language enrollments as a percentage of total higher education (college, university, or community college) enrollments have fallen from 16% in the 1960s to an average of 8% since the mid-1970s. Less than half of college or university students take any foreign language. Eighty percent of those students who do take a foreign language take French, German, or Spanish. And the number of 4-year colleges and universities that require a foreign language for admission has fallen from 34% in 1965 to 20% in 1995. Finally, the percentage of college or university students who spend more than a semester studying abroad fell from 18% to 10% from 1985-1997. At the same time the U.S. has been preaching globalization, the citizenry has retreated into parochialism. Who doesn't know whom?

U.S.-sponsored terrorism: We need to recall Jonathan Schell's admonition (online at http://www.fpif.org/presentations/wmd01/schell.html ) from last night, and work to end U.S. state complicity with, sponsorship of, and direct engagement in terrorist acts in the Middle East, Colombia, and elsewhere. This is a critical element if we are not to enable the Bush administration to swathe itself in the mantle of antiterrorism.

This day in 1895 Alfred P. Nobel wrote the will that dedicated his estate to fund the prizes that bear his name, including the one for peace. We may not all be so wealthy as to dedicate such financial resources to that cause. But may we embrace that spirit and rededicate ourselves to a task of creating the most appropriate memorial to those murdered on September 11th--the active presence of justice that is peace.

(John Gershman <john@irc-online.org> is a senior analyst at the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Asia/Pacific editor with Foreign Policy In Focus.)

NEW FROM SELF-DETERMINATION IN FOCUS

Bosnia Conflict Profile
By Roberto Belloni (February 2002)
What now might be needed is the international community's abandonment of a façade of democracy that praises local participation in the peace process but removes sites of power and policymaking from popular accountability. In other words, if the near future is that of a full-blown international protectorate, then this should come with the connected duties and responsibilities that go with the job.

Aceh Conflict Profile
By Anthony L. Smith (February 2002)
Aceh remains part of the Indonesian heartland and its loss would be a far greater national trauma than the loss of East Timor. Considerable energy has been expended in diplomatic lobbying to ensure that the world's states still recognize Indonesia's territorial integrity.

II. Outside the U.S.

(Editor's Note: FPIF has a new component called "Outside the U.S.," which aims to bring non-U.S. voices into the U.S. policy debate and to foster dialog between Northern and Southern actors in global affairs issues. Please visit our Outside the U.S. page for other non-U.S. perspectives on global affairs and for information about submissions at: http://www.fpif.org/outside/index.html.)

PAKISTAN'S DESPOT IN WASHINGTON
By Najum Mushtaq

(Editor's Note: The following is excerpted from an Outside the U.S. Global Affairs Commentary available in its entirety at: http://www.fpif.org/outside/commentary/2002/0202musharraf.html .)

It is a manifestation of a colonial relationship between power centers of the two countries that a reception at the White House gives legitimacy to tin-pot despots in Pakistan. Running a "fragile, soft" state, with India threatening war, General Musharraf [who met with President Bush on February 13] finds cover and support in Washington's recognition of his role in the war on terror. Images of his meetings with the American president are worth more than many million votes at home. A handshake and a pat on the shoulder by Bush should thwart the Indian threat.

As always, Pakistan's military is dutifully serving American political and military interests, which the metropolis of Washington must now reward with patronage and guarantees of continuity for the Musharraf government and its policies. It is more in its symbolism than its substance that the success of this visit will be measured in Pakistan.

Regardless of how he performs at press conferences and in front of the camera, General Musharraf is almost assured of gaining domestic political mileage out of this visit. Any trade concessions by the United States--even if they are as nominal as relaxing the textile quota--will be peddled as great economic successes. The removal of nuclear and democracy sanctions after September 11 has already provided breathing space to the stagnant economy of Pakistan. Resumption of the International Military Education and Training (IMET) program and promises of more financial assistance will further appease the ruling military officer class, the main constituency of General Musharraf and a direct beneficiary of his rule.

In short, acceptance of and praise for Musharraf in Washington translates into power in Islamabad. However, this is true only for the military rulers of Pakistan. The last time a Pakistani civilian leader visited the United States, he met with quite the opposite fate.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif's visit in July 1999 was seen as a "humiliating, desperate dash" to seek President Clinton's help in ending the Kargil conflict with India. Mr. Sharif had won the election in 1997 by the most convincing margin ever in Pakistan. There was no immediate threat to his government from any political quarter in the country. Over two-thirds of the parliamentarians supported him at that time. However, despite pulling the country back from the brink of a war with India--or perhaps because of it--the Washington trip led to Sharif's downfall.

The media, clearly encouraged by the anti-Sharif elements in the military establishment, denounced the Prime Minister's desperate diplomacy as a "sellout in Washington." Newspaper columnists and religious parties shredded Mr. Sharif's policy of peace with India to pieces. A battle won militarily in Kargil, the pro-military media had argued implausibly, was lost politically by Mr. Sharif. The build-up of public opinion against the Sharif government culminated on October 12, 1999, when he was accused of hijacking General Musharraf's plane and removed peacefully by the troops. Sharif was later convicted by a court as a hijacker, the only Prime Minister in the world ever to have earned the "distinction," and now lives in exile in Saudi Arabia.

No such threats exist for Musharraf, especially after his American tour. The military and the media are firmly behind him. He is in power for the long haul. The Bush baptism in Washington will only bless him with more credibility within his institution and in other sections of Pakistani elite. Bad days are ahead for the Islamists as well as the democratic lobby in Pakistan, as Washington sees in General Musharraf a "role model" as a ruler of a Muslim country.

(Najum Mushtaq <najumm@hotmail.com> is an analyst at the International Crisis Group's project based in Islamabad.)

III. Letters and Comments

U.S. & THE GENERAL: ROUND 2

Round 1 refers to the Zia period when the USA supported the Mujahideen fighting the communist takeover of Afghanistan. Remember then the Mujahideen were the good guys because they were fighting America's arch-enemy: the Soviet Union. Today things are different. In Afghanistan, the USA has defeated the Taliban and has successfully installed their man in Kabul. The military needs support of the USA as much as the USA does itself. Thus a happy marriage of convenience again. Round 2 has begun n earnest. A congruence of interests between the military brass in Pakistan and a USA administration on political and regional security interests in the region. General Musharraf came to power through a coup on October 12, 1999, and lacks legitimacy of rule. That much is obvious and beyond debate. He also intends to remain in power for five years. Might is right, yet again. But why is he liked in Pakistan? The reason is simple. General Musharraf is a modernizer who is getting results!

The government has shaped up in many areas, like the economy, and the writ of the state has been enhanced. These are the achievements of the regime. On the minus side is a long list also. Poverty has doubled in the last decade or so. Notwithstanding official claims, public sector education is a mess. All human development indicators are awful. But still the General has given us some hope. This speaks to the tragic past that Pakistan has been through when the civilian leadership failed the country. Matters had gone from bad to worse, especially in the two each administrations of Benazir and Nawaz in the 1990s. Bad governance was a norm in their administrations. Some things have improved in Pakistan. For example, governance in the federal and provincial bureaucracies. In sum, the performance of the General is not that bad. Maybe we can tolerate him for a few years. It all depends on how much the USA supports its man in Islamabad. The point is that given the stark failure of Pakistan, we need the USA badly. You may call it subservience or client-state status. Whatever you please. For the 150 million hopeless Pakistanis, things can only get better.

- Dr Sohail Mahmood <sohailma@isb.comsats.net.pk>

GLOBAL JUSTICE, ANTIGLOBALIZATION, JUST GLOBALIZATION

Personally, I don't like the term "anti-globalization." [See FPIF Forum: Future of Global Justice Movement, at: http://www.fpif.org/discussion/0201globalization/index.html ] While it is descriptive to talk of an antiglobalization movement, I'm not sure it's helpful. In the first place, what are we for? Give me something positive, toward which I can move--not just the negative against which I must fight or flee. In the second place, isn't globalization a reality of the 21st century? If so, the question becomes how to change this reality so it is more just, more humane.

If we chuck the term "antiglobalization," do we pick up "global justice movement?" Again, I'd say no. Why? Because it doesn't reckon with the fact that globalization is upon us. Globalization is a reality of the 21st century. So I offer a third alternative: the "Just Globalization Movement."

We question whether there really can be just globalization. Such questioning, I fear, only shows how limited we the "movement" have been in infusing justice, real justice, into the global military/economic/political order. Progress will continue to be made. The movement, whatever it's called, will continue to have its successes. And I, for one, will count justice as a major measuring stick--the kind of justice where Enron officials who "stand the fifth" risk implications of guilt in the court of law, not just the court of public opinion (and legislative inquiry). I'm not sure how such justice is pursued in the globalized world. Still, I do know that freezing the assets of such corporate criminals would be a step in the right direction.

- Peter Barnes-Davies <PDavies@ctr.pcusa.org>

NEED TO FATHOM THE DEPTHS

If you have listened and followed the comments of Bosnian Croat leaders in recent months, you would not have come to such an uninformed conclusion that Bosnian Croat "policies may indicate movement toward integration with Croatia...." This, coupled with your citation of multiple and dubious Yugo sources, makes me doubt seriously that you fathom the depth of how the Serbs almost succeeded in carving out a Greater Serbia. [See "New Balkan Policy Needed," April 2001, "Keys to Stability in the Balkans," November 1999] Your proposal for amnesty to Milosevic in exchange for a financial bailout of Yugo is both morally and ethically repugnant. This points out the complete lack of accountability you attribute to the Serbian people for the multiple wars they began. Bury it under the rug and it will go away. Those weren't thousands of mannequins throwing roses at Serb tank columns on the way to Vukovar in November 1991. Until the Serbian people can come to grips with the facts, nothing will change. Throwing money at them and letting off the criminals in their government, both past and current, does nothing but justify their means. The following quote is an accurate description of how the Serbs view their current situation: "The main thing we are interested in," said Dejan Milojevic, a town official in Aleksinac, south of Belgrade, "is how to cash in on all the misery we've been through. We are willing to admit guilt in Kosovo if that will bring in money." [New York Times, Feb. 11, 2002 "The Trial of Milosevic Will Peel Layers of Balkan Guilt, Too."]

Kostunica and company say one thing to sound good to the West and do something completely different for domestic political consumption. The current political and cultural situation for Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina (BH) is as bad as it was, or even worse, than during the war. True, there is no more military activity. However, there has been practically no Croat repatriation. There were about 800,000 Croats in Bosnia before the war, most of which lived outside of Herzegovina. Now, barely 300,000 are left. With their democratically elected representatives summarily dismissed, their cultural rights repressed, and grievances ignored both by the Sarajevo government and the Office of the High Representative, what other choices are there but to try to do things on their own? Unlike the Republika Srpska, they are the first to tell you that they cannot survive on their own. They are the first to tell you that they want to be a constitutive nation, co-equal with the other two groups, just like the BH Constitutional Court ruled in the not too distant past. Talk is cheap. Unless the rights of the largest minority in BH, the Croats, are adequately addressed with the representatives who are supported by the majority of the BH Croats, not some lackeys appointed by the High Rep, there will be no resolution to the political morass that is BH.

Your recommendation that any status changes in BH (or Yugo) must be achieved through the consent of all parties within the state sounds like a prescription for disaster. This proposal is much like the way the beginnings of the war in Slovenia, Croatia, and BH was handled by the likes of Carrington, Owen, and the rest of the spineless mealy mouths who talked about peace but were satisfied with the status quo as long as it didn't spill out of ex-Yugoslavia proper. The clamoring for minority rights must include those rights of Croats in BH, the largest minority in BH. Without seriously addressing those rights, BH is doomed to either permanent protectorate status or failure.

- Tom Kuzmanovic <tkuzmanovic@hinshawlaw.com>

(Editor's Note: For the most recent FPIF analysis of Bosnia-Herzegovina, see Robert Belloni, "Bosnia-Herzegovina Conflict Profile," at http://www.selfdetermine.org/conflicts/bosnia.html .)

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