The Progressive Response

Volume 7, Number 16
May 27, 2003

The Progressive Response (PR) is produced weekly by the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC, online at www.irc-online.org) as part of its Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF) project. FPIF, a "Think Tank Without Walls," 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." FPIF is joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Institute for Policy Studies. 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/, or email <feedback@fpif.org> to share your thoughts with us.

John Gershman, editor of Progressive Response, is a senior analyst with the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) (online at www.irc-online.org). He can be contacted at <john@irc-online.org>.

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I. Updates and Out-takes

COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS URGES BUSH ADMINISTRATION TO COMMIT SERIOUSLY TO DIPLOMACY WITH NORTH KOREA
By Jim Lobe

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full online at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0305korea.html .)

The administration of U.S. President George W. Bush should commit itself seriously to resolving the nuclear impasse with North Korea if only to line up support from regional states if stronger measures are needed, according to a new report by the influential Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). "The United States has not persuaded its regional partners that it is serious about negotiations, making efforts to secure their approval for a significantly tougher position difficult if not impossible," according to the blue-ribbon CFR task force that issued the report, Meeting the North Korean Nuclear Challenge. "If negotiations fail or should U.S. intelligence confirm that North Korea has reprocessed spent fuel (for building nuclear weapons), it is uncertain whether our partners would be willing to put significantly greater pressure on North Korea," the report continued, calling the current situation a "genuine crisis."

Until now, the administration has been deeply split between hawks, centered primarily in the Pentagon, and pro-engagement forces led by the State Department, according to the task force, which was chaired by the former president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Ambassador Morton Abramowitz, and James Laney, ambassador to South Korea from 1993-97.

The result has been an inconsistent policy that has created confusion among Washington's partners in the region, including South Korea, China, Japan, and Russia who "fear that the United States will attack North Korean nuclear facilities and unleash war on the peninsula."

But Bush should now come down firmly in favor of serious diplomacy, according to the report, which also called for the appointment of a senior official assigned "full-time responsibility for co-ordinating U.S. policy, dealing with the allies, and negotiating with North Korea."

The report, which echoes some of the major recommendations made in February by another task force sponsored by the Washington-based Center for International Policy and the Center for East Asian Studies of the University of Chicago, comes amid continuing uncertainty and concern about Pyongyang's intentions.

On the eve of the first meeting between Bush and South Korea's new president, Roh Moo Hyun at the White House last Wednesday, North Korea announced that it was renouncing its 1992 "de-nuclearization" pledge with South Korea. It was the latest move in a steady escalation that began last October when Pyongyang confirmed to a U.S. negotiator that it had a secret program to make highly enriched uranium (HEU).

Since then, the North has withdrawn from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), asserted that it possesses nuclear weapons, and declared that it is reprocessing spent fuel from the Yongbyon nuclear plant whose operations were frozen under the 1994 "Agreed Framework" accord between Pyongyang and Washington. If true--something which U.S. intelligence agencies have been unable to confirm--Pyongyang could produce half a dozen nuclear bombs by year's end.

That prospect is a nightmare for U.S. national security officials who believe that North Korea, which is desperate for foreign exchange, would be willing to sell the weapons to all comers, including terrorist groups, such as al Qaeda.

(Jim Lobe <jlobe@starpower.net> is a political analyst with Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org). He also writes regularly for Inter Press Service.)

TIME TO QUESTION THE U.S. ROLE IN SAUDI ARABIA
By Stephen Zunes

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full online at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0305saudi.html .)

The terrorist bombings that struck Saudi Arabia on May 12th have raised a number of serious questions regarding American security interests in the Middle East. First of all, the attacks underscore the concern expressed by many independent strategic analysts that the United States has been squandering its intelligence and military resources toward Iraq--which had nothing to do with al Qaeda and posed no direct danger to the United States--and not toward al Qaeda itself, which is the real threat.

More importantly, however, the bombings bring to the fore the question of whether U.S. interests have been enhanced or threatened by the cozy American relationship with Saudi Arabia. The kingdom of Saudi Arabia has traditionally been the most important American ally in the Arab or Islamic world. It is run exclusively by a royal family that allows neither public dissent nor an independent press. Those who dare challenge the regime or its policies are punished severely. There is no constitution, no political parties, and no legislature. It was under such an environment of repression that Osama bin Laden and most of his followers first emerged.

Long shielded by the monarchy's willingness to supply the United States with cheap oil, to subsidize the American arms industry with major weapons purchases, and to make lucrative deals with other major U.S. corporate interests, the United States has allowed this family dictatorship to get away with practices that would have been considered unacceptable from almost any other country.

Both Democratic and Republican administrations have revealed their blatant hypocrisy by wailing about the plight of Afghan women while being dismissive of the treatment of Saudi women; by condemning the rigid Islamic laws in Iran as human rights violations while defending the even more repressive variants in Saudi Arabia as somehow an inherent part of their culture; by demanding that Palestinian statehood be dependent upon establishing a leadership committed to democracy and accountability while backing the corrupt and autocratic Saudi leadership.

Human rights activists for years have been raising doubts about the close strategic relationship both Democratic and Republican parties have had with the Saudi regime, particularly the massive arms transfers and military training, including its repressive internal security apparatus. Such critics have railed against the regime's misogyny, theocratic fascism, and links to terrorism, but to no avail. Despite the close ties between Washington and Riyadh, there have never been any congressional hearings--under either Republican or Democratic leaderships--regarding human rights abuses by the Saudi government.

F. Gregory Gause III, a contemporary specialist on Saudi Arabia at the University of Vermont, notes: "The truth is the more democratic the Saudis become, the less cooperative they will be with us. So why should we want that?"

Such a policy raises both serious moral questions and as well as serious doubts about whether the United States really cares about freedom for Iraq while it helps make possible repression by other Arab governments.

(Stephen Zunes <zunes@usfca.edu> is Middle East Editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project (online at www.fpif.org). He is an associate professor of Politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco and is the author of the recently released Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism, from Common Courage Press (online at www.commoncouragepress.com).)

BOMBINGS BRING U.S. 'EXECUTIVE MERCENARIES' INTO THE LIGHT
By William D. Hartung

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full online at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0305vinnell.html .)

You had probably never heard of the Vinnell Corp. before the brutal bombing that killed at least nine of its employees in Saudi Arabia this week, but you should have.

This is the second time Vinnell's Saudi operations have been targeted. The first attack, in November 1995, hit the headquarters of the Saudi Arabian National Guard, or SANG, and a nearby office complex that housed Vinnell employees. Though both attacks were decried by U.S. officials as senseless violence, they actually had a chillingly clear, brutal logic.

Vinnell's job in Saudi Arabia is to train the national guard, which Jane's Defense Weekly has described as "a kind of Praetorian Guard for the House of Saud, the royal family's defense of last resort against internal opposition." That is why company employees were targeted in 1995 and again last week. The story of how an obscure American firm ended up becoming an integral part of the Saudi monarchy's handpicked internal security force is a case study in how unaccountable private companies have become a central tool of U.S. foreign policy.

The question now is what to do about companies like Vinnell, which is currently a subsidiary of Northrop Grumman Mission Systems, and which received a new $831-million, five-year contract in 1998.

There have been recriminations in recent days about whether Saudi officials did enough to protect the Vinnell compound, but these criticisms miss the larger point: Why is it necessary for a U.S. company to play such a central role in training the Saudi regime's Praetorian Guard? And if the hired "protectors" of the Saudi regime can't even protect their own employees in the kingdom, has the time come to rethink the U.S. commercial/military presence in Riyadh?

Just as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has suggested decreasing the U.S. troop presence in Saudi Arabia, it may be time to look at reducing the role of private military companies there as well.

As the second attack on Vinnell in eight years suggests, in the context of Saudi society, the presence of "executive mercenaries" is apparently no less provocative than the presence of uniformed personnel.

While we're looking at the Saudi situation, let's also review the wisdom of using private military companies like Vinnell, DynCorps, and Halliburton to do everything from bombing drug labs in Colombia to rebuilding Iraq. If we are going to rely more heavily on these firms to carry out U.S. policies, let's at least set some clear ground rules for their operations, to ensure a higher level of transparency and accountability.

Curbing the privatization of our foreign policy would be good for our democracy, good for America's global reputation, and good for the employees of companies like Vinnell, who have all too often been put in harm's way.

(William D. Hartung is a senior research fellow at the World Policy Institute and a contributor to the forthcoming Power Trip: Unilateralism and Global Strategy after September 11 (Seven Stories Press). He serves on the Advisory Committee for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org). This commentary first appeared in the May 16, 2003 edition of the Los Angeles Times.)

UNITED STATES AND EUROPE EXPERIENCE CONTINENTAL DRIFT
By Peter Howard

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full online at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0305europe.html .)

The distance between the United States and Europe is slowly growing wider--about an inch each year, geologists estimate, due to the expansion of the Atlantic Ocean. Politically, the Atlantic Ocean has been a much less stable barrier between the United States and Europe. The first U.S. president, George Washington, viewed the Atlantic's vast distance as America's ultimate protection from the power politics of European monarchs and warned future presidents to avoid entangling alliances. Following World War II, U.S. leaders such as President Harry S. Truman and Secretaries of State George Marshall and Dean Acheson saw Europe and America as part of the same region, the compact North Atlantic, giving rise to the NATO and the Marshall Plan. Most recently, in the diplomacy prior to the Iraq war, a new rift developed between the United States and its European allies, culminating in U.S. recriminations against France and Germany, members of "Old Europe," effectively blocking any UN authorization for the U.S.- and U.K.-led war. Now that the war is over, how much distance is there between the United States and Europe?

The answer is decidedly mixed. On the one hand, the present post-war environment is not nearly as bad as many had feared it would be:

The combat phase of the war defied all but the most optimistic expectations.
The UN did not completely collapse after the frustrating and ultimately failed Security Council diplomacy to prevent or authorize the war.
There was no consequential eruption of anti-U.S. politics in the world. While there were large demonstrations against the war, no governments have fallen as a result of the war.
The United States and Europe are continuing to work to improve their relationship in other critical areas.

On the other hand, substantial policy differences remain, and they are slowly dividing the United States and Europe:

While the immediate trans-Atlantic tiff has receded, the recriminations are far from over. France has achieved a new status in pop culture as the ultimate antithesis to the United States.
The Old Europe distinction remains alive and well in the White House and Pentagon, where it counts.
Europe is taking the first steps in the long process of developing the military capability to act independently of the United States in international security affairs.

In the short run, trans-Atlantic relations are likely to return to some semblance of normalcy, with the United States and Europe bouncing from disagreement in one area to cooperation in another. Despite Javier Solana's best efforts, Europe still does not speak with one voice in international affairs. European countries most certainly will not merge their defense capabilities into a united army of Europe any time soon, and as a result, Europe will continue to lack the wherewithal to effectively challenge the United States on global security issues. NATO will expand and survive, but its identity remains in post-cold war flux.

Yet these long-term trends can slowly separate historic allies who now see the world in fundamentally different terms. While the physical distance between the United States and Europe continues to grow at the steady and predictable inch per year, the political distance between them is neither inevitable nor irreversible. Absent some political tectonics, though, Europe and the United States are slowly drifting apart.

(Dr. Peter Howard <phoward@american.edu>is a Post-Doctoral Fellow at American University in Washington, DC and writes on U.S.-European relations for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org).)

II. Outside the U.S.

SHARON IS COMING TO INDIA
By Ninan Koshy

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new Outside the U.S. commentary available in full online at http://www.fpif.org/outside/commentary/2003/0305indisrael.html .)

Close on the heels of Indian National Security Adviser Brajesh Mishra's call for an India-U.S.-Israel strategic alliance, comes the confirmation that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon will be visiting India in the next few weeks. Some observers in New Delhi consider Mishra's call, made at the annual dinner of the American Jewish Committee, as a curtain raiser for the Sharon visit. What they seem to ignore is that the India-U.S.-Israel strategic alliance has moved beyond last call to center stage and that the plan for Sharon's visit is some 15 months old.

It was an ironic coincidence that Brajesh Mishra was closeted in his office in New Delhi on Sept. 11, 2001 with his Israeli counterpart Maj. Gen. Uzi Dayan and engaged in what was dubbed a "joint security strategy dialogue" when the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon occurred. Their discussion had to be discontinued as they turned to the television news. Favored by the climate of the ensuing War on Terror, the security relationship between India and Israel developed into a strategic alliance in tandem with the India-U.S. strategic partnership.

The alliance between India and Israel--one an open member of the international nuclear club and the other a secret member--is based predominantly on military and intelligence cooperation. Israel has become the second-largest supplier of arms for India, next only to Russia. Israel has provided India with sea-to-sea missile radar and other similar systems, border monitoring equipment, and night vision devices. It also has upgraded India's Soviet-era aircraft.

(Dr. Ninan Koshy <knkoshy@vsnl.com> is a political commentator based in Trivandrum, Kerala, India, author of The War on Terror: Reordering the World (DAGA Press, 2002), and a regular analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org).)

JAKARTA PEACE CONSENSUS

(Editor's Note: FPIF is committed to supporting an ongoing strategic dialogue about the directions of the peace movement. We are publishing a series of discussion papers and reprinting declarations and documents from peace organizations that contribute to that debate. In that vein we reprint the Jakarta Peace Consensus document drafted at a recent international meeting entitled "International Solidarity in the era of Globalization and Militarism" held in Jakarta from May 19-21, 2003 and attended by over 100 peace activists from 26 countries. Attendees included co-host Dita Sari, Walden Bello, Chandra Muzzafar, Phyllis Bennis, Lydia Cairncross, Hussein Amin, Etta Rosales, and Jaran Ditapichai ).

We the undersigned, peace activists representing social movements and networks from 26 countries in Asia, Europe, Australia, Africa, Latin and North America, have come together in Jakarta, Indonesia. Over the last three days we have voiced our outrage at the escalating military aggression led by the U.S. government, most recently against Iraq.

We declare the war and invasion of Iraq to be unjust, illegal and illegitimate and call on the international community to condemn this U.S.-led aggression. We demand an immediate withdrawal of all foreign troops from Iraq and that Iraqis be allowed to determine their future in line with the principle of self-determination. This conference calls on all governments to withhold recognition from any regime set up in Iraq by the U.S. occupiers.

We propose to the peace movement the establishment of an international People s Tribunal to pass judgement on the perpetrators of the war and investigate war crimes. The war allies must take political, moral, and economic responsibility for their crimes. This includes the payment of war reparations directly to the Iraqis, who should administer the reconstruction of their country independently of the control of foreign corporations, the World Bank and UN. Permanent members of the UN Security Council must take similar responsibility for the effects of more than 10 years of sanctions. We call for the scrapping of all Iraqi debt. At the same time we note the hypocrisy of the U.S. government in calling for this cancellation to serve its objectives, while demanding payment of onerous debts from all other developing countries.

While tanks and bombs destroyed Iraq, in nearby Palestine the U.S.-backed Israeli armed forces continued to murder, harass, and incarcerate the Palestinian people in measures reminiscent of Apartheid South Africa. We commit ourselves to the international struggle for the end of the colonial occupation of Palestine, and call for the dismantling of all Israeli settlements and the right of return for all Palestinian refugees. We condemn the continued U.S. interference in Palestine and demand the recognition of Palestinian national rights as a precondition for a just and therefore lasting peace in the region.

We see the invasion of Iraq as part of the on-going economic war against peoples of the South. Under the rules of the IMF/World Bank and WTO our world is becoming increasingly unjust and unequal. The WTO meeting in Cancun, Mexico, in September will be another forum at which the leaders of the imperialist world will plan their strategies. They are plunging the world into a series of wars in the quest for oil, for economic and political hegemony and to ensure the subjugation of the working class and impoverished masses.

In the name of fighting "terrorism" the U.S. government has created the indefensible concept of pre-emptive war. Beneath this banner it has attacked Afghanistan yesterday, Iraq today and tomorrow's targets may be Syria, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela, Colombia, Cuba, or any other nation that is seen as opposing the U.S. government's political and economic interests. We note with concern the growing militarization of the world, which is expressed both in open and covert wars and the proliferation of U.S. military bases, increasing military expenditure and military operations. We also oppose acts of aggression whether they be against the people of Aceh, Mindanao, Kashmir, or Kurdistan. In this atmosphere of militarism, police harassment of marginalized communities, migrants, and ethnic minorities is escalating. We call for global disarmament. In particular we demand the decommissioning of all nuclear weapons. We support the call for the Middle East to become a zone free of weapons of mass destruction, not least in Israel, the state with the most destructive capacity.

We resolve to continue to build the international peace movement, which showed its strength so dramatically on February 14-16, 2003, where millions marched against the war in Iraq.

Our principles include building a genuine internationalism from below, where we establish a new international community based on equality and democracy. While our work is international, we will also challenge our own national governments where their policies contribute to war, militarism and neo-liberalism. We oppose war in all forms whether open, declared, interstate war, war against social movements, economic war against the poor peoples of the world, or war against political activists and opponents of the dominant order. We aim to maintain the broadest possible unity among our diverse organizations including organizations from the Islamic community, environmental groups, and movements opposing racism and sexism. Our work will be linked to the growing social and class movements resisting neoliberal globalization, as war through guns and bombs is only the bloodiest expression of domination by neoliberalism and imperialism.

We believe that a world free of war, exploitation, inequality, poverty, and repression is possible. We see the reality of this alternative visible within the growing movements of youth, women, workers, students, migrants, the unemployed, human rights and peace activists, and citizens who are bringing their spirit, energy, and work together in the fight for genuine peace based on global justice for all the world's peoples.

We call upon all organizations, social movements, and persons who share our analysis and plan of action to join our common efforts oriented toward the creation of a worldwide Solidarity Network for Global Peace at a future time, particularly during the meetings in Evian (G-8 summit), Cancun (WTO-Conference), the regional Social Forums, and the World Social Forum in Bombay.

(For more information on the Jakarta Peace Consensus see http://www.focusweb.org/publications/2003/jakarta-consensus.pdf or contact Herbert Docena of Focus on the Global South at <herbert@focusphilippines.org>.)

III. Letters and Comments

WONDERFUL ARTICLE

Re: Heavy Words or Heavy Actions: Stop U.S. Weapons Sales to Israel

This is a wonderful article that is most informative. I am sorry that more U.S. citizens are not aware of where their tax dollars are going. I just spent two weeks in the Middle East visiting Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, and the Territories. We lived with Palestinians and Israelis during our stay. During the two weeks in the Middle East, I have never seen such military hardware. The fact that it is being used on a defenseless population is horrifying. The F-16 attack is one thing but what about the Fleshettes being used in Gaza too? The American people must be asked to consider who the terrorist is, a kid who straps explosives onto himself or a government that uses a highly trained pilot in an American-made F-16 to level an apartment building to kill one man? We spent one day in Shatila in Lebanon and have come to the realization that the biggest terrorist in the Middle East wears a badly tailored suit, and also happens to be the Prime Minister of Israel. Congress is useless when you consider most of our aid to Israel comes back to us in the form of requests for American military aid. This means American jobs and the voting public. We have created a monster. I hope as a nation, that we have the backbone to control it.

- Peter W. Churchill <peterc@town.bedford.ma.us>

CRITICAL OF ANALYSIS OF U.S.-INDIA ALLIANCE

Re: India/US: A Dangerous Alliance

It is evident from the content of the website, and in particular this article, that your group is not a forum for objective or even rational analysis of us foreign policy. There is an unmistakable bias against the current administration in Washington. It would not be at all surprising to know that your fiscal viability is somehow being underwritten by either Beijing or the Chinese lobby here in the U.S.

Notwithstanding the above, your piece does raise some genuine issues. First, yes, the Indians can not compete with the Chinese both in the economic or military fronts. PRC has a 12-year lead in the economic sector and close to a 20-year lead in the military/strategic arena. The leadership in Delhi is or should be keenly aware of this conundrum and should not act in a manner that promotes the military complex at the expense of neglecting poverty alleviation and other social goals.

Secondly, yes, India should indeed be prudent in developing its alliance with the U.S.. But why should the Indians proceed in a manner that necessarily accommodates Beijing. After all, the Chinese have never acted with even the slightest concern towards India's interest. China has always perceived India as a rival, both in civilization terms and in geopolitical terms, and has conducted its policy in the region with that as its linchpin. Let us not forget that China is a brutal one party regime that denies civil liberties to its citizens and at the same time is an overt hegemon to its neighbors. That is why I find your comment that there is no evidence that "China is particularly aggressive," intriguing. Why is it that the PRC has one of the highest rates of defense expenditures as percentage of its GDP? I certainly don't think it has any benevolent uses for such an outlay.

In sum, India must find and affirm strategic and strong partners so as to ensure its security goals. The U.S. offers India a stable and enduring partnership in the pursuit of that goal. I would find a response both courteous and helpful.

- HIMANSHU KUMAR RATTAN <ATTAN1@YAHOO.COM>

RESPONSE by Conn Hallinan

I quite admit to being a critic of the Bush administration, in both domestic and foreign policy. Most Americans are as well. If one adds up the Democratic vote and the vote for Ralph Nader, the majority of Americans are in no way supportive of the present administration. They may rally during a war, but as the war seems to go on forever, and the economy gets worse, in the long run that support is likely to fray rather badly.

I also quite agree that India must see to its own security. That is why I think bedding down with the Bush administration is a bad idea. America is more isolated than it has ever been, and it is increasingly run by a narrow-minded and aggressive cabal that fully intends to spread the "lesson of Iraq" elsewhere. It has already sharply attacked India for its relations with Iran. The Bush administration has said, "You are with us, or you are against us." Is India prepared to do that? Is this direction India should go?

Lastly, I have no illusions about China. I don't like one-party states (although being from the U.S. I don't much like two-party states either) and I am fully aware that China wants influence in Asia and beyond. But I repeat that I do not think they are aggressive. They tend to make pronouncements, but do you really think they will invade Taiwan? I think not. Vietnam? They already got a bloody nose on that one. The Chinese will not be pushed around (neither will the Indians: colonialism makes one allergic to being bullied), but war is not an option for them. Their Vietnam debacle set their economy back 10 years. And the $37 billion military spending is the same as Japan. Yes, the economy is smaller so it represents a larger section of the GDP, but it is still peanuts. The Americans could find that kind of money by rooting about in the Pentagon's couches.

The people who run the Bush administration have a view of the world and a set of goals that are not in the interests of India. Indeed, they will only cause India more trouble in the long run. That is why I think this growing military alliance with the U.S. is like that old expression about the trouble with lying down with dogs: you rise up with fleas.

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The Progressive Response

Table of Contents

I. Updates and Out-Takes

II. Outside the U.S.

III. Letters and Comments

I. Updates and Out-takes

II. Outside the U.S.

III. Letters and Comments

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