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

FRONTIER JUSTICE: A WEEKLY CHRONICLE, NO. 2
By John Gershman

SLOUCHING TOWARD JOHANNESBURG: U.S. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT POLICIES
By John Dernbach

WHERE'S THE OUTRAGE?
By Conn Hallinan

EMPTY PROMISE OF GLOBAL MISSILE DEFENSE
By Frida Berrigan and William Hartung

II. Outside the U.S.

INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES IN LATIN AMERICA: FIGHTING FOR CONTROL OF NATURAL RESOURCES IN A GLOBALIZED AGE
By Laura Carlsen

III. Letters and Comments

CLIMATE CHANGE KNOCKING AT THE DOOR

KEEP YOUR GLASSES ON

DIVERSITY IN INDIA

I. Updates and Out-takes

FRONTIER JUSTICE: A WEEKLY CHRONICLE, NO. 2
By John Gershman

(Editor's Note: Frontier Justice is a weekly column that chronicles instance of U.S. unilateralism and assault on the multilateralism framework for managing global affairs. It is part of FPIF's new Project Against the Present Danger.)

Remember the good old days during the war in Afghanistan? Almost overnight the Bush administration had become a voice for international feminism; and one goal of the war in Afghanistan, according to the President and his First Lady, was the liberation of Afghan women from the repressive policies of the Taliban. That was then, this is now.

When it comes to U.S. support for international law that strengthens women's rights now, the administration caves in to its right flank. The Senate is currently considering the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), which the U.S. signed during the Carter administration but has not yet ratified. (It has been ratified by 170 countries, leaving the U.S. in the company of Afghanistan, which has also signed but not ratified the treaty.) Other countries that have failed to even sign it include Iran, Sudan, Somalia, Syria, and Brunei. On July 30, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee (SFRC) voted 12-7 to submit the CEDAW for ratification to the whole Senate, with a vote expected sometime this fall. (The last time the treaty was recommended for ratification by the Committee was 1994, but opposition from Senate conservatives blocked a final vote.) Opposition in the Committee this time around was again led by ranking Republican and long-time treaty opponent Jesse Helms, who--despite his recent transformation into an advocate for funding for AIDS in Africa--has not gone entirely soft as he nears retirement.

The Bush administration originally supported CEDAW, and as recently as February called it "generally desirable." But now the State Department calls the treaty "vague" and "complex," and wants the Justice Department to review its potential impact on U.S. law. That raises major concerns among CEDAW's backers because it would place such a review in the hands of Attorney General John Ashcroft, a strong Christian conservative. The administration's more explicit opposition (it's unclear how genuine the support for it was in the first place) appears to be another bone to the Republican Party's conservative wing in an effort to mobilize turn-out for the upcoming midterm elections, paralleling its defunding of the UN Population Fund two weeks ago.

In other news, on July 31 the Senate Foreign Relations Committee began two days of hearings on the Bush administration's worst-kept secret: its plans to invade Iraq and replace Saddam Hussein. Although the administration didn't participate in the hearings, they mark the beginning of much-needed public dialogue on what may be the next major military effort of the Bush administration after the war in Afghanistan. The hearings were marked by bipartisan criticism of Bush administration plans to attack Iraq, based on the failure of making the case for such an attack either domestically or internationally. It appears that the administration has not yet been able to leverage the strong bipartisan congressional and popular support for military action against Afghanistan after the September 11th attacks into support for military action--especially unilateral military action--against Iraq. Although public opinion polls consistently show a majority of Americans support an invasion of Iraq, that support has fallen since the campaign against the Taliban ended, with one USA TODAY/CNN/ Gallup Poll showing support for war on Iraq has slipped from 74% last November to 59% in June. For what it's worth, the administration on Tuesday took a positive step by promising no "October surprise" invasion. This creates an opportunity for progressives to open the debate.

Links:

CEDAW Coalition
http://www.womenstreaty.org/

Citizen-Based Global Affairs Agenda
No Unilateral Military Strike Against Iraq

SLOUCHING TOWARD JOHANNESBURG: U.S. SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT POLICIES
By John Dernbach

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new FPIF Global Affairs Commentary, posted in its entirety at: http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0207sustainable.html .)

It has now been ten years since the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, or Earth Summit, in Rio de Janeiro. At that conference, the United States and other countries agreed to implement an ambitious plan for sustainable development--both at home and internationally. The World Summit on Sustainable Development (Aug. 26-Sept. 4, 2002) in Johannesburg will provide an international assessment of what has happened over the past ten years, and lead to decisions about where to go next.

The U.S. has unquestionably begun to take some steps toward sustainable development, largely because of our environmental and conservation laws. Yet, on balance, the United States is now far from being a sustainable society, and in many respects is further away than it was at the time of the Earth Summit in 1992. Unlike many other developed countries, the United States has not used a strategic process to move the country toward a sustainable future and has not educated the American people about the opportunities and challenges of sustainable development.

With 5% of the world's population, the United States was at the time of the Earth Summit responsible for about 24% of the world's energy consumption and almost 30% of the world's raw materials consumption. Since the Earth Summit, materials use has increased 10%, primary energy consumption has increased 21%, and energy-related carbon dioxide emissions have increased by 13%. Over and over, increases in materials and energy efficiency, and in the effectiveness of pollution controls for individual sources, were outweighed by increases in consumption.

Despite a significant increase in municipal waste recycling in the past decade, for example, American generation and disposal of municipal solid waste per capita have been growing since 1996. According to Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson, "four more planet Earths" would be needed for "every person in the world to reach present U.S. levels of consumption with existing technology." Yet the U.S. standard of living--equated with high levels of consumption and "the good life"--is widely envied and emulated throughout the world.

We now face growing environmental degradation around the world and an increasing gap between rich and poor. These are related problems, and they hinder or undermine everything else we care about--security, economic development, social well-being, and even effective governance. Put differently, poverty and environmental degradation are deeply destabilizing because they stifle or reduce opportunities and quality of life for many, many people.

In the next 50 years, global population is projected to increase by three billion people, and the global economy is likely to grow by four or five times. As difficult as things now are, environmental degradation and the gap between rich and poor are likely to get much worse if we continue with business as usual. Should that be our legacy for our children and grandchildren?

We know what we need to do to move toward sustainability, and we also know why. As Americans, we are called to face these challenges, and to seize this opportunity.

(John Dernbach, law professor at Widener University, is the editor of Stumbling Toward Sustainability, a new book published the Environmental Law Institute (www.eli.org). This commentary for Foreign Policy in Focus (www.fpif.org) was adapted from testimony he delivered to a joint hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee and Senate Foreign Relations Committee on July 24, 2002. He can be reached at: <John.C.Dernbach@law.widener.edu>.)

Also see:

Bulletin from Bali: What Are We Going to Do About the United States?
By Eric Mann

In late August 2002, the United Nations will hold the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD). In the Preparatory Committee meetings that have preceded WSSD, a common theme has emerged--the United States government is determined to undermine any international treaties, agreements, and conferences that it believes restrict its sovereignty in any way as the world's rogue superpower.

WHERE'S THE OUTRAGE?
By Conn Hallinan

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new FPIF Global Affairs Commentary, posted in its entirety at: http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0207race.html .)

Let's suppose you knew someone trying to get a leg up in life by getting his young family out of the mean streets of someplace like Detroit, East Los Angeles, or Philadelphia. Not only was the school his three daughters attended substandard, it was contaminated with asbestos and the city itself was strewn with garbage. But when he tried to move into a tree-lined suburb with manicured lawns, he couldn't because he was (take your pick) black, brown, Asian, Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, disabled, whatever.

Would you say something? Would you tell the people in the suburb that discrimination on the basis of race or religion went out with "Bull" Conners and George Wallace? Or would you remain quiet, endorsing bigotry by your silence? The U.S. Congress and the White House have chosen the latter course.

When Adel Kaadan, an emergency room worker and an Israeli-Arab, tried to move into the township of Katzir in 1995, the Jewish Agency, which allocates state lands in Israel, refused him. He sued, and the High Court of Justice ruled 4-1 in March 2000 that the Israeli Declaration of Independence made discrimination on the basis of race, religion, or gender illegal. A victory for equality? Not for a disturbing number of Sharon government officials.

On July 7 Sharon's cabinet voted 17-2 to endorse a bill sponsored by Rabbi Haim Druckman of the right-wing National Religious Party to allow the Jewish Agency, in the words of a scathing editorial in Ha'aretz, "to prevent non-Jewish citizens of the state from living in certain places, in violation of fundamental civil rights."

The cabinet tabled the proposal July 15, when the Labor Party threatened to torpedo it, but not the principle behind it. "We don't in any way discard the idea that Jewish settlement in Israel is a critical component in the realization of the Zionist vision," Sharon spokesperson Raanan Gissin said. Added Communication Minister Reuven Rivlin, "This is the state for the Jewish People, not the state for all its citizens."

Why has the U.S. Congress been silent on this matter when many Israelis have not? Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres called the Druckman proposal "racist," and Yossi Sarid of the Meretz Party said it would turn "Israel into a racist state, perhaps the most racist in the family of democratic nations." Where is the U.S. State Department on this issue?

(Conn Hallinan <connm@cats.ucsc.edu> is the provost at the University of California at Santa Cruz and a political analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org).)

EMPTY PROMISE OF GLOBAL MISSILE DEFENSE
By Frida Berrigan and William Hartung

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new FPIF Global Affairs Commentary, posted in its entirety at: http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0207mdefense.html .)

The Bush administration has been widely criticized worldwide for its go-it-alone foreign policy. But in one area the administration is enthusiastically embracing multilateralism, along with the Pentagon and U.S. defense corporations. All are working hard to get other countries to buy into their internationally unpopular missile defense program by giving their corporations a piece of the Star Wars action.

The U.S. aerospace conglomerate Boeing has struck an unprecedented deal with British BAE Systems to cooperate on research and development for the Bush administration's multi-billion dollar ballistic missile defense program. Industry insiders suggest that the deal, which would promote collaboration between the two firms on command and control technologies, was formally announced on July 24 at the Farnborough International Air Show outside of London.

While analysts tout the potential technical gains of collaboration between firms, the expected political payoff outweighs all other factors. Among missile defense boosters, the hope is that cooperation between U.S. and British defense corporations will become a model for the Bush administration's efforts to neutralize the strong global opposition to missile defense. As Baker Spring, research fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation, notes "if you can get foreign firms involved, they will bring their countries along."

Missile defense advocates are hoping to apply the logic of pork barrel politics on a global scale. In the "good old days" military contractors would try to spread the work on costly systems like the B-1 bomber across as many congressional districts as possible as a way to make their pet projects invulnerable to budget cuts on Capitol Hill. This globalization of pork barrel politics involves currying international favor for U.S. defense policy by doling out contracts in as many politically influential countries as possible, and has already been pioneered in the case of the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter project, a joint U.S.-UK project that is seeking corporate and governmental partners in Germany, Italy, Turkey, Israel, and Japan.

Europe has been especially critical of Washington's Star Wars plans. But if partnerships with giant U.S. defense firms promising money and jobs help to change their minds, the Boeing-BAE agreement is likely to be the first of many such deals. Defense News reports that other U.S. corporations with missile defense contracts are already exploring cooperative agreements with counterparts like the Netherlands-based European Aeronautics Defense and Space Co., Europe's largest aerospace company. In Japan, Mitsubishi, which has a long history of collaborating with American arms industries, is a major player in U.S.-financed theater missile defense efforts. And U.S. promises of possible future cooperation with Moscow on missile defense are made in part to help Russian President Vladimir Putin win support for the Bush-Putin nuclear arms accord--which places no formal limits on U.S. missile defense development--by dangling the prospect of new business in front of ailing Russian military enterprises.

This strategy fits into Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's plans to globalize missile defense. Last year Rumsfeld dropped "National" from National Missile Defense, with officials now referring to the program as a "global missile defense system." A delegation from the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency will embark on an international tour to NATO and Asian allies later this month to discuss missile defense cooperation. The Pentagon hopes they will agree to basing rights for radar and interceptors, as well as provide technical assistance. The Pentagon has already outlined plans to base radar in Turkey to serve as an early warning system for missiles launched from the Middle East, to station interceptors in Central Europe, and to deploy radar on British ships.

(William Hartung <hartung@newschool.edu> is the president's fellow and Frida Berrigan <berrigaf@newschool.edu> is a research associate at the Arms Trade Resource Center at the World Policy Institute, and both are military analysts with Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org).)

II. Outside the U.S.

(Editor's Note: FPIF's "Outside the U.S." component 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. If you're interested in submitting commentaries for our use, please send your solicitation to John Gershman at <john@irc-online.org>.)

INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES IN LATIN AMERICA: FIGHTING FOR CONTROL OF NATURAL RESOURCES IN A GLOBALIZED AGE
By Laura Carlsen

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new commentary posted on the IRC's Americas Program site, available in its entirety at http://www.americaspolicy.org/citizen-action/focus/0207indigenous.html .)

Since the resistance to colonization, native peoples in the Americas have fought to protect their dwindling territories and their right to manage the natural resources found there. But in this globalized age, that battle has intensified and taken on distinctive characteristics, posing new and profound challenges for the region's indigenous communities.

Many of the natural resources found on Indian lands have become more valuable in the context of the modern global economy. Several factors have spurred renewed interest in natural resources on Indian lands in Latin America, among them the mobility of capital, ecological limits to growth in developed countries, lax environmental restrictions in underdeveloped nations, lower transportation costs, advances in biotechnology, cheap third world labor, and national privatization policies. Limits to logging in developed countries have led timber transnationals overseas. Increased demand and higher prices for minerals have generated the reopening of mines and the proliferation of small-scale mining operations. Rivers are coveted for their hydroelectric potential, and bioprospecting has put a price tag on biodiversity. Originally considered lands unsuitable for productive activities, the resources on Indian lands are currently the resources of the future.

Indian land rights and decisionmaking authority regarding natural resource use on territories to which they hold claim threaten the mobility of capital and access to resources--key elements of the transnational-led globalization model. Accordingly, increased globalization has generally sharpened national conservative opposition to indigenous rights in the Americas and elsewhere in the name of "making the world safe for investment." The World Trade Organization (WTO), free trade agreements, and transnational corporations are openly hostile to any legislation that might create barriers to investment or the unlimited exploitation of natural resources on Indian lands. The result has been a growing number of conflicts between indigenous communities and governments and transnational corporations over control of natural resources.

Even nonrenewable resources legally defined as national property--and therefore exempt from indigenous laws recognizing the right to resource control--have sparked conflicts between transnationals and Indian peoples. For example, pollution from oil exploitation routinely destroys local ecosystems in Indian territories and deprives communities of traditional economic activities, as spills kill off fish populations and contaminate farmlands.

Land battles also focus on changing land use patterns in indigenous regions. Advanced technological changes, such as genetically modified plants, and intense global competition between giant food and agriculture conglomerates have transformed agricultural practices. These factors work to expel subsistence farmers and replace the sustainable farming methods that are the backbone of indigenous communities with monopolized chemical and biotechnological packages. A growing alliance between Indian and campesino organizations has begun to identify the threats and make common cause in defense of the campesino economy.

Forging Crossborder Links

International organizing against IMF austerity programs, free-market policies, Plan Puebla Panama, and the FTAA has galvanized alliances between indigenous movements and other social sectors, although still on a small scale. Central American and Mexican Indian peoples have participated in numerous forums to protest the PPP, and Amazon peoples have been meeting to oppose infrastructure projects that destroy wetlands, forests, and river basins in that region. As those most affected by global efforts to exploit biodiversity and impose megaprojects, indigenous peoples have recognized the radical nature of their demands regarding globalization and have played an increasingly important role in the global justice movement.

The links being formed between indigenous organizations and the global justice movement have been critical in three areas: creating national coalitions on issues of common concern, whether specifically indigenous or not; publicizing and supporting indigenous groups in defense of their lands and rights; and funding autonomous development projects.

Although national indigenous movements have found new allies among the antiglobalization movement and now have Internet tools to fight their isolation, opposition to their work has consolidated under the mantras of free trade and foreign investment. Rapid economic integration is producing stark conflicts of interest, pitting indigenous peoples seeking to protect their rights and natural resources against transnational corporations backed by national governments. Legal reforms they have recently won have been met with growing resistance on the ground and in the courts and legislatures. Still, while Indian peoples have found new enemies as well as new friends, they found new strength in a world where their discourse on sustainability is gaining renewed vigor and offers an alternate vision to market-blindered development.

(Laura Carlsen <tortuga@laneta.apc.org> is a researcher affiliated with the Center for Rural Change in Mexico located in Mexico City and has written extensively on the Mexican Indian movement. This commentary was adapted from a longer report on Indigenous Autonomy in Latin America produced by the IRC's Self-Determination in Focus Project. The full 12-page report may be viewed on the SelfDetermine.org website at http://www.selfdetermine.org/regions/indigrights.html .)

III. Letters and Comments

CLIMATE CHANGE KNOCKING AT THE DOOR

Re: U.S. Scuttles Latest Chance to Avert Global Warming, [http://www.fpif.org/commentary/0102warming.html]

Having studied global warming and its effects independently over the past year, I am very alarmed by the recent signs all over the world that indicate we have less and less time before nothing can be done to reverse this trend. However, the U.S. news and other American media are not focusing on this issue at all and when they do, they do not indicate the long-term effects or the accruing evidence that global warming is seriously on our door step. Very few Americans are aware of the seriousness of this situation, and global warming environmentalism needs to be popularized. The fact that it has not been, that in fact many environmental groups have failed to do this, is tragic. More money and efforts need to be spent on getting the word out.

- Louise Fry <balluffifry@hotmail.com>

KEEP YOUR GLASSES ON

This comment is in response to an article titled "Is India Going the Way of 1930s Germany?" [http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0203indhind.html] by Arun R. Swamy. The article is a perfect example of how crystal balls display information and how the viewer interprets them. I wish our NSA, CIA, and DoD had such a crystal ball that can provide such detail account of events as a tele-viewer from a far place like Honolulu, Hawaii. Another article titled "A Cure for the CIA's Disease" by Melvin A. Goodman [http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0206cia.html] says:" In 1986, CIA Director William Casey and his deputy, Robert Gates, created a flawed Counter-Terrorism Center. ...The Center never understood the connection between Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, the coordinator of the 1993 World Trade Center attack, and the al Qaeda organization until it was too late. Last year's WTC attack exposed the inability of analysts and agents to perform strategic analysis, challenge flawed assumptions..."

If one reads both articles, one can come to the conclusion that had we kept the services of Mr. Swamy, we could have saved the billions and billions of dollars spent by the NSA/CIA family and could easily solve the most difficult and complex issues of our time. Never mind that India has never invaded another country in the recorded history. All is not lost in the article though. When Mr. Swamy did put on his eyeglasses and was able to see a little better, he writes: "There are many factors that could prevent this from happening."

He continues: "Moreover, the government has a stake in preserving India's credentials as a secular state, in order to maintain U.S. pressure on neighboring Pakistan to crack down on militant Islamic groups and in order to develop economic ties with Islamic countries like Iran. Continued provocations by Hindu extremist organizations could yet force a rift between the BJP and its allies or even within the BJP, which is divided over the temple issue."

Don't worry Mr. Swamy, if history is any guide (as in World War I &II), India is a million years away from world domination. Keep your eyeglasses handy, in case you have another bout of paranoia.

- K.M. Guru <kmguru@hotmail.com>

DIVERSITY IN INDIA

In response to "Is India Going the Way of 1930s Germany?". The author knows very little about India and far less about Hinduism. He has no knowledge of massive diversity of Indians. It is a subcontinent of minorities and the extremist elements--be they Hindus or Muslims--form a minority too. Describing events in Gujarat as a "pogrom" exposes ignorance of the mechanics of communal violence in India. Lastly has anyone from the minority community come forward to refute the sentiments aroused by the Hindu extremists? There is fear built up that a Muslim can be convinced to kill a kafir in the name of religion. This is all the more so after September 11.

- Vinod Dawda <vinod@vdawda.freeserve.co.uk>

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 Thursday, August 1, 2002 5:30 PM
Contact the IRC's webmaster with inquiries regarding the functionality of this website.
Copyright © 2001 IRC and IPS. All rights reserved.