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>.

We Count on Your Support!

Editor: Tom Barry (IRC)

Table of Contents

I. Updates and Out-Takes

U.S. FOREIGN POLICY: ATTENTION, RIGHT FACE, FORWARD MARCH
By Tom Barry and Jim Lobe

WAR ON TERROR EXPANDS AT EXPENSE OF HUMAN RIGHTS, FUTURE STABILITY
By Frida Berrigan, World Policy Institute

FPIF ANALYSIS ON ISRAEL-PALESTINE

II. Letters and Comments

FOUNDATIONS FOR A NEW U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

LEARN AND LIVE

I. Updates and Out-takes

U.S. FOREIGN POLICY: ATTENTION, RIGHT FACE, FORWARD MARCH
By Tom Barry and Jim Lobe

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new FPIF Policy Report, posted at: http://www.fpif.org/papers/02right/index.html .)

So quickly has the war on terrorism widened from the hunt for Osama bin Laden to other targets and other countries that it has become a daily challenge just to keep track of where U.S. troops are and where they're headed next.

President Bush himself has been decidedly forthright about the scope and expected duration of the war--global and unending. No longer just a campaign against international terrorism, it is also a moral crusade in which good is facing off with evil. A chief target is the "axis of evil" that Bush identified in his State of the Union Address in late January. We are suddenly in a Hobbesian world where the U.S. appears bent on playing the part of the Leviathan against the forces of chaos and disorder.

One has to go back at least to the Reagan era to find a vision of U.S. foreign policy that is so confident, focused, and aggressive as that of the new Bush administration. The moral certitude and crusading spirit of the Reagan era is back in style--ushered in by the ideologues, government operatives, and scholars of America's new right, who aim to protect and promote U.S. supremacy. Today, as then, the foreign policy direction of the administration is being set at least as much by ideology as by the actual conjuncture of international affairs.

The groundwork for Reagan's foreign policy was laid in the late 1970s by the Heritage Foundation and a phalanx of other right-wing organizations. Institutes and front groups such as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Committee on the Present Danger, Free Congress Foundation, Council for Inter-American Security, and Council for National Policy established the ideological thrust, policy agenda, and frequently even the language for President Ronald Reagan's foreign policy of freedom fighters, a crusade against the evil empire, rollback campaigns, and the promotion of free market democracy.

Over the past couple of decades, global affairs have been marked by four major changes: the collapse of the Soviet Union, the rapid pace of economic globalization, widespread acknowledgement of the rapid deterioration of the planet's ecology, and the 9/11 attacks and counterattacks. The left and the center have been struggling to formulate new agendas to address these and other changes. The right, while also disoriented by the end of the cold war and the new challenges of globalization, has regrouped around a strong conviction that the U.S. should do whatever is necessary to protect and enhance its supremacy on all fronts. The "present danger" confronting America is seen differently by various strands of the right wing--with some focusing primarily on military threats, others on cultural/civilizational conflicts, others on economic threats, and some on the constraints inherent in multilateralism and the liberal diplomacy of the State Department. Under the Bush administration--and particularly since September 11--the conviction that the U.S. must assert its global hegemony has become increasingly pronounced.

In 1997 an influential grouping of neoconservatives, social conservatives, and military/industrial complex proponents came together to form the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), (online at www.newamericancentury.org). In its statement of principles, the group lamented that conservatives had not "confidently advanced a strategic vision for America's role in the world" but had instead "allowed differences over tactics to obscure potential agreement on strategic objectives" and had failed to "set forth guiding principles for American foreign policy." This small group (see accompanying box) declared: "We aim to change this. We aim to make the case and rally support for American global leadership."

It is worth recalling that the PNAC visionaries believed that the first step forward was to remember "the essential elements of the Reagan administration's success," namely "a strong military" ready to meet "present and future challenges," "a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad," and "national leadership that accepts the U.S.' global responsibilities." Essentially, the PNAC aimed for a reprise of the Reagan agenda but this time, in the absence of a Soviet counterweight, on a truly global scale.

Concluding their 1997 statement of principles, Elliott Abrams, Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and the other right-wing luminaries noted: "A Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the U.S. is to build on the successes of this past century and ensure our security and greatness in the next." Though not fashionable in 1997, the aggressive Reaganite policy of right-wing internationalism--encompassing large military budget increases, Star Wars defense, Manichean formulation of U.S. foreign policy imperatives, and a rash of direct and covert military interventions--has been brought back into style by the Bush administration.

Before the September 11 terrorism, the Bush administration was having difficulty moving its Reaganite agenda forward. It wasn't for lack of trying or because the right team wasn't in place. The new administration drew heavily from the staff and boards of the PNAC, Center for Security Policy, and American Enterprise Institute. Also signaling the administration's intention to reprise the Reagan era was Bush's decision to draft a half-dozen of the stars of the "Iran-contra" scandals/crimes onto his foreign policy team.

The revival of an ambitious missile defense program and the dumping of the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty, along with many other pending treaties and conventions, clearly marked a rightward shift in U.S. foreign policy toward militarism and unilateralism. But the Bush administration was having trouble selling its agenda. Rumsfeld was getting resistance from Congress and within the military, and missile defense was a dud with the public and the media. The underlying problem was one that had stalled conservatives since the end of the cold war: Americans couldn't get all fired up over a rightist foreign policy agenda without an enemy. That all changed on September 11.

It's likely that neither the targeting of Al Qaeda and the Taliban regime in Afghanistan nor Washington's increased attention to homeland defense would have been much different under any other administration. More time will be needed to measure the tactical, strategic, and moral success of this military response. But as President Bush has repeatedly stated, the post-9/11 U.S. response is now extending far beyond targeting the perpetrators of the atrocities in Washington and New York City. A new Reaganite agenda that was stalling in the first months of the George W. Bush administration has now kicked in with alarming intensity.

President Bush, with no foreign policy background himself, has increasingly taken his foreign policy script from the pages of right-wing institutes and front groups. The same has been true for his domestic policies, including faith-based social services, privatized Social Security, and regressive tax cuts--concepts advocated with ideological fervor by the AEI and Empower, Inc., for example. The writings of the right-wing analysts associated with these institutions, together with the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal and the Weekly Standard, have thus proved to be a better forecast of the Bush administration's foreign policy than the predictions of centrist or progressive pundits and scholars.

Meanwhile, the backlash against the Clinton administration has fostered a coalescence--not seen since Reagan's first term--of the various strands of conservatism. Within the Bush administration, there is an admixture of neoconservatives (largely disaffected or right-wing Democrats), social conservatives (like former Education Secretary William Bennett), and right-wing Republican internationalists (Reagan and company).

Today, the administration is confidently advancing a strategic vision for America's role, and that vision is one of U.S. global hegemony. It's a vision of cultural wars fought against internal and external threats to Judeo-Christian values (as interpreted by the right). Antiterrorism has substituted for anticommunism and has given the right's foreign policy elites the opportunity they need to launch their supremacy agenda. The call to "victory over terrorism" is being broadly construed to encompass most of the objectives of the supremacist right--from missile defense to counterinsurgency in Colombia, from support for Likud militarists in Israel to securing a hold on Central Asian oil supplies, from targeting Saddam Hussein to zeroing in on the "blame America first" dissidents at home.

(Tom Barry <tom@irc-online.org> is a senior analyst at the Interhemispheric Resource Center and codirector of Foreign Policy In Focus. Jim Lobe <jlobe@starpower.net> writes regularly for FPIF, Inter Press Service, and OneWorld.net.)

WAR ON TERROR EXPANDS AT EXPENSE OF HUMAN RIGHTS, FUTURE STABILITY
By Frida Berrigan, World Policy Institute

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from new FPIF Global Affairs Commentary, posted at: http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0204hr.html .)

In a speech marking the 6-month anniversary of September 11th, President George Bush envisioned a "peaceful world beyond terror" where "disputes can be settled within the bounds of reason and good will and mutual security."

He praised the efforts of "a mighty coalition of civilized nations" who are "defending our common security." But, in the interest of building the coalition to defeat terrorism and defend common security, is the Bush administration going too far?

As it builds a "civilized" coalition, the U.S. is deepening military ties with countries whose histories of human rights abuses, instability, and/or violation of international treaties are well documented. Country Reports on Human Rights Practices, an annual report recently released by the State Department, foreshadows some of the problems with these relationships. Looking at the State Department's entries for the new allies in the war on terrorism, the refrain is "the government's human rights record remained poor." Can the goals of a terrorism-free world be achieved with such partners?

To answer that question it is useful to look at the weapons sales and military training being offered the Bush administration's new partners in the war on terrorism alongside the State Department's recent report on their human rights records.

GEORGIA:

The United States is offering $64 million to train and equip four 300-strong battalions of Georgian forces, to help them combat terrorist hiding in the Pankisi Gorge, near the Russian border. The program would equip the units with light weapons, vehicles and communications. For fiscal year 2003, the president is requesting IMET funding of $1.2 million and FMF of $7 million.

State Department Human Rights Report:
"The Government's human rights record remained poor and worsened in several areas* Several deaths in custody were blamed on physical abuse, torture, or inhuman and life-threatening prison conditions. Reports of police brutality continued. Security forces continued to torture, beat, and otherwise abuse detainees."

INDONESIA:

In testimony before Congress on February 27th Admiral Dennis Blair requested that 5,000 "counter terrorism experts" be deployed to Indonesia to patrol the archipelago's shores and harbors and take part in "crisis action teams." Blair asked Congress to lift the weapons embargo against Indonesia, saying, "current restrictions on our interaction with the [Indonesian military] limit our effectiveness," adding that Indonesia is "vulnerable to terrorism penetration."

State Department Human Rights Report:
"The Government's human rights record remained poor, and it continued to commit serious abuses. Security forces were responsible for numerous instances of, at times indiscriminate, shooting of civilians, torture, rape, beatings and other abuse, and arbitrary detention in Aceh, West Timor, Papua (formerly known as Irian Jaya), and elsewhere in the country."

COLOMBIA:

There are no Al Qaeda terrorists in Colombia, and yet the rhetoric of fighting the war on terrorism has certainly impacted U.S. military policy to that country. One senior official said recently that, "people are interested in considering a move from counternarcotics to counter-terrorism, rather than counter-insurgency." The official conceded that the distinction was largely "just a change in words." But, the Bush administration is hoping to provide Colombia with about $374 million in military aid through the Foreign Operations Appropriations. An additional $98 million, from the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program would be used to supply Colombian soldiers with 10 "Super Huey" helicopters to protect a strategically important oil pipeline that has been targeted by the rebels. Military training programs worth $1.1 million have been requested for 2003. Total military aid offered to Colombia for FY 2003 is estimated to be more than $490 million.

State Department Human Rights Report:
"The Government's human rights record remained poor; there were continued efforts to improve the legal framework and institutional mechanisms, but implementation lagged, and serious problems remained in many areas; government security forces continued to commit serious abuses, including extrajudicial killings. Impunity remained a problem."

UZBEKISTAN:

The United States has begun military cooperation with the dictatorship of Uzbekistan. U.S. Green Beret troops are training the Uzbeki military in marksmanship, infantry patrolling, map reading and other skills. The United States provided "nonlethal" equipment like helmets, flak jackets, Humvee transport vehicles, and night-vision goggles to the Uzbeki military and border guards. For FY 2003, the Pentagon has requested $1.2 million in IMET funding and $8.7 million in foreign military funding.

State Department Human Rights Report:
"The Government's human rights record remained very poor, and it continued to commit numerous serious abuses. Citizens cannot exercise the right to change their government peacefully; the Government does not permit the existence of opposition parties. Security force mistreatment resulted in the deaths of several citizens in custody."

Can the United States develop closer relationships with dictatorships and human rights abusers in the interests of "a peaceful world beyond the war on terror?" Time will tell and soon that this policy is much more likely to "blowback" in dangerous consequences.

(Frida Berrigan <berrigaf@newschool.edu> is a Research Associate with the Arms Trade Resource Center at the World Policy Institute.)

FPIF ANALYSIS ON ISRAEL-PALESTINE

Ariel Sharon, Take a Bow
By Ian Williams
Prime Minister Sharon has achieved in a few short weeks what the United Nations has failed to do for twelve years. At the Arab summit in Beirut, Kuwait and Iraq have all but kissed and made up: Iraq agrees that Kuwait exists and recognizes its borders and Kuwait spoke against a U.S. invasion of Iraq. And Crown Prince Abdullah of Saudi Arabia literally kissed the Iraqi representative.
See new FPIF Commentary online at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0204sharon.html

FPIF Experts Speak Out
Phyllis Bennis, FPIF author and IPS analyst, says: "The horror of suicide bombings cannot be answered by war against an entire people. The U.S. should call for the deployment of international, not solely U.S., observers to be sent immediately to the occupied territories. The Arab summit declaration provides a blueprint for ending the Israeli occupation and achieving a comprehensive regional peace. The U.S. should endorse it as the basis for a new diplomatic process that would be convened under the United Nations auspices within the framework of international law and UN resolutions."
See FPIF Middle East Index for more expert opinion, online at http://www.fpif.org/indices/regions/mideast.html

U.S. Security Assistance to Israel
By Joseph Yackley
Billions of dollars in U.S. military assistance to Israel are spent each year addressing the wrong type of security. What's worse, U.S. military assistance has undermined personal security in Israel by diluting the incentives for seeking peace and by emboldening Israel to avoid making the concessions necessary for peace. Until the underlying causes of the conflict and the current uprising are addressed, Israelis will continue searching for the sense of personal security that eludes them today.
See policy brief online at http://www.fpif.org/briefs/vol6/v6n23israelsec.html

Israel's True Intentions in Removing Arafat
By R.S. Zaharna
It may be time--yet, then it may be too late--for Israel to confess to its true intentions in the Palestinian territories. The sustained and myopic focus on the Palestinian leader, Yasser Arafat, has little to do with stopping "terrorism." What removing Arafat will do is induce a Palestinian civil war and, by extension, give Israel a pretext for re-occupying the Palestinian territories.
See Global Affairs Commentary online at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/0112arafat.html

Bush Administration & Israeli-Palestinian Stalemate
By Stephen Zunes
Current Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon rejects the previous Israeli government's premise that it is important to make territorial sacrifices to end the conflict with the Palestinians. Sharon has made clear that any Palestinian state would have to be limited to just 42% of the West Bank and 80% of the Gaza Strip. Meanwhile, the Bush administration has dismissed Clinton's proposals, which would have returned around 94% of the occupied territories to the Palestinians.
See Special Report online at http://www.fpif.org/papers/stalemate.html

II. Letters and Comments

FOUNDATIONS FOR A NEW U.S. FOREIGN POLICY

For twenty years I've considered myself to be firmly in the liberal camp; a free trader, and supporter of organizations such as the UN. However, after reading your "manifesto" I must conclude that you've left me behind, for as much as the article suggests that U.S. foreign policy is simplistic and self-centered, I find your fundamental principles more so. And as much as I would like to build U.S. foreign policy on such a foundation, I'm left to conclude that such a foundation is chimeric at best and a fantasy at worst.

Let's, rather, look for solutions that both satisfy fundamental U.S. interests and strive to meet the worldwide obligations we now find ourselves burdened with.

Unfortunately, the siren call of the anti-globalization movement sounds like fingernails on a blackboard to me.

- Neil C. Herring <nherring@tiac.net>

LEARN AND LIVE

Since that horrible day of 9-11 our planet has changed. The violent acts that we all observed that day were the worst that many of us had ever seen in our lifetimes. The world was changed by that cowardly act of extreme violence. The world now needs to change but not in the way that it's happening. Our administration now wants to develop low-yield nuclear missiles and has made it clear they will use them against any threat out there naming the countries China, Russia, Libya, and Iraq. This will just instill more escalation to another nuclear race, and create more division and hatred between us and the rest of the world.

We all find it unbelievable when we hear how hated Americans are in many areas of the world and can't understand why. I believe most of their hatred is based on ignorance, meaning their lack of factual knowledge. Most of these people are brought up and taught to hate, continuing a cycle of hatred that just keeps growing with each new generation. As we continue to have more hatred in the world and more nuclear bombs, this creates a lethal mix.

The deterrent of having bigger and better bombs doesn't work, it just causes escalation with no end. The people responsible for 9-11, knew our country would retaliate from their actions, yet this didn't deter them from their act. The threat of a nuclear holocaust or the end of human life on this planet may not be a deterring factor to some crazed leaders. It may even be justified by their religion or ideologies, in there interpretation. Hitler would have been an example of a leader who may not have hesitated of starting a nuclear war, especially when it was clear that they were losing. Also I would suggest people watch the Stanley Kubrick movie Dr. Srangelove, this is an old movie but some of the paranoia and hatred in that movie seems to be even more relevant in today's world.

I don't have the answers to the world's problems. But I do know most of the problems are based on lack of education and ignorance of others. The world, not just our children, needs to be educated to all people's religions, ideologies, and beliefs, and taught how to have a degree of tolerance and understanding to others' beliefs. Instead of spending all our money on weapons to kill one another, we could instead use that money to help educate people everywhere. We need to find a way to "LIVE" and learn from our previous mistakes. Hopefully the events of 9-11 are the most horrific violence that we will ever see on earth and help persuade countries and people to work toward world peace rather than world destruction. The most common phase I've heard since 9-11, is "God Bless America," it should be "God Bless The World."

- Greg Skog <skograce@mtn.org>

Please consider supporting Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF). FPIF is a new kind of think tank—one serving citizen movements and advancing a fresh, internationalist understanding of global affairs. Although we make our FPIF products freely available on the Internet, we need financial support to cover our staff time and expenses. Increasingly, FPIF depends on you and other individual donors to sustain our bare-bones budget. Click on https://secure.iexposure.com/fpif.org/donate.cfm to support FPIF online, or for information about making contributions over the phone or through the mail.

We Count on Your Support. Thank you.

Subscribe to The Progressive Response!

To subscribe to The Progressive Response, send a blank email to:

To unsubscribe from The Progressive Response, send a blank email to:
lists-unsubscribe@irc-online.org

Simply click the appropriate hyperlink above, or send a blank email to the appropriate email address above.

The Progressive Response aims to provide timely analysis and opinion about U.S. foreign policy issues. The content does not necessarily reflect the institutional positions of either the Interhemispheric Resource Center or the Institute for Policy Studies.

We're working to make the Progressive Response informative and useful, so let us know how we're doing, via email to irc@irc-online.org. Please put "Progressive Response" in the subject line. Please feel free to cross-post the Progressive Response elsewhere. We apologize for any duplicate copies you may receive.

IRC
Tom Barry
Editor, Progressive Response
Codirector, Foreign Policy In Focus
Email: tom@irc-online.org

IPS
Martha Honey
Codirector, Foreign Policy In Focus
Email: ipsps@igc.org

This page was last modified on Friday, April 12, 2002 5:43 PM
Contact the IRC's webmaster with inquiries regarding the functionality of this website.
Copyright © 2001 IRC and IPS. All rights reserved.