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. 9 | A STRATEGY FORETOLD
By Tom Barry

SILENCE IS BETRAYAL
By Conn Hallinan

II. Outside the U.S.

AFTER BALI, THE NEED TO UNDERSTAND
By Paul Rogers

AFGHANISTAN: DONOR INACTION AND INEFFECTIVENESS
By Mark Sedra

III. Letters

ENGAGING MUSLIM INTELLECTUALS

LOOKING AND ACTING AMERICAN IN TEXAS

I. Updates and Out-takes

FRONTIER JUSTICE: No. 9 | A Strategy Foretold
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 .)

September 11 did not change everything. It certainly did not change the security strategy that a network of hawks and neoconservatives has been promoting since the early 1990s.

One year after the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington the Bush White House released its National Security Strategy document. The radical overhaul of U.S. defense posture as outlined in the strategy document synthesized was no surprise. High officials in the Pentagon have since the beginning of the Bush administration made clear their intent to overhaul U.S. foreign and military policy in the very ways outlined in the National Security Strategy statement of September 2002.

America's new National Security Strategy report is a succinct presentation of a strategy of military dominance that rejects the policies of deterrence, containment, and collective security. Instead, the new grand strategy stresses offensive military intervention, preemptive first strikes, and proactive counterproliferation measures against rogues and other enemies. Put simply, the U.S. security strategy is no longer one of defense and reaction but offense. As President Bush states in his introduction to the strategy document: "The only path to peace and security is the path of action."

The path of action as sketched out in this radical new view of what's needed to keep America secure echoes two earlier strategy documents. One was written in 1992 by Pentagon analysts Paul Wolfowitz (now Deputy Security of Defense) and I. Lewis Libby (now Vice President Cheney's chief-of-staff) called the Defense Policy Guidance document, and the other more recent strategy document entitled Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century was produced by the neoconservative Project for the New American Century (PNAC).

When the excerpts of the draft version of the Defense Policy Guidance leaked to the New York Times, Sen. Joseph Biden (D-DE) was horrified and denounced the document as a prescription for "literally a Pax Americana." Written by two relatively obscure political appointees in the Pentagon's policy department in the aftermath of the Gulf War, the draft DPG called for U.S. military preeminence over Eurasia by preventing the rise of any potentially hostile power and a policy of preemption against states suspected of developing weapons of mass destruction.

In 1997, the two authors of this military doctrine of military preeminence and preemptive strikes-Paul Wolfowitz and I. Lewis Libby-were among the 25 signatories of the Statement of Principles of the neoconservative front group called the Project for the New American Century. Other signatories who are now also prominent figures in the current administration included their boss, former DOD Secretary Cheney, Elliott Abrams, Zalmay Khalilzad, Donald Rumsfeld, Paula Dobriansky, and Peter Rodman.

In September 2000, PNAC issued its strategic plan on how America should exercise its global leadership and project its military power. Among the key conclusions of PNAC's defense strategy document were the following:

• "Develop and deploy global missile defenses to defend the American homeland and American allies, and to provide a secure basis for U.S. power projection around the world."
• "Control the new 'international commons' of space and 'cyberspace," and pave the way for the creation of a new military service--U.S. Space Forces--with the mission of space control."
• "Increase defense spending, adding $15 billion to $20 billion to total defense spending annually."
• "Exploit the 'revolution in military affairs' [transformation to high-tech, unmanned weaponry] to insure the long-term superiority of U.S. conventional forces."
• "Need to develop a new family of nuclear weapons designed to address new sets of military requirements" complaining that the U.S. has "virtually ceased development of safer and more effective nuclear weapons."
• "Facing up to the realities of multiple constabulary missions that will require a permanent allocation of U.S. forces."
• "America must defend its homeland" by "reconfiguring its nuclear force" and by missile defense systems that "counteract the effects of the proliferation of ballistic missiles and weapons of mass destruction."
• "Need for a larger U.S. security perimeter" and the U.S. "should seek to establish a network of 'deployment bases' or 'forward operating bases' to increase the reach of current and future forces," citing the need to move beyond Western Europe and Northeast Asia to increased permanent military presence in Southeast Asia and "other regions of East Asia." Necessary "to cope with the rise of China to great-power status."
• Redirecting the U.S. Air Force to move "toward a global first-strike force."
• End the Clinton administration's "devotion" to the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty.
• "North Korea, Iran, Iraq, or similar states [should not be allowed] to undermine American leadership, intimidate American allies, or threaten the American homeland itself."
• "Main military missions" necessary to "preserve Pax Americana" and a "unipolar 21st century" are the following: "secure and expand zones of democratic peace, deter rise of new great-power competitor, defend key regions (Europe, East Asia, Middle East), and exploit transformation of war."

Thomas Donnelly, the document's principal author and recently PNAC's deputy director (until he was recruited by Lockheed-Martin), expressed the hope that "the project's report will be useful as a road map for the nation's immediate and future defense plans." His hope has been realized in the new security strategy and military build-up of the current Bush administration. Many of PNAC's conclusions and recommendations are reflected in the White House's National Security Strategy document, which reflects the "peace through strength" credo that shapes PNAC strategic thinking.

The Bush administration has opted for a security strategy that is aggressive and which prioritizes the use of military to deliver weapons of mass destruction. In his introduction to the strategy document, President Bush states that this American peace will be maintained "by fighting terrorists and tyrants." Moreover, "as a matter of common sense and self-defense, America will act against such emerging threats before they are fully formed."

This new strategy of rapid militarization at home, a permanent and expanding U.S. military presence abroad, and a policy of first strike defense against perceived enemies is one that was foretold. The military strategists, neoconservative analysts, and military-industrial lobbyists spent the 1990s preparing the strategy of U.S. military preeminence that the Bush administration is now implementing under their direction.

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

Also see:

Tom Barry and Jim Lobe, "Foreign Policy: Right Face," FPIF Policy Report, http://www.fpif.org/papers/02right/index.html

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

SILENCE IS BETRAYAL
By Conn Hallinan

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a global affairs commentary available in its entirety at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0210iraqciv.html.)

Dan Handelman is haunted by two images of Iraq that most Americans never see on television.

One is a frail two-year-old slowly dying of dehydration in a Basra hospital while his mother sits next to him, helpless to stop the ravages of diarrhea and infection. He is, according the World Health Agency, one of the 5,000 Iraqi children who die of water-borne diseases and malnutrition each month.

The other is a group of children begging in the streets. "There were no beggars in Baghdad before the Gulf War, and now many of them have to beg rather than be in school," he says. Indeed, Iraq used to have the highest literacy rate in the Arab world--95%--but according to UNICEF, 30% of its children no longer attend school.

The young boy in Basra is dying because the U.S. systematically targeted water purification plants and electrical generators in the 1991 Gulf War. We certainly didn't bomb those targets by accident. According to Col. John Warden, the deputy director of strategy, doctrine, and plans for the U.S. Air Force, the purpose of the attacks was "to accelerate the effects of [economic] sanctions" and increase "long-term leverage."

The bombing knocked out almost 97% of the country's electrical capacity, a disaster in a highly mechanized and electricity dependent society like Iraq. In the first eight months following the war, 47,000 children died of diseases like cholera, typhoid, and gastroenteritis. More than a half million have followed them in the past decade, and infant mortality has tripled.

Such bombing is in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions, which explicitly states that "It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove, or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies, and irrigation works."

Malnutrition is spreading, in large part according to the UN, because of the "massive deterioration of the basic infrastructure, particularly in the water supply and disposal system." Besides the deliberate destruction of the civilian infrastructure, the backwash of war also continues to take a steady toll on Iraqi civilians. Southern Iraq was saturated with almost a million rounds of Depleted Uranium Ammunition, which has raised radioactive levels 150 to 200 times over background levels.

Iraq lost several thousand civilians in Gulf War I, and the Pentagon Projects Gulf War II will kill another 10,000, not counting those who will die from the consequences of bombing. Of course, in a sense, we are already at war with Iraq. The U.S. and Britain have dropped more bombs on Iraq since 1999 than were dropped on Serbia in the Kosovo War, and have sharply stepped up the air campaign over the past two weeks.

All of this will be carried out in our name unless Americans do something to stop it. "A time has come when silence is betrayal," Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. said about Vietnam, another war that targeted civilians, "that time is now."

(Conn Hallinan <connm@cats.ucsc.edu> is provost at the University of California at Santa Cruz and a foreign policy analyst for 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>.)

AFTER BALI, THE NEED TO UNDERSTAND
By Paul Rogers

(Editor's Note: This commentary from British analyst Paul Rogers argues that the recent atrocity in Bali demands a reassessment of the Bush administration's approach to the war on terrorism and plans to invade Iraq. The commentary, excerpted below, is available in its entirety at http://www.fpif.org/outside/commentary/2002/0210bali.html .)

The massacre in Bali was the most terrible in a series of recent incidents that reveal Al Qaeda's continuing activity. From Yemen to Kuwait and Pakistan, is the entanglement of the U.S. in the Islamic world actually serving the group's long-term strategy? If so, the vital need at this critical moment in the war on terror is not more rhetoric, but deeper understanding.

Although the major focus of security analysts in recent months has been on the U.S. policy toward Iraq and the probability of war within three to four months, some observers have also been concentrating their concern on developments in Afghanistan and the evolution of Al Qaeda and its associates.

Indeed, within U.K. intelligence circles there is said to be a common view that the U.S. determination to terminate the Saddam Hussein regime has become so central that other developments are being missed.

Since the massacre in Bali four days ago, this view has become more widespread. But if we are to get a deeper idea of what is really happening, we need to look at a number of events and developments of the past two weeks, perhaps best placed in the context of earlier analyses concerning Afghanistan and Al Qaeda.

There are four incidents, in addition to the bombings in Bali, which are particularly relevant. The first is the attempt to destroy the French supertanker Limburg off the coast of Yemen. The method of this attack was very similar to that employed in the assault on the U.S.S. Cole missile destroyer in Aden harbor, South Yemen, almost exactly two years ago, which killed seventeen U.S. sailors and caused $350 million of damage.

The second incident occurred two days after the Limburg incident, when a pair of gunmen fired on two groups of U.S. marines training on Failaka Island off the Kuwaiti coast. One marine was shot dead and another injured before the attackers were killed. The incident has caused dismay among U.S. officials in the region, not least as it now appears that the assailants had direct links with Al Qaeda and had trained in Afghanistan.

The third incident is the recent success of the United Action Forum in elections in Pakistan, especially in western provinces, not least in the North-West Frontier Province where it gained a majority of seats in the legislative assembly. Although the Forum denies links with Al Qaeda, it has campaigned vigorously on the basis of opposition to U.S. involvement in the region. Its success does not present a substantial threat to President Musharraf's firm control of Pakistan but it does demonstrate the extent of popular antagonism to U.S. policies.

The fourth incident takes us away from Al Qaeda and back to Iraq. It relates to reliable reports (for example in the International Herald Tribune) that U.S. action subsequent to the intended destruction of the Saddam Hussein regime now leans toward the military occupation of Iraq, pending the eventual establishment of some kind of client regime.

Indeed, there is an argument that one of the aims of the 9/11 atrocities was precisely to draw the United States more fully into the region. This has already happened in Afghanistan and in Central Asia--an American occupation of Iraq would, from Al Qaeda's perspective, be as close to a dream result as it could wish for.

This brings us back to the terrible events in Bali. Exactly who was responsible, and the extent of the connections with Al Qaeda, may remain unclear for a long time, but one effect of the atrocity will be to renew a commitment to the war on terror--a war conducted primarily by military means.

This is understandable and should be expected--indeed it may be that one of the purposes of the attack was precisely this result. It is difficult to say this at a time of such suffering and loss of life, but if we respond solely by trying to redouble efforts to destroy Al Qaeda and its associates, the effect may be simply to strengthen their support.

What we are still failing to do is to understand the root causes of the support for such movements. To seek to understand is not to condone in any shape or form, but it does raise the possibility of recognizing the reasons for their enduring support and, in turn, offering some prospect for undercutting it.

The problem is that this different angle of vision would go right to the heart of U.S. policy toward Israel as well as the wider issues of the Western control of the Gulf region. The Bush administration is not remotely prepared to entertain such a consideration--it has to come from elsewhere.

(Paul Rogers is Professor of Peace Studies at Bradford University and is openDemocracy's international security Correspondent, where this first appeared (www.opendemocracy.net). He is a consultant to the Oxford Research Group. The second edition of his book Losing Control has just been published by Pluto Press.)

AFGHANISTAN: DONOR INACTION AND INEFFECTIVENESS
By Mark Sedra

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new Outside the U.S. Global Affairs Commentary available in its entirety at http://www.fpif.org/outside/commentary/2002/0210afghanistanaid.html.)

The fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan in November 2001 presented the international community with an unprecedented opportunity to restore peace and security to a perennial trouble spot. Almost one year later it appears that it has failed.

A rise in insecurity in Afghanistan, marked by a number of high-profile attacks against the central government and occasional interethnic fighting, has appeared to place the new regime's future in jeopardy. There was hope and promise that insecurity would cease with the inauguration of the Afghan Transitional Administration (ATA), led by President Hamid Karzai. Yet despite the tremendous strides made by the ATA, the lawlessness and fragmentation that have undermined so many previous Afghan regimes has reemerged. It is time for the international community to recognize that the deterioration of the security situation can, in part, be attributed to the failure of major donor states to fulfill the commitments they made to Afghanistan.

Four aspects of international involvement in Afghanistan illustrate the ineffectiveness, and at times irresponsibility, of aid donors: the slow pace of internationally directed security-sector reform, the flawed nature of the U.S. military strategy to eradicate Al Qaeda and Taliban forces, the slow and irrational disbursement of aid, and the seemingly innate reluctance to consider the expansion of peacekeeping operations outside Kabul.

Some blame for deteriorating security conditions should be attributed to the international donor community. The most striking failures of the international community can be found in the area of security sector reform, which has progressed at an unexpectedly slow rate due to mismanagement and the inadequate provision of resources. Progress in internationally directed military reform exemplifies the deficiencies of donor action.

A second area in which international intervention has had an adverse impact involves continuing U.S. military operations to uproot remnants of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. U.S. operations have inflamed internal rivalries in the Afghan political sphere, weakened the central administration, and alienated the populace. Although the U.S. government has repeatedly affirmed its determination to bolster the central government of Hamid Karzai, its policy of allying itself with regional warlords has, in contrast, contributed to the country's fragmentation.

The slow and cumbersome nature of the aid regime established at the Tokyo conference is probably the most obvious failing of the international community. Of the $1.8 billion promised to Afghanistan this year, only about $1 billion had been dispensed by September 2002.

Afghan Foreign Minister Dr. Abdullah Abdullah warned that Afghanistan would slide into chaos if the money pledged for reconstruction were withheld. Just 16% of funds for 2002, roughly $87 million, goes directly to the Afghan government--the rest flows primarily via UN agencies and NGOs. By the end of September 2002, the ATA's 2002 budget deficit had reached $166 million. The international community should fulfill the pledges made at the Tokyo Conference. Until the ATA can make good on its development promises to the Afghan people it will not secure their allegiance.

The obstinate position toward the prospect of expanding the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) mission is a final area where the international community has displayed inflexibility and a lack of inventiveness. The ATA, UN Agencies, and aid organizations operating in Afghanistan have pleaded with the UN Security Council to extend ISAF's geographical mandate to areas outside Kabul. The United States and major European countries have consistently dismissed such appeals, stating that the costs associated to the force's expansion in terms of resources and personnel are prohibitive. The sharp rise in instability in Afghanistan has seemingly made donor states, particularly the United States, more amenable to the idea. However, this apparent policy shift has not translated into firm commitments.

(Mark Sedra <sedra@bicc.de> is a research associate at the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC). He is the author of a report entitled Challenging the Warlord Culture: Security Sector Reform in Post-Taliban Afghanistan (forthcoming in November 2002).)

III. LETTERS

ENGAGING MUSLIM INTELLECTUALS

Re: U.S. Policy Toward Political Islam

In the section of your article entitled toward the Middle East policy I respectfully suggest to include the intellectual dialogue between Muslims and bearers of Western civilization. I believe that the isolation of religious educational centers in Islamic countries (in which the religious leaders are educated and indoctrinated) is a major obstacle in developing the peace in the Middle East. Most of the articles about Islam and its social-political relationship with the West is based on the current events and not in its historical perspective. In my opinion the establishment of an independent Islamic Theological School in America should be a component of new U.S. policy toward Islam.

- Mahmood Sarram, MD <msarram@oz.net>

LOOKING AND ACTING AMERICAN IN TEXAS

I think you all are as wrong as you can get. everyone knows he is a bad man and needs to be out of power. Y'all just want to find every little loophole in the system. Y'all talk about human rights are y'all paying attention. Saddam is one of the worst violators of human rights. Show some American pride and respect for your leader. We don't have to go to the UN if we don't want to. We know we are the best and the most powerful nation around. I can't understand why y'all are wasting all of your money on this web site and rallies and other non important stuff when you damn well know we are going to attack and get rid of Saddam. Y'all are a small voice that no one wants to hear. What y'all are saying is that you want Saddam to prove to us that he has weapons of mass destruction. Ok, y'all set back and watch another 3,000 people die then if y'all approve we will go get him. I believe y'all are as un-American as you can get. Come down to Texas, we'll show you what a true American looks and acts like.

- Ben Waters <Benwaters23@yahoo.com>

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