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

FRONTIER JUSTICE: No. 7 | THE PRESENT DANGER
By Tom Barry

THE ECONOMIC COSTS OF GOING TO WAR WITH IRAQ
By Miriam Pemberton

DEALING IN DOUBLE STANDARDS: PRESIDENT BUSH AT THE UNITED NATIONS
By Stephen Zunes

CHICKEN HAWKS AS CHEER LEADERS
By Jim Lobe

II. Outside the U.S.

WSSD BOTH ATTACKS AND ABETS "GLOBAL APARTHEID"
By Patrick Bond

FUNDAMENTALISM IS THE ENEMY OF ALL CIVILIZED HUMANITY
By the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)

III. LETTERS AND COMMENTS

EXTREMELY SURPRISED

KUDOS

CONFLICTING REASONS?

PUZZLED ABOUT LEFT'S STANCE ON CHINA

I. Updates and Out-takes

FRONTIER JUSTICE: No. 7 | THE PRESENT DANGER
By Tom Barry

(Editor's Note: Frontier Justice is a weekly column written alternately by Tom Barry and John Gershman, foreign policy analysts at the Interhemispheric Resource Center, chronicling instances of U.S. unilateralism and its assault on the multilateralism framework for managing global affairs. It is part of the new Project Against the Present Danger. These columns are now indexed on the www.presentdanger.org site at: http://www.presentdanger.org/frontier/2002/index.html . This week's column is drawn from the new project's Statement of Concern, available at http://www.presentdanger.org/concern.html .)

The history of global affairs has been marked by major turning points--times when the systems and processes that shape relations among nations shift dramatically. Today, domination of U.S. foreign policy by hawks and unilateralists is undermining the constructive, peaceful management of global affairs. By devaluing diplomacy, cooperation, and negotiations, U.S. foreign policy has created new distrust for U.S. global leadership.

Since January 2001 the George W. Bush administration has shifted policy sharply to the right. Over the past three decades, foreign policy reformers have achieved some progress in integrating human rights, environmental protection, and arms control objectives into foreign policy objectives. But these important reforms been tossed aside as distractions that impede a direct pursuit of U.S national interests and security. Similarly, the current Bush administration has campaigned against a widening array of international treaties and norms that constrain U.S. unilateralism.

Military policy is equally worrisome. We have seen a triumphant revival of the U.S. military/industrial complex in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. The resurrected Star Wars defense and new embrace of nuclear weapons strategy do nothing to address the threat of nonstate terrorism, but do create new bounty for military contractors. Paralleling the large budget increases for the Pentagon are new military doctrines that move from deterrence to "preemptive strikes" and "endless war." Instead of talking the language of negotiation, the U.S. is walking the talk of power. Instead of focusing on implementing frameworks of agreements in North Korea, Iraq, Iran, and Israel-Palestine, the U.S. government has opted for the politics of confrontation and has demanded "regime changes." On both the diplomatic and military fronts, the Bush administration has couched its newly aggressive unilateralism and disregard for international law and cooperation in the apocalyptic, good v. evil language long favored by the political right.

Global peace and prosperity faces a multitude of threats. International terrorism, human-induced climate change, South-North economic polarization, weapons trade, resource wars, infectious diseases, nuclear proliferation, and the corporate control of the global economy are among the gravest dangers we now confront as global citizens. There is little hope for resolving these and other transnational threats without a strong foundation of international law and without a strong spirit of international cooperation.

One of the most important turning points in recent human history was the visionary creation of the United Nations and other multilateral structures in the aftermath of World War II. U.S. political leadership deserves much credit for envisioning a framework for managing international affairs that brought nations together within a system of international rules and norms--one in which the voices of all nations and peoples could be heard and respected. Imperfect, as are all human creations, this new framework of multilateralism was nonetheless a monumental step forward in the management of global affairs.

Today, U.S. foreign policy threatens to turn back history. The present danger about which we speak is the concerted U.S. assault on the framework of multilateralism, international rule of law, and international cooperation. It is a framework of global political, economic, and military relations in which rights, rules, and reason value more than brute power. With its aggressive unilateralism and rampant exceptionalism, the U.S. government is chipping away at the entire framework of multiteralism.

Against this present danger, an increasing number of Americans are indignant at the arrogance and self-righteousness of the Bush foreign policy. These voices echo rising chorus of critics abroad who believe that the United States should be a respected leader that upholds international law, rather than holding itself above it. The challenge of a great power is not to free itself from the constraints of multilateralism, but rather to use its influence to ensure that the structures of international cooperation are more responsive and effective at meeting the challenges America faces.

(Tom Barry <tom@irc-online.org> is senior analyst at Interhemispheric Resource Center and codirector of Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org).)

THE ECONOMIC COSTS OF GOING TO WAR WITH IRAQ
By Miriam Pemberton

(Editor's Note: This new Global Affairs Commentary is based on testimony given before Congress on Friday, September 13, 2002, and is available in its entirety at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0209warimpact.html .)

I want to begin with two caveats. The first is that if attacking Iraq clearly fell into the category of a just war, we should of course spend whatever it would take to wage it. Providing for the common defense is our government's first mandate. But by my reckoning our government has not remotely made the case that this would in fact be a just war. I'll just mention quickly a couple of reasons, which the president's speech yesterday at the UN did not change.

Most fundamental is of course the fact that Iraq has not attacked us, and there is no credible evidence that it is collaborating with al Qaeda, which has. The administration's attempts to establish such a linkage have not been convincing. A couple of weeks ago Secretary Rumsfeld announced a few sightings of suspected al Qaeda members in Iraq. Well, this was northern Iraq, which is under the protection of U.S. warplanes from the Iraqi government. And if the presence of suspected al Qaeda members were reason enough to attack, we should be bombing Germany, and ourselves. Second, in addition to distracting from the pursuit of al Qaeda, an attack on Iraq shows real promise as a recruiting tool for more terrorists. An excessive, intrusive response by the world's superpower in the Middle East helps them make their case for resistance by any available means.

In the absence of a clear case for starting this war, then, we need to consider the ways in which starting it might conflict with our government's second mandate, which is to promote the general welfare. To the extent that an attack would have the effect of weakening an already shaky economy, it would undermine the welfare of all of us. So as we debate this profoundly serious question, the issue of the economic cost of going to war needs to be included in our deliberations.

My second caveat is that no one can say for sure what these costs will be. Wars never go according to war plans. And in this case the complex and far-reaching repercussions of--to pick one thing out of a hat--a destabilized Middle East, can be partially predicted but not foreseen. So mostly we are groping for the best calculus of risks. But I will try to distinguish between what we know for sure at this point and what is likely enough that it should worry us.

One thing we know is that fears that the U.S. might go ahead with an attack on Iraq have already begun to affect oil prices. Oil is already trading close to an 18-month high of $30 a barrel. Ten months ago, the price was half that. So the war fever premium has already been high. And every time a U.S. official comes out and says something that suggests an attack is actually imminent, or even is in fact likely to happen at all, oil prices spike. Vice President Cheney made the first of two such speeches on August 26th, for example, and by the end of the day, the price of each barrel sold on the U.S. market had jumped sixty-five cents.

Following the last U.S. invasion of Iraq, oil prices doubled, and stayed high for the better part of a year. A repeat would create ripple effects throughout our economy. Estimates by Wall Street analysts indicate that a ten dollar per barrel rise in oil prices--half the amount of the last Gulf War effect--would over a year's time reduce U.S. GDP growth by about half a percent, and add nearly one percent to inflation.

The economic drag from these oil price shocks is being felt most strongly across the transportation sectors that grease our economy's wheels, and is adding friction to these wheels, an effect that is of course being passed on to consumers. In the airline sector alone, the nine major U.S. carriers have lost $7.3 billion in the past year, and one of them has been propelled into bankruptcy. This is despite the bailout package passed after 9-11 totaling $5 billion in direct federal aid and $10 billion in loan guarantees. Most analysts expect that a U.S. attack on Iraq could send the price of oil beyond $50 a barrel. In that event, we will probably be bailing out all our airlines.

And given the current fragile condition of the global economy, higher oil prices could mean the difference between modest growth and a full-blown recession.

Growth deceleration in the American economy is already underway: the first-quarter annualized rate of 5% had by the second quarter dropped to 1.1%. It would be a mistake, of course to blame all our economic bad news on the September 11 attacks. But as one writer for the London Times put it, what can be said with certainty is that al Qaeda struck the U.S. and world economies at an exquisitely vulnerable time, when such factors as corporate accountability scandals, oil price rises from the explosion of violence in Israel-Palestine, and the tanking of the dot-coms had done their damage. 9-11 only exacerbated the loss of investor confidence and depressed investment, which have in turn raised the cost of capital and reduced the prospects for long-term productivity growth.

Many U.S. economists are now revising their growth projections for the near term slightly upward. Having taught a couple of kids to ride a bicycle, though, I liked the explanation I read recently of why an economy is like a bicycle. When it moves fast, it can ride out shocks and stay upright. But when a bicycle, or an economy, is hardly moving, it can be knocked over by even a modest bump in the road. A war with Iraq would be quite a bump.

In calculating the potential costs to the U.S. of such a war it is important to remember that putting together the original Gulf War coalition incurred substantial costs all on its own, in the form of financial inducements to join. For example, the U.S. had to give Turkey about $5 billion in debt forgiveness and other financial benefits to secure their reluctant support for the war. This time the reluctance is much more internationally widespread, and overcoming it is likely to be much more expensive. Yesterday the Turkish prime minister described the possibility of an attack as "a sword hanging over our heads." Turkey, he said, "is at the forefront of countries that will be negatively affected by military action."

In addition to these direct and indirect costs of waging the war itself, we need to factor into our calculations the protracted military presence, lasting years, not months, that must certainly follow it. Scott Feil, a retired colonel and expert on post-conflict reconstruction, estimates that a force of 75,000 would be necessary during the first year, at a direct cost of $16.5 billion. Former national security advisor Sandy Berger recently testified that rebuilding the Iraqi economy would cost between $50 and $150 billion. Given the U.S.' recent track record, in Kosovo and Afghanistan, for example, it is unlikely that we would take on the whole bill for Iraqi economic reconstruction. But somebody will need to pay it. Colonel Feil assumes that the U.S. would take on responsibility for some humanitarian emergency relief, and some of the costs of transitional administration, civil service, and other components of reconstruction. He estimates these at $15-25 billion over the next decade.

And none of these estimates tries to factor in the dangers of a wider war. The worries that are already affecting oil prices relate not primarily to Iraq itself as an exporter, but to the likelihood that a war with Iraq could easily destabilize the entire Middle East, propelling a wave of revolutions in politically precarious regimes throughout the Arab world. Any subset of this scenario would begin to jeopardize oil exports of almost 20 million barrels a day, which is just about equal to the whole of U.S. daily consumption, and more than a quarter of the daily consumption around the globe. The disruption of supply could come either from political decisions by the region's leaders or from the destruction of infrastructure. As the prospect of either of these effects becomes more likely, oil markets will react.

Saudi Arabia is both the largest producer and exporter, and the most politically vulnerable. Internal instability alone could depress Saudi production. The Iranian revolution of 1979 cut production in half, to 3 million barrels, where it has stayed. We all worried that the last Gulf War would have a domino effect on the governments in the region, and this didn't happen. But several of them, Jordan and Saudi Arabia at the top of the list, are weaker now than they were then. Iraqi aggression against Kuwait created broad regional support for an armed response, and this support does not now exist. And, it should be added, the 1991 war had destabilizing effects that simply took a long time to incubate and come to light. The U.S. bases in Saudi Arabia became the focal point for the resentment that resulted in the attacks of 9-11.

When we have not been attacked, when the other justifications the administration has offered for going to war are as murky as they are, when there is much dissension within the government and in particular within the military about the wisdom of an attack, and when the idea of attacking has virtually no support from our allies, then it makes sense for Congress and the American people to take these economic costs into special consideration. The preponderance of evidence suggests that if we start this war we will be endangering our economic health.

(Miriam Pemberton <miriam@ips-dc.org> is peace and security editor for Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org), and delivered this testimony before Congress on September 13, 2002.)

DEALING IN DOUBLE STANDARDS: PRESIDENT BUSH AT THE UNITED NATIONS
By Stephen Zunes

(Editor's Note: In his September 12th address to the United Nations, President George W. Bush argued the case for an assault on Iraq if it fails to comply with UN resolutions. The following excerpt of an analysis of the speech by FPIF Middle East editor Stephen Zunes (available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0209bushspeech.html) highlights the double standards and opportunism in the administration's efforts to promote compliance with UN resolutions as the justification for military action against Iraq.)

The last time--and only time--the United States came before the United Nations to accuse a radical Third World government of threatening the security of the United States through weapons of mass destruction was in October 1962. In the face of a skeptical world and Cuban and Soviet denials, U.S. ambassador Adlai Stevenson presented dramatic photos clearly showing the construction of nuclear missiles on Cuban soil. While the resulting U.S. military blockade and brinksmanship was not universally supported, there was little question that the United States had the evidence and that the threat was real.

Despite vastly improved reconnaissance technology in the subsequent forty years, President George W. Bush, in his long-anticipated speech before the United Nations, was unable to present any clear proof that Iraq currently has weapons of mass destruction or functioning offensive delivery systems.

Yet lack of credible evidence was only one problem with the president's speech.

Virtually every delegate representing the world's nations present at the President's speech must have recognized the brazen act of hypocrisy in citing findings by the UN Human Rights Commission on Iraq, whose reports criticizing the human rights records of American allies have often been summarily dismissed by U.S. officials.

Double standards were most apparent, however, in President Bush's stress on the importance of enforcing UN resolutions.

The list of UN Security Council resolutions violated by Iraq cited by President Bush pales in comparison to the list of UN Security Council resolutions currently being violated by U.S. allies. Not only has the United States not suggested invading these countries, the U.S. has blocked sanctions or other means of enforcing them and even provides the military and economic aid that helps make these ongoing violations possible.

For example, in 1975, the UN Security Council passed a series of resolutions demanding that Morocco withdraw its occupation forces from the country of Western Sahara and that Indonesia withdraw its occupation forces from East Timor. However, then-U.S. ambassador to the United Nations Daniel Patrick Moynihan later bragged that, "The Department of State desired that the United Nations prove utterly ineffective in whatever measures it undertook. The task was given to me, and I carried it forward with not inconsiderable success."

East Timor finally won its freedom in 1999 after 24 years of U.S.-backed occupation. Moroccan forces still occupy Western Sahara, however, with the Bush administration supporting Morocco's defiance of subsequent UN Security Council resolutions that simply call for an internationally supervised referendum for the Western Saharan population to determine the fate of their desert nation.

The most extensive violator of UN Security Council resolutions is Israel, by far the largest recipient of U.S. military and economic aid. Israel's refusal to respond positively to the formal acceptance last March by the Arab League to the land for peace formula put forward in UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 arguably puts Israel in violation of these resolutions, long seen as the basis for Middle East peace. There can be no argument, however, that Israel remains in defiance of a series of other UN Security Council resolutions. These include resolutions 262 and 267 that demand Israel rescind its annexation of greater East Jerusalem, as well as the more than dozen other resolutions demanding Israel cease its violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, such as deportations, demolitions of homes, collective punishment, and seizure of private property.

Unlike some of the hypocritical and mean-spirited anti-Israel resolutions passed by the UN General Assembly, such as the now-rescinded 1975 resolution equating Zionism and racism, these Security Council resolutions challenging Israeli policies have been well-grounded in international law.

For example, UN Security Council resolutions 446 and 465 require that Israel evacuate all of its illegal settlements on occupied Arab lands. The United States, however, insists the fate of the settlements is a matter of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. In fact, the Clinton Peace Plan of December 2000 would have allowed Israel to illegally annex most of these settlements and surrounding areas into Israel. Even more disturbing, the U.S. decision to help fund Israel's construction of Jewish-only "bypass roads" in the occupied West Bank to connect the illegal settlements with Israel puts the United States in violation of Article 7 of resolution 465, which prohibits member states from facilitating Israel's colonization drive.

There is little doubt that the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein is in violation of UN Security Council resolutions. The regime must indeed either be forced to change its behavior or be replaced. That, however, is a decision for the Iraqi people or the United Nations, not the United States alone.

Until the Bush administration ends its gross exaggerations of Iraq's current offensive military capabilities, double standards on human rights and UN Security Council resolutions, and ongoing threats to illegally invade Iraq, the United States simply does not have the credibility to lead the international effort to challenge Saddam Hussein's regime.

(Stephen Zunes <zunes@usfca.edu> is an associate professor of Politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. He serves as Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project (online at www.fpif.org) and is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism to be published in October by Common Courage Press.)

For More Information:

FPIF's Focus on Iraq Page
http://www.fpif.org/iraq/index.html

FPIF Talking Points:
Why Not to Wage War with Iraq (August 2002)

No Unilateral Military Strike Against Iraq
Citizen-Based Global Affairs Agenda (June 2002)

President Bush's Speech to the United Nations
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/09/20020912-1.html

CHICKEN HAWKS AS CHEER LEADERS
By Jim Lobe

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a commentary in our series on Defining the Present Danger, available in its entirety at: http://www.presentdanger.org/commentary/2002/0209chickenhawks.html .)

A high-ranking State Department official was speaking to a room full of senior military officers last month when he cracked, "there's more combat experience on the 7th floor of the State Department than in the entire Office of the Secretary of Defense."

"The remark generated riotous applause," according to an eyewitness who recounted the incident to Chris Nelson, publisher of the Nelson Report, a private newsletter that circulates to embassies and Capitol Hill offices.

The anecdote illustrates what some are now calling the "Chicken Hawk" factor, which could play an important role in the increasingly intense and personalized debate over the Bush administration's push toward war with Iraq.

Indeed, the fact that the greatest opposition to the war is centered in the military brass, the source of the most damaging leaks of the administration's battle plans--as well as in the upper reaches of the State Department and among the foreign policy veterans of the first Bush administration--has made the hawks extremely sensitive to the question of their own military service, or, rather, lack of it.

"It is interesting to me that many of those who want to rush this country into war and think it would be so quick and easy don't know anything about war," observed Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a Republican Vietnam veteran whose skepticism about an Iraqi adventure has made him persona non grata to the neoconservatives who are leading the charge, now popularly called Chicken Hawks. According to the New Hamsphire Gazette (online at www.nhgazette.com), which maintains a database on the subject, this "is a term often applied to public persons--generally male--who (1) tend to advocate … military solutions to political problems, and who have personally (2) declined to take advantage of a significant opportunity to serve in uniform during wartime."

That description applies to most senior administration officials in their fifties who were subject to the military draft during the Vietnam War. George W. Bush himself, instead of being drafted for the war, received a posting to the Texas National Guard. It was the kind of dodge from military service that, according to Secretary of State and former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Colin Powell's memoirs, was generally reserved for "the sons of the powerful."

Cheney, however, avoided the uniform altogether, insisting to one inquiring reporter that he "had other priorities in the 1960s than military service." Rumsfeld, the other leading Cabinet hawk, flew Navy jets between the Korean and Vietnam wars but saw no combat. Indeed, the only cabinet member with combat experience is Powell.

Even more remarkable, the major agitators for war outside the administration also lack direct military experience. Of the 32 prominent signers of a now-famous September 20 letter from the Project for the New America Century (online at www.newamericancentury.org) to Bush urging him to include Iraq, as well as Syria, Lebanon, Iran, and the Palestinian Authority, as targets in the war on terrorism, only three have ever donned a uniform.

"It's pretty interesting that all the generals see it the same way, and all the others who have never fired a shot and are hot to go to war see it another," noted ret. Gen. Anthony Zinni, former chief of the Central Command that includes the Gulf region, just last week. Gulf War hero ret. Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf has also expressed strong doubts about a new war.

It is not so much that they believe Iraq represents a serious threat to U.S. military might, although they have openly scorned the notion put forward by Perle and another influential DPB hawk close to Rumsfeld, Kenneth Adelman, that a military campaign would be a "cakewalk." Rather, they are mainly worried about the war's aftermath and the degree to which it will burden the military with an impossible political task with no clear exit. "Do we really want to occupy Iraq for the next 30 years?" asked former Navy Secretary and Vietnam veteran James Webb in a Washington Post column Wednesday.

The Chicken Hawks are warning the uniformed military to keep their reservations to themselves. Eliot Cohen, an academic close to Perle and one of the signers of the influential Project for a New American Century document outlining the U.S. supremacy agenda, made that point in a Wall Street Journal column two weeks ago entitled "Generals, Politicians and Iraq" in which he reminded thebrass of their "obligation to present their views with utter honesty in private, but to maintain silence in public."

The central message of Cohen's latest book, Supreme Command, stresses the importance of civilian supremacy in wartime and argues that the military brass are habitually over-cautious. Cohen's fellow-hawks are making much of the fact that Bush told reporters during his summer vacation in Texas that he was reading the book. Next on the recommended reading list is Cohen's essay in the New Republic, whose title puts matters plainly: "Make War, Not Justice-How toFight." Not having themselves killed or been bloodied in the misadventures in Vietnam or Korea, the Chicken Hawks are now leading the nation to a new ill-defined and morally ambiguous war.

(Jim Lobe <jlobe@starpower.net> is a contributor and member of the Advisory Committee of Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org). He also writes regularly for Inter Press Service.)

For More Information:

Project for the New American Century
http://www.newamericancentury.org/

U.S. Foreign Policy-Attention, Right Face, Forward March
By Tom Barry and Jim Lobe

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>.)

WSSD BOTH ATTACKS AND ABETS "GLOBAL APARTHEID"
By Patrick Bond

(Editor's note: Excerpted from a new Outside the U.S. Global Affairs Commentary posted in its entirety at http://www.fpif.org/outside/commentary/2002/0209postwssd.html.)

Officials of the United Nations and the host South African government looking hard in the mirror last weekend will have to judge the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) a failure. The only remarkable step forward for human and environmental progress taken in the ultra-bourgeois Johannesburg suburb of Sandton was the widespread adoption of the idea of "global apartheid," at President Thabo Mbeki's suggestion.

Anyone contemplating this phrase immediately identifies not a natural condition of rational economic relationships, but instead a structured system of oppression. How else do the globe's winners advance, if not because of the economic and political chains holding down the poor, the women, the people with darker skins?

The chains of global apartheid are unaccountable institutions, which came under intense criticism over the past two weeks: the World Trade Organization (WTO), World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and multinational corporations. Because of the power these undemocratic institutions wield, most WSSD plans to address poverty and ecological degradation will actually amplify the world's problems.

Vandana Shiva described the outcome simply: "What happened in Johannesburg amounts to a privatization of the Earth, an auction house in which the rights of the poor were given away." Friends of the Earth cited backsliding on the Convention on Biological Diversity. Complained the NGO Energy and Climate Caucus, "The agreement on energy is an outright disaster, with the dropping of all targets and timetables." The Gaia Foundation called the final summit document "an incredibly weak agreement." Australian Green Party senator Bob Brown concluded, "like ostriches, the wealthy nations have stuck their heads into the sand and have let down the next generation in an appalling way." Even the establishment NGO Oxfam called the WSSD "a triumph for greed and self-interest, a tragedy for the poor and environment."

In the five key fields of water, energy, healthcare, agriculture, and biodiversity, the Geneva-based WTO considers essential state services to be, simply, typical commodities. Pushed hardest by the European Union and U.S., the WTO's General Agreement on Trade in Services aims to open up South African and all Third World markets for penetration by privatizing firms.

Ending European and U.S. agricultural subsidies will do nothing substantial to change the structural features of global apartheid, unfortunately. Last week, even Bank economist Branko Milanovic admitted that 1990s trade liberalization by countries with incomes of less than $5,000 per person per year (including South Africa) increased internal inequality. According to Milanovic, "at very low average income level, it is the rich who benefit from openness. It seems that openness makes income distribution worse before making it better."

On the civil society front, the WSSD's other important feature was the global-local linkage of protests against privatization and services disconnections, landlessness, and many other neoliberal development policies that Pretoria has adopted since 1994, partly at the behest of the World Bank. August 31 was the major day for protest. In contrast to the smaller (5,000-person) rally addressed by Mbeki, the unprecedented 7-mile march of 20,000 local and international activists from the impoverished Alexandra township to Sandton, against both the WSSD and government, showed the depth of popular anger.

Total disrespect was shown by workers, the unemployed, and the rural poor for Mbeki's envoy, minister Essop Pahad, who was denied by acclaim the opportunity to address the protest rally. The same sentiment emerged against U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell at the Summit's final session on Wednesday, led by progressive U.S. NGOs and joined by delegates from most countries: "Bush, Shame, Bush, Shame!" The hearty heckling of Powell comes on the eve of a U.S. attack against Iraq, and reflects frustration at countless other infringements of international agreements on environment and development.

Both locally in South Africa and globally, critics say, the ruling elites remain intent not on breaking the chains of global apartheid, but on polishing them.

(Patrick Bond <pbond@wn.apc.org> is a professor at the University of the Witwatersrand and author of Against Global Apartheid: South Africa meets the World Bank, IMF and International Finance (University of Cape Town Press, 2001) and Unsustainable South Africa: Environment, Development and Social Protest (Africa World Press, 2002).)

FUNDAMENTALISM IS THE ENEMY OF ALL CIVILIZED HUMANITY
By the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA)

(Editor's Note: This statement was issued by the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan on the anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks.)

RAWA joins with the rest of the civilized world in remembering the innocent lives lost on September 11th, as well as all those others lost to terrorism and oppression throughout the world. It is with great sadness that RAWA sees other people experiencing the pain that the women, children, and men of Afghanistan have long suffered at the hands of fundamentalist terrorists.

For ten long years the people of Afghanistan--Afghan women in particular--have been crushed and brutalized, first under the chains and atrocities of the "Northern Alliance" fundamentalists, then under those of the Taliban. During all this period, the governments of the Western powers were bent on finding ways to "work with" these criminals. These Western governments did not lose much sleep over the daily grind of abject misery our people were enduring under the domination of these terrorist bands. To them it did not matter so very much that human rights and democratic principles were being trampled on a daily basis in an inconceivable manner. What was important was to "work with" the religio-fascists to have Central Asian oil pipelines extended to accessible ports of shipment.

Immediately after the September 11 tragedy American military might moved into action to punish its erstwhile hirelings. A captive, bleeding, devastated, hungry, pauperized, drought-stricken, and ill-starred Afghanistan was bombed into oblivion by the most advanced and sophisticated weaponry ever created in human history. Innocent lives, many more than those who lost their lives in the September 11 atrocity, were taken. Even joyous wedding gatherings were not spared. The Taliban regime and its al Qaeda support were toppled without any significant dent in their human combat resources. What was not done away with was the sinister shadow of terrorist threat over the whole world and its alter ego, fundamentalist terrorism.

Neither opium cultivation nor warlordism has been eradicated in Afghanistan. There is neither peace nor stability in this tormented country, nor has there been any relief from the scourges of extreme pauperization, prostitution, and wanton plunder. Women feel much more insecure than in the past. The bitter fact that even the personal security of the President of the country cannot be maintained without recourse to foreign bodyguards and the recent terrorist acts in our country speak eloquent volumes about the chaotic and terrorist-ridden situation of the country. Why is it so? Why has the thunderous uproar in the aftermath of September 11 resulted in nothing? For the following reasons which RAWA has reiterated time and again:

1. For the people of Afghanistan, it is "out of the frying pan, into the fire." Instead of the Taliban terrorists, Jihadi terrorists of the "Northern Alliance" have been installed in power. The Jihadi and the Taliban fundamentalists share a common ideology; their differences are the usual differences between brethren-in-creed.
2. For the past twenty years, more or less, Osama bin Laden has had Afghan fundamentalists on his payroll and has been paying their leaders considerable stipends. He and Mullah Omar, together with a band of followers equipped with the necessary communication resources, can live for many years under the protection of different fundamentalist bands in Afghanistan and Pakistan and continue to plot against the people of Afghanistan and the rest of humankind.
3. The Taliban and the al Qaeda phenomena, as manifestations of an ideology and a political culture infesting an Islamic country, could only have been uprooted by a popular insurrection and the strengthening and coming to power of secular democratic forces. Such a purge cannot be effected solely with the physical elimination of the likes of Osama and Mullah Omar.

The "Northern Alliance" can never sincerely want the total elimination of the Taliban and the al Qaeda, as such elimination would mean the end of the raison d'être of the backing and support extended to them by foreign forces currently dominant in the country. This was the rationale behind RAWA's slogan for the overthrow of the Taliban and al Qaeda through popular insurrection. Unfortunately, before such popular insurrection could come about, the Taliban and al Qaeda forfeited their positions to the "brethren of the 'Northern Alliance'" without suffering any crippling decimation.

With their second occupation of Kabul, the "Northern Alliance" thwarted any hopes for a radical, meaningful change. They are themselves now the source and root of insecurity, the disgraceful police atmosphere of the Loya Jirga, rampant terrorism, gagging of democracy, atrocious violations of human rights, mounting pauperization, prostitution and corruption, the flourishing of poppy cultivation, failure of beginning to reconstruct, and a host of further unlisted evils, too many to enumerate.

Oppression and crimes against women are rife in different forms throughout the country. RAWA has always maintained that the fundamentalists' rabid hatred of women as equal human beings--be they fundamentalists of the Jihadi brand or of the Taliban one--is not due merely to their unhealthy upbringing or morbid mind frame, but emanates from their religio-fascistic ideological world outlook. As long as such an ideology exists, propped up by military forces available at its disposal, neither crazed misogyny nor a myriad of shameful social evils associated with it can be eradicated. This is not a problem that can be dealt with by the creation of a "Ministry of Women's Affairs" nor by the presence of a couple of token women in high government positions. To hope for the attainment of freedom, democracy and equality within the framework of a corrupt, religion-based, ethno-chauvinistic system is either self-delusion or hypocrisy--or both.

We find no happiness in the fact that RAWA's predictions in regard to the consequences of the re-domination of the "Northern Alliance" have once again been borne out. Those who claimed that the "Northern Alliance" were better than, and therefore preferable to, the Taliban must wake up and apologize to our people for their noxious sermons. The establishment of democracy and social justice can be possible only with the overthrow of fundamentalist domination as a prime precondition. This cannot be achieved without an organized and irreconcilable campaign of the women masses against fundamentalism, its agents and apologists.

Some politically bankrupt entities who have no shame in groveling to the "Northern Alliance" in the hope of securing positions and feathering their nests, label RAWA as "Maoist" and "radical" because of our decisive and irreconcilable stances and viewpoints. But does the current situation in the country prove the fallacy of RAWA's positions or do they give a slap in the face to the ladies and gentleman with the penchant for being colluding and mealy-mouthed? The assassinations of a vice president and a cabinet minister and the ban on investigating these murders, the discovery of mass graves, the banning of women singers and artists and showing of dancing on TV, the censorship of the media, arbitrary fatwas of kofr and apostasy against women, gang rapes of even expatriate women working for international NGOs, the disgusting campaign of making an idol out of Ahmad Shah Masoud, are these not enough to bring home the realization that indulgence and permissiveness towards rabid dogs only serve to make them more ferocious?

RAWA's experience in fighting fundamentalism, particularly during the past 10 years, motivates us to be all the more persistent in our attempts to mobilize women even in the most remote corners of our country. At the same time, we shall not desist from pursuing an irreconcilable policy toward fundamentalism and standing in solidarity with all pro-democracy forces. We staunchly believe that in addition to causing the tragic deaths of over 3,000 innocent Americans and non-Americans and the sorrow and bereavement of tens of thousands more, the monstrous terrorist attack of September 11 showed the world what a nefarious pestilence fundamentalism is; it showed the world the sort of inferno the peoples of Afghanistan, Iran, Algeria, Sudan, and other such countries live in.

Fundamentalism is the mortal enemy of civilized humanity; to address it demands the consolidated action of all freedom-loving nations of the world. The present "world anti-terrorism coalition" has been debased by innumerable ambiguities and impurities of purpose, motivation and objectives. The contradictions between world powers will spell its doom. Therefore, it behooves anti-fundamentalist individuals and organizations working for social justice the world over to draw together without hesitation to contain and ultimately stamp out, once and for all, the vermin of fundamentalism, so that the tragedy of September 11 will never be repeated, neither in America nor anywhere else.

RAWA takes pride in the fact that up until now we have been able to establish contact with a considerable number of anti-terrorist organizations on all five continents and enjoy their moral and material support. However, for the purpose of waging a swifter and more encompassing fight against terrorism, it is necessary for such solidarity to be expanded and strengthened. In this connection we shake the hands of all freedom-loving individuals and organizations.

We would like to avail ourselves of this opportunity to once again extend our heartfelt condolences to all those who lost their loved ones in the savage calamity of September 11, as well as to the friends and families of those innocent compatriots--for all we know, anti-Taliban and anti-"Northern Alliance"--who were blown to shreds by American aerial bombardment. We sincerely hope that a vast number of those who are bereaved and grieving for their loved ones will, sooner or later, join the ranks of the legions mobilizing against fundamentalist fascism in their respective countries and on an international level.

No to Al Qaeda, No to the Taliban, No to the "Northern Alliance"!
Long Live a Free, Democratic, and Blossoming Afghanistan! Victory in the Decisive War to the Very End of Afghan Women Against Fundamentalism and for Democracy!
Long Live International Solidarity Against Fundamentalist Terrorism!

(For more information on RAWA see http://rawasongs.fancymarketing.net/.)

III. Letters and Comments

EXTREMELY SURPRISED

Re: India Flirting with Disaster by Muqtedar Khan

I am extremely surprised to know that a learned professor could write such theories of 'an eye for eye, tooth for tooth' while predicting what will happen to India if it strikes Pakistan.

Is total destruction of Pakistan of no significance to you as long as Delhi and Mumbai go down and India's future is made bleak? Such articles only serve to further incite the desperate and lunatic tendencies of those who presume to be in authority in Pakistan at present.

- Chaula Kothari <cmkothar@syr.edu>

KUDOS

Actually, I just want to commend you all for making this effort to inform people. The quality of your contributors is high and greatly appreciated by me. I hope you never abandon your mission. Thanks for everything so far.

- Avanthia Swan <Javaswan@Shaw.ca>

CONFLICTING REASONS?

Re: Seven Reasons to Oppose a U.S. Invasion of Iraq

Well in one reason for not invading Iraq you said that it is no longer a military threat to its neighboring countries because its military had mostly been wiped out. Then in a following reason you said we shouldn't go in because it would be so tough a battle to win. Are you implying they only know how to use their weapons to defend their country and not attack other countries? Or are you implying their weapons are non mobile so that is why they can defend but are not a threat to other countries? Or are the people who design this site so dumb they didn't see this obvious conflict of ideas?

- Shane Mason <diabloskh@yahoo.com>

PUZZLED ABOUT LEFT'S STANCE ON CHINA

Re: Yellow Peril Revisited

A friend called to my attention your characterization of my views in the final few sentences. I have always been puzzled by why the "left"--which I always thought favored democracy, rights of workers to organize, free press, etc.--should be so concerned when the U.S. takes some prudent steps to deal with China's very large military build up, for which no good reason exists, and which threatens our democratic allies in the region.

China is a true outlier on all human rights and is becoming an authoritarian offshore base for international business to process exports (50% of them are now foreign connected) with no rights for its people. Is it really so strange that I find that unattractive?

Obviously no one wants a war in the region, but the best way to prevent that is to make clear to Beijing that its massive purchases of ex-Soviet aircraft, submarines, and other items, as well as its latest series of ICBMS, is not going to translate into influence based on fear and exercised against freedom and democracy.

I wish the left would join in on this--we really do have a common view of many aspects--instead of reverting to rhetoric.

- Arthur Waldron <awaldron2@aol.com>
Lauder Professor of International Relations, University of Pennsylvania;
Director of Asian Studies, American Enterprise Institute;
Commissioner, U.S. China Security Review Commission

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