The Progressive Response

Volume 8, Number 11
April 12, 2004

Editor: John Gershman, Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC)

We Count on Your Support!
Foreign Policy In Focus	www.fpif.org

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) and co-director of FPIF. He can be contacted at <john@irc-online.org>.

I. Updates and Out-Takes

NEOCONSERVATIVES TRY TO SUGGEST THAT SADR UPRISING IS “MADE IN TEHERAN”
By Jim Lobe

RISE OF THE MACHINES
By Conn Hallinan

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WAR: IRAQ AND VIETNAM
By Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.)

LIBYA'S RETURN TO THE FOLD?
By Christopher Boucek

DEFENSE OF ISRAELI ASSASSINATION POLICY BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION AND DEMOCRATIC LEADERS AN AFFRONT TO INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ISRAELI SECURITY
By Stephen Zunes

II. Letters and Comments

DANGEROUS WEAPON

I. Updates and Out-Takes

NEOCONSERVATIVES TRY TO SUGGEST THAT SADR UPRISING IS “MADE IN TEHERAN”
By Jim Lobe

(Editor’s Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0404neoconsadr.html .)

Despite the growing number of reports that depict the past week's uprising by the radical Shia cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, and his Mahdi Army as a spontaneous and indigenous revolt, some influential U.S. neoconservatives are insisting that Iran is behind it. They are calling on the Bush administration to warn Teheran to cease its alleged backing for al-Sadr and other Shia militias or face retaliation, ranging from an attack on Iranian nuclear facilities to covert action designed to overthrow the government.

But independent experts on both Iran and Iraq say that, while Iran has no doubt provided various forms of assistance to Shia factions in Iraq since Hussein's ouster one year ago, its relations with Sadr have long been rocky and that it has opposed radical actions that could destabilize the situation. “Those elements closest to Iran among the Shiite clerics (in Iraq) have been the most moderate through all of this,” according to Shaul Bakhash, an Iran expert at George Mason University. Indeed, many regional specialists agree that Iran has a strategic interest in avoiding any train of events that risks plunging Iraq into chaos or civil war and partition.

Neoconservatives centered in Vice President Dick Cheney’s office and among the civilian leadership in the Pentagon have strongly opposed any détente with Iran and have frequently blamed it for problems it has encountered in both Afghanistan and Iraq.

Neoconservatives outside the administration, such as former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle and his colleagues at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), Michael Ledeen and Reuel Marc Gerecht, called even before the Iraq war for Washington to support indigenous efforts to oust the “mullahcracy” in Teheran which is seen as an arch-enemy of both the U.S. and Israel.

Some neoconservatives have seized on Sadr’s uprising as a new opportunity both to raise tensions against Iran and to divert attention from their own bungling of relations with the Shia community in Iraq.

“The neoconservatives are all so heavily invested in the success of Iraq that, instead of blaming the Pentagon for some extraordinary blunders, they want to blame everyone else--the State Department, the Iranians, the Syrians for the mess that was partly of their own making,” according to Geoffrey Kemp, an Iran specialist at the Nixon Center and Middle East adviser on Ronald Reagan’s National Security Council staff.

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

For more analysis from FPIF see:

From Iraqi Occupation to Islamic Reformation: Neocons Aim Beyond Baghdad
By Jim Lobe (April 9, 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0404neocons.html

Limited War Now Versus Civil War Later?
By Jim Lobe (April 6, 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0404sadr.html

RISE OF THE MACHINES
By Conn Hallinan

(Editor’s Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0404machines.html .)

The press had lots of fun with the recent robot debacle in the Mojave Desert. Competing for $1 million in prize money, 15 vehicles headed off on a 142-mile course through some of the most forbidding terrain in the country. None managed to navigate even eight miles. The robots hit fences, caught fire, rolled over, or sat and did nothing.

However, the purpose of the event was not NASCAR for nerds, but a coldly calculated plan to construct a generation of killer machines.

Sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Mar. 13 “race” was part of the Department of Defense’s (DOE) plan to make one third of the military’s combat vehicles driverless by 2015. The push to replace soldiers with machines is impelled by an over extended military searching for ways to limit U.S. casualties, a powerful circle of arms manufactures, and an empire-minded group of politicians addicted to campaign contributions by defense corporations.

This “rise of the machines” is at the heart of the Bush administration’s recent military budget. Sandwiched into outlays for aircraft, artillery, and conventional weapons, are monies for unmanned combat aircraft, robot tanks, submarines, and a supersonic bomber capable of delivering six tons of bombs and missiles to any place on the globe in two hours.

DARPA, the agency behind these Buck Rogers weapons systems, has a mixed track record, somewhere between silly and sobering. The mechanical elephant it developed for the Vietnam War was not a keeper, and one doubts that the robot canine for the Army, aptly dubbed “Big Dog,” will ever get off the drawing boards. But DARPA also gave us stealth technology, the M-16 rifle, cruise missiles, and the unmanned Predator armed with the deadly Hellfire Missile.

According to U.S. Rep. Curt Weldon (R-PA), chair of the House Subcommittee on Procurements, one-third of U.S. tactical-strike aircraft will be unmanned within the next 10 years.

The military’s interest is in part a function of the Vietnam Syndrome: lots of aluminum caskets and weeping survivors play poorly on the six o’clock news. While so far the Bush administration has managed to keep these images at arm’s length by simply banning the media from filming C-130s disgorging the wounded and the slain, as casualty lists grows longer, that will get harder to do.

The lure of being able to fight a war without getting your own people killed is a seductive one. “It is possible that in our lifetime we will be able to run a conflict without ever leaving the United States,” Lt. Col. David Branham told the New York Times last year.

A high-tech machine war would allow the U.S. to quickly strike over enormous distances, an important capability in the Bush administration’s pre-emptive war strategy.

In his book Virtual War, historian Michael Ignatieff asks the question “If western nations can employ violence with impunity, will they not be tempted to use it more often?”

The “impunity,” of course, is fantasy. Our military may indeed be able to kill at enormous distances with its Frankenstein killing machines. But all that means is that civilians, not the military, become targets. Ask the relatives of those who died in the Twin Towers, the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the nightclub on Bali, and the commuter train in Spain if high tech war has no casualties.

(Conn Hallinan is an analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus (www.fpif.org) and a provost at UC Santa Cruz.)

For more analysis from FPIF see:

Rumsfeld's New Model Army
By Conn Hallinan (November 4, 2003)
http://www.presentdanger.org/commentary/2003/0311transf.html

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF WAR: IRAQ AND VIETNAM
By Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.)

(Editor’s Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0404iraq-vietnam.html .)

President Bush effectively declared the war in Iraq to be “over” last May, but the photos told a different story, one the administration has tried to suppress in the consciousness of the U.S. public. Emblazoned on the front pages of the April 7 editions of The New York Times and The Washington Post, the photos showed U.S. soldiers carrying body bags of comrades killed in the latest upsurge in violence in Iraq.

Two days earlier, in a Washington, DC speech, Senator Edward Kennedy (D-MA) had articulated the question contained in the sad, silent images in the pictures: will Iraq be George Bush’s Vietnam?

Kennedy’s address came after one of the bloodiest weekends in Iraq--at least 61 U.S., Salvadoran, and Iraqis killed in clashes between occupation forces and Moqtada al-Sadr’s “Mahdi Army.”

More was to come--in Ramadi, Fallujah, Baghdad, Karbala, Amara, Nasiriyah, Kut, Mosul, and Kirkut. By April 7, 22 more U.S. and two coalition personnel had been killed, at least 50 others wounded, and unknown numbers of Iraqis killed and wounded. Ominously, one report noted that even children were setting up roadblocks, raising the specter of an intifada-like resistance taking hold.

Last November, when 82 U.S. soldiers died, the same “Iraq equals Vietnam” question was raised. At first glance, then as now, the hard facts and the numbers of “boots on the ground” suggest that Iraq is quite different from Vietnam. South Vietnam was not a defeated country but an ally of the United States. It had a “functioning” army that operated against insurgents being aided and directed by the communist regime in North Vietnam.

But there are some disquieting similarities.

One of the most serious is the dominance of Win-Lose Psychology.

The U.S. saw Vietnam as part of the zero-sum contest between the superpowers of democracy and communism, with Vietnam as the first “domino.” Although today the U.S. has no rival superpower, the same mentality is at play--witness President Bush’s declaration that “you are either with us or against us.”

Unfortunately, in an occupied Iraq, there is a third option at work, one which the U.S. failed to recognize in Vietnam. This option is rooted in the psychology of a deeply held nationalism that rebels against foreign military forces. It is a psychology that grew from decades of colonial subjugation, both in Vietnam and Iraq. Moreover, this nationalism finds reinforcement in the opposition of religious leaders to the indigenous ruling authority that is regarded as the puppet of the foreign forces. In Vietnam, Buddhist monks and nuns burned themselves to death. In Iraq, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has withheld support for the IGC and the Transitional Law. Other key clerics such as Abdul Aziz Hakim, whose political party controls the Badr Brigade, have directed pointed remarks at the occupation authorities that killing and wounding innocent people cannot be justified. And both clerics and ordinary Iraqis interviewed by journalists warn against attempts by coalition forces to arrest religious figures or to violate mosques and other religious sites.

The administration vows it will not “cut and run.” And the numbers would seem to be all in its favor. In Vietnam, the nominal ratio of “friendly to enemy” was roughly 3.5 to 1. In Iraq, if the CPA and Pentagon numbers are taken as the most accurate, the ratio is an astronomical 58 to 1. Even adding in al-Sadr’s 10,000 gives a “friendly to enemy” ratio of 24 to 1.

Obviously, there is something amiss.

The violence in Iraq this week may well be contained by U.S. and coalition forces. But the question is “at what price?” In Vietnam, the 1968 Tet offensive was a comprehensive battlefield defeat for the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces. But it was a psychological and ultimately strategic defeat for the U.S. public and the Johnson administration.

Battles may be won or lost by armies, but wars are decided by mind and will of those directly involved or even peripherally affected. Some Iraqis seem to have decided; many more may be at the “tipping point.” For a U.S. public with many doubts about the Bush administration’s conduct of the “war on terror” in general and the war in Iraq in particular, this week may prove to be psychologically pivotal as well.

(Dan Smith is a military affairs analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org), a retired U.S. army colonel and a senior fellow on Military Affairs at the Friends Committee on National Legislation.)

For more analysis from FPIF see:

Travails of Transition: Iraq on the Brink
By Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.) (February 23, 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0402brink.html

Quagmire? What Quagmire?
By Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.) (September 3, 2003)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0309quagmire.html

Iraq: Descending Into the Quagmire
By Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.) (June 2003)
http://www.fpif.org/papers/quagmire2003.html

The Psychological War at Home and Abroad
By Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.) (March 3, 2003)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0303psychowar.html

LIBYA'S RETURN TO THE FOLD?
By Christopher Boucek

(Editor’s Note: Excerpted from a new policy report available in full at http://www.fpif.org/papers/2004libya.html .)

Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Qadhafi's surprise announcement on 19 December to commit to "disclose and dismantle all weapons of mass destruction" has furthered speculation that Tripoli may soon be removed from the American list of state sponsors of terrorism. Such a move would bring about an end to U.S. economic sanctions that have been in place in one form or another for the past 30 years. Since the September 11th terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, DC, the Libyan regime has made significant and progressive steps to rejoin the international community. Tripoli's desire to emerge from international isolation and end its pariah status now stands at a critical juncture: Does Qadhafi mean what he says and will Washington reciprocate and normalize relations with Libya?

Despite much of the commentary on and analysis of Qadhafi's latest move in the mass media, the announcement to renounce Libya's quest for WMD was not a reaction to the war in Iraq as much as it was a continuation of Tripoli's desire to return to the fold. The discussions with Tripoli, conducted through British and American "good offices," have been going on for the past several years. The 19 December announcement has been a component of Libyan policy to graduate from American sanctions that began well in advance of the start of Operation Iraqi Freedom. Furthermore, these discussions were conducted parallel to the Lockerbie negotiations held between the Washington, London, and Tripoli.

Following the 2001 terror attacks, Libya was among the first nations to "express its condolences to Washington." Colonel Qadhafi further condemned the attacks as "horrifying and destructive," justified American military action as an act of self-defense, called on Libyans to "donate blood" to support the relief efforts in the U.S., and "denounced the use of anthrax attacks as 'demonic.'" While illustrative of the seismic geopolitical reorganization brought about by al Qaeda's assault on the American homeland, Qadhafi's public demeanor of support to Washington stems largely from Tripoli's intense desire to normalize relations with Washington.

For Libya, positive relations with the United States not only equate to much needed American financial and technological investment; almost as importantly they translate into "the imprimatur of acceptance into the international community after years in the diplomatic wilderness." Most significantly, an end to the U.S. sanctions would allow Libya to seek badly needed access to international financial organizations.

While Libya has of late played a constructive role in regional affairs and also participated in several international organizations--including the Arab League, the African Union, and the Community of Sahel-Saharan States (CEN-SAD)--American and other international sanctions have proved challenging. For instance, Tripoli would be eager to see the EU arms embargo lifted. Most significantly, an end to the U.S. sanctions would allow Libya to seek badly needed access to international financial organizations.

Unlike other states, Libya has not suffered complete international isolation. North Korea, for instance, has been on the receiving end of much harsher international restrictions and punitive measures; comparatively Tripoli has had a relatively free hand in its foreign policy. Nonetheless, U.S.-driven sanctions have carried a high price for Tripoli.

Toward that end, the Libyan government has cooperated with American intelligence agencies to "share what information it has on the activities" of al Qaeda, and also provided Washington with intelligence about "Libyan Islamist militants tied to al Qaeda." Libya, it is important to recall, has felt itself at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates since at least the 1996 assassination attempt against Qadhafi by the militant Libyan Islamic Fighting Group--a group designated by the U.S. government as a foreign terrorist organization. Tripoli has maintained that the LIFG plot was inspired and financed by the al Qaeda organization, and subsequently issued the first Interpol arrest warrant for Osama bin Laden.

(Christopher Boucek is the editor of the Homeland Security & Resilience Monitor at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies in London, and serves on the international board of advisers of the Journal of Libyan Studies (Oxford). This originally appeared as a Strategic Insight Vol III, Issue 3 (March 2004) produced by the Center for Contemporary Conflict at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, California and is reprinted with permission by Foreign Policy in Focus (www.fpif.org).)

For more analysis from FPIF see:

Implications of the Seventh Majlis Elections in Iran
By Christopher Boucek (March 24, 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0403iran.html

Lessons From Qaddafi
By Ronald Bruce St John (March 14, 2003)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0303qaddafi.html

DEFENSE OF ISRAELI ASSASSINATION POLICY BY THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION AND DEMOCRATIC LEADERS AN AFFRONT TO INTERNATIONAL LAW AND ISRAELI SECURITY
By Stephen Zunes

(Editor’s Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0404yassin.html .)

The U.S. veto of a proposed UN Security Council resolution criticizing Israel’s March 22 assassination of Hamas founder Sheik Ahmed Yassin has once again placed the United States both on the fringe of international public opinion and in opposition to international legal norms. Despite the proposed resolution condemning “all attacks against civilians,” the United States once again was the lone dissenting vote, marking the 28 th time since 1970 that the U.S. has blocked a Security Council resolution criticizing the actions of its most important Middle Eastern ally.

This is more than all the other permanent members of the Security Council have used their veto power on all other issues during that period combined.

The Fourth Geneva Conventions--to which both Israel and the United States are signatories, and which the UN Security Council, in previous unanimous resolutions, has determined applies to the Israeli-occupied territories--explicitly prohibits “the carrying out of executions without previous judgment pronounced by a regularly constituted court, affording all the judicial guarantees which are recognized as indispensable by civilized people.” [Article 3(I)]

Furthermore, even if Ahmed Yassin was complicit in earlier acts of terrorism, the elderly, quadriplegic sheik would still be considered a “protected person,” which the 1949 treaty describes as those “taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces … placed hors de combat [out of combat] by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause.”

Sheik Yassin had been imprisoned twice in recent years by Israeli occupation forces, but Israel set him free without any charges of involvement with acts of terrorism. Though the Israeli military launched frequent raids in the Gaza Strip and other Palestinian areas to arrest suspects, they made no attempt to re-arrest Yassin. Similarly, the Israelis made no formal extradition request to the Palestine Authority.

Yassin was a spiritual leader, not a military leader. Despite his reactionary interpretation of Islamic teachings and his rationalizations for attacks against Israeli civilians, he was not generally considered to be in the chain of command regarding Hamas terrorist operations. Indeed, his failing health alone--at the time of his assassination, he was largely blind and deaf--limited his effectiveness as anything more than a symbolic figure.

In any case, Hamas was never a cult of personality centered around one person. Its multifaceted operations--which, in addition to its military wing, include a network of schools, health care clinics, and other basic social services--operated well during periods in which Yassin was jailed.

In more recent, years Sheik Yassin had been considered a relatively moderate voice, supporting a series of ceasefires with Israel (each of which Israel broke by assassinating Palestinian leaders). He had also insisted that military operations take place only within the boundaries of historic Palestine and not in the United States. He recently stated that Hamas would stop attacks against Israel from the Gaza Strip in return for an Israeli withdrawal from the territory. His successor, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, disagreed with Sheik Yassin on each of these matters, and will likely expand the deadly reach of Hamas’ military wing.

The attack--consisting of three missiles fired from a U.S.-supplied helicopter--also killed seven other people: two bodyguards and five unarmed bystanders. The Israeli government has not even claimed these other victims were guilty of any crimes.

In light of such moral, legal, and tactical questions regarding the assassination, the Bush administration’s response is particularly disturbing.

(Stephen Zunes is a professor of Politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. He serves as Middle East editor for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org) and is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003).)

For more analysis by Stephen Zunes on the Middle East see:

Iraq One Year Later (March 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/papers/2004iraq-ann.html

II. Letters and Comments

DANGEROUS WEAPON

Re: The Evangelical Roots of American Unilateralism: The Christian Right's Influence and How to Counter It

Using religious ideologies as instruments of state policy have been a dangerous weapon throughout history. The Bush administration is playing with the same dangerous tool. True religious teachings reject the use of violence for political purposes. I am Muslim and I believe in Christianity. Does Crusader Bush believe in and respect my religion? True religious fundamentalists are now in America and America is controlled by them. God save good Americans.

- Nejat Eslen <eslen1@tnn.net>

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<table width="600" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr valign="top"> <td width="539"><h1 align="left">The Progressive Response</h1> Volume 8, Number 4 February 9, 2004 Editor: John Gershman, Interhemispheric Resource Center (<a href="http://www.irc-online.org/" target="_parent">IRC</a>) </td> <td width="61"><a href="javascript:openTafWindow('/?action=etfform&url=http://www.fpif.org/progresp/volume8/v8n11_body.html','TellAFriend','scrolling=yes,resizable,width=600,height=400')"><img src="../../images/icon_share.gif" width="38" height="27" border="0"></a> <a href="../../form_feedback.html" target="_parent"><img src="../../images/icon_feedback.gif" width="51" height="22" border="0" alt="Give us your feedback"></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><table width="600" cellpadding="5"> <tr> <td colspan="2"><div align="center"><a href="https://secure.iexposure.com/fpif.org/donate.cfm" target="_parent">We Count on Your Support!</a></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Foreign Policy In Focus</td> <td> <div align="right"><a href="http://www.fpif.org/" target="_parent">www.fpif.org</a></div></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"> <div align="center"></div> <blockquote> <div align="left"> The Progressive Response (PR) is produced weekly by the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC, online at <a href="http://www.irc-online.org/" target="_blank">www.irc-online.org</a>) 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 <a href="../../index.html" target="_parent">http://www.fpif.org/</a>, or email <<a href="mailto:feedback@fpif.org">feedback@fpif.org</a>> to share your thoughts with us. John Gershman, editor of Progressive Response, is a senior analyst with the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) (online at <a href="http://www.irc-online.org/" target="_parent">www.irc-online.org</a>) and co-director of FPIF. He can be contacted at <<a href="mailto:john@irc-online.org">john@irc-online.org</a>>.   </div> </blockquote> <h2>Table of Contents</h2> <h3>I. Updates and Out-Takes</h3> <blockquote> <a href="#nepal">NEPAL & THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION: INTO THIN AIR</a> By Conn Hallinan <a href="#iraqiwomen">IRAQI GOVERNING COUNCIL PLANS LATEST ASSAULT ON WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN IRAQ</a> By Jim Lobe <a href="#wrong">WHY SO MANY WERE SO WRONG FOR SO LONG</a> By Col. Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.) <a href="#unbacking">THE U.S. BEGS FOR UN BACKING IN IRAQ</a> By Phyllis Bennis <a href="#libyan">LIBYAN DISARMAMENT A POSITIVE STEP, BUT THREAT OF PROLIFERATION REMAINS</a> By Stephen Zunes <a href="#blair">BLAIR'S PYRRHIC VICTORIES</a> By Ian Williams </blockquote>   <h3>II. Letters and Comments</h3> <blockquote> <a href="#best">THE BEST WE CAN DO</a> <a href="#interesting">VERY INTERESTING</a> </blockquote>   <hr size="1" noshade> <h3>I. Updates and Out-Takes</h3> <a name="nepal" id="nepal"></a>NEPAL & THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION: INTO THIN AIR By Conn Hallinan <blockquote> (Editor’s Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary at <a href="../../commentary/2004/0402nepal.html" target="_self">http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0402nepal.html</a>). </blockquote> Tucked into the upper stories of the Himalayas, Nepal hardly seems ground zero for the Bush administration's next crusade against “terrorism,” but an aggressive American ambassador, a strategic locale, and a flood of U.S. weaponry threatens to turn the tiny country of 25 million into a counter-insurgency bloodbath. More than 8,000 Nepalese have died since a civil war broke out in 1996, and the death rate has sharply increased with the arrival of almost 8,400 American M-16 submachine guns, accompanied by U.S. advisers, high-tech night fighting equipment, and British helicopters. For most Americans, Nepal, birthplace of the Buddha and home to Everest, the world's highest mountain, is a charming tourist haven. For the native Nepalese, 42% of whom, according to the World Bank, live below the poverty line, Nepal is a land enchained by caste, riven with ethnic rivalries, and dominated by a feudal landlord class. The central protagonists in the current war are King Gyanendra, who abolished an elected parliament last year, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPNM), which is leading a rural insurrection, and a group of five political parties that found themselves out in the cold when the monarchy took over. The Bush administration has concluded that the civil war threatens to make Nepal a “failed state” and a haven for international terrorists, leading it to place the CPNM on the State Department's “Watch List,” along with organizations like al Qaeda, Abu Sayyaf, and Lebanon's Hezbollah. U.S. Ambassador to Nepal, Michael E. Malinowski, compares CPNM leader, Baburam Bhattarai, to Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels. Malinowski, whose track record includes service in Afghanistan and Pakistan, advocates an all-out military offensive aimed at the insurgency, and recently told the New York Times that the CPNM, “literally have to be bent back to the table.” But it was the Nepalese government's attempt to crush rural unrest that sparked the civil war in the first place, and virtually no one thinks there is a military solution to the insurrection. “The government forces, under the present policies, could win a couple of battles here and there,” writes analyst Romeet Kaul Watt in The Kashmir Tribune, “but will never win the war.” (Conn Hallinan <a href="mailto:connm@cats.ucsc.edu" target="_blank"><connm@cats.ucsc.edu</a>> is a provost at the University of California at Santa Cruz and a political analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at <a href="../../index.html" target="_parent">www.fpif.org</a>).)   <a name="iraqiwomen" id="iraqiwomen"></a>IRAQI GOVERNING COUNCIL PLANS LATEST ASSAULT ON WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN IRAQ By Jim Lobe <blockquote> (Editor’s Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary at <a href="../../commentary/2004/0402iraqwomen.html" target="_parent">http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0402iraqwomen.html</a>). </blockquote> Iraq's governing council (IGC) has quietly approved a plan to replace some existing legal women's rights with Islamic law or “Shariah,” according to 44 U.S. lawmakers, who warn Washington of a “brewing women's rights crisis” in the U.S.-occupied country. This comes as women are facing broader assaults on women's rights and political power in Iraq. For example, while three women serve on the IGC, only one is in the cabinet and no women serve on the 24-member constitutional committee. One of the three female members of the IGC, a champion of women's rights, was killed this past fall and her replacement is widely viewed as a conservative. According to the Rocky Mountain News, when the adviser on human rights issues for the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority, Salwa Ali, tried to be a part of the local elections in Baghdad, she found that the neighborhood was plastered with fliers stating that women were not allowed. In a letter sent to President George W. Bush on February 2, the national political leaders, led by Representatives Carolyn Maloney, Eddie Bernice Johnson, and Darlene Hooley, complain the move will reverse legal guarantees for Iraqi women, who were among the most liberated in the Arab world. “To prevent this order from taking effect, we strongly urge you and your administration to take steps now to protect the rights of Iraqi women,” wrote the lawmakers, who represent both the Republican Party and the Democrats. The White House had no immediate comment. The letter follows earlier reports from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other human rights groups critical of the Bush administration's failure to adequately protect women's rights in occupied Iraq. The lawmakers were referring to IGC resolution 137, approved by the 25-member body Dec. 29, which replaces Iraq's 1959 personal-status legislation with religious laws to be administered by clerics from the country's different religious faiths, depending on the sect to which the parties in any dispute belonged. That change could affect everything from the right to education, employment, and freedom of movement, to property inheritance, divorce, and child custody, according to the letter's authors. The resolution must still be approved by the de facto government in Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), headed by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III, in order to become legally binding. In a letter to Bremer on Jan. 30 MADRE, a New York-based international rights advocate for women, argued that IGC's action lacked transparency and was taken without any public debate or open consultation, with only a minority of council members present. “In less than 15 minutes of discussions, the IGC--none of whose members were elected by Iraqis--passed Resolution 137, effectively abolishing women's legal rights in 'liberated' Iraq,” said MADRE's associate director, Yifat Susskind. “Under the direct authority of the Bush administration, the IGC has privileged sectarianism over inclusiveness and violated core principles of democratic governance,” she said. Iraqi women are also protesting the resolution, according to recent press reports. “This will send us home and shut the door, just like what happened to women in Afghanistan,” Kurdish lawyer Amira Hassan Abdullah told the Washington Post last month. “The old law wasn't perfect, but this one would make Iraq a jungle. Iraq women will accept it over their dead bodies.” (Jim Lobe is a political analyst with Foreign Policy in Focus (online at <a href="../../index.html" target="_parent">www.fpif.org</a>). He also writes regularly for Inter Press Service.) For More Information: MADRE Letter <a href="http://www.madre.org/art_iraq_resolution137.html%20" target="_blank">http://www.madre.org/art_iraq_resolution137.html </a> Paul Wolfowitz, “Women in the New Iraq,” Washington Post, February 1, 2004 <a href="http://usinfo.state.gov/dhr/Archive/2004/Feb/03-11242.html%20" target="_blank">http://usinfo.state.gov/dhr/Archive/2004/Feb/03-11242.html </a> Amnesty International, Iraq's Women: Occupied Territory <a href="http://www.amnestyusa.org/amnestynow/iraqi_women.html" target="_blank">http://www.amnestyusa.org/amnestynow/iraqi_women.html</a> Woodrow Wilson Center conference on the role of women in Iraq: <a href="http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1411&fuseaction=topics.item&news_id=28266" target="_blank">http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1411&fuseaction=topics.item&news_id=28266</a> Open Society Institute, Casualties of War: Iraqi Women's Rights and Reality Then and Now (November 17, 2003) <a href="http://www.soros.org/initiatives/women/events/casualties_20031117%20" target="_blank">http://www.soros.org/initiatives/women/events/casualties_20031117 </a>   <a name="wrong" id="wrong"></a>WHY SO MANY WERE SO WRONG FOR SO LONG By Col. Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.) <blockquote> ( Editor's Note : Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary at <a href="../../commentary/2004/0402wrong.html" target="_parent">http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0402wrong.html </a>). </blockquote> It may have been fortuitous that David Kay's testimony about U.S. intelligence failures in Iraq came just before the Super Bowl. Watching the game--and the “flash dance” finale of the halftime show--the everyday observer could begin to understand the truth in the caution: “Don't believe everything you think you see.” Or in the case of instant replays, “re-see”--as in, “Did the Patriots really get those few inches and a first down?” David Kay has flatly stated that U.S. and other national intelligence agencies with which the U.S. has close ties essentially got it wrong on Iraq 's weapons of mass destruction. Kay traced the main failure to December 1998. Then the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) looking for weapons, toxic stockpiles, and missile delivery systems since 1991 was forced to withdraw because of the U.S.-UK Operation Desert Fox bombing campaign. Suddenly, the on-the-ground eyes and ears on which the U.S. intelligence community had relied since Operation Desert Storm vanished, leaving only easily spoofed optical and communications “spies in the skies.” Why were so many so wrong for so long? Essentially, because no one could fathom the wheels within wheels that existed within Saddam's inner circle, beginning with Saddam himself. In short, the most basic rule of intelligence--know your opponent--wasn't observed. George Tenet conceded as much in his speech at Georgetown on February 5, 2004 , in which he defended the pre-war performance of U.S. intelligence. And he specifically contradicted David Kay on individual points, leaving the public wondering where the truth lies. The baseline the intelligence agencies seemed to work from rested on two “irrefutable” premises. First, Saddam had produced, stockpiled, and used chemical weapons, had been working on developing a nuclear weapon capability, had produced biological agents, and had surface-to-surface missiles. Second, Saddam knew everything that happened in Iraq and was ruthless when someone crossed him. Flowing from the first premise was the assumption that Iraqis would not adjust to post-1991 realities. These included sanctions and the intrusive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency and UNSCOM--and the latter's 2002-2003 successor inspection agency. The second premise carried an implicit assumption that in a rigid, highly centralized society like Iraq , everything would be documented. Thus, the absence of documents detailing destruction of weapons and agents “proved” that large stockpiles still existed somewhere. David Kay said he could find no evidence that the assessments of analysts were influenced by or changed in response to pressure from any official. Given that Vice President Cheney paid multiple visits to CIA headquarters to speak to analysts and that an independent intelligence “unit” created in the Office of the Secretary of Defense fed raw information and its “analysis” directly to the White House, a red flag should have gone up the highest flagpole. Because of these and quite possibly other, unknown, visits and pressures, analysts would be prone to weave into assessments any information supporting their long-held suspicions as a “defense” against the extremist positions (e.g., Saddam is an imminent threat) of Bush administration officials. Similarly, analysts may have omitted the usual caveats to make their case more convincing. But the price of defending a “rational” position resting on old premises was to be so wedded to history that the actual situation, which occasionally was glimpsed, was not even considered to be possible. If Kay is right about the corruption in Iraq and the extent of the deception practiced on Saddam and others in the Baathist and military elites, in effect Iraq was on the verge of becoming a failed state ready to disintegrate at the slightest push. That push came in March 2003, and the resulting and continuing inter-ethnic, inter-confessional, and jihadist carnage attest to the danger Iraq has become to its neighbors as a result of the U.S.-led invasion. (Dan Smith is a military affairs analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at <a href="../../index.html" target="_blank">www.fpif.org </a>), a retired U.S. army colonel and a senior fellow on Military Affairs at the Friends Committee on National Legislation.)   <a name="unbacking" id="unbacking"></a>THE U.S. BEGS FOR UN BACKING IN IRAQ By Phyllis Bennis <blockquote> (Editor’s Note: Excerpted from a new set of Talking Points available in full at <a href="../../commentary/2004/0402un.html" target="_self">http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0402un.html</a>). </blockquote> The U.S. is eager for the UN to return to Iraq to provide political cover for its occupation. The quagmire on the ground in Iraq plus recognition that the rest of the world, and most Iraqis themselves, reject Washington 's claim of legitimacy, is the basis for the Bush administration reversing its earlier anti-UN positions to beg the international organization for help. Kofi Annan's decision to send a technical investigative team to Iraq is partly in response to mounting pressure from the U.S., but also a response to shifting sentiments among Iraqis, particularly the call from Ayatollah al-Sistani for a UN assessment of political conditions. While Annan's announcement indicated he was responding to the request of the U.S. occupation authorities and its hand-picked “governing council” to determine whether elections could be held by Washington's June 30th deadline, he left open the possibility of a broader definition of “what alternative arrangement would be acceptable” if not. Why Did the Bush Administration Change Their Line on the UN? 1) The utter and all-too-public failure of the U.S. occupation (especially the continuing deaths and mounting injuries of U.S. soldiers) in Iraq seems to have led to an internal power shift within the Bush administration, with the Pentagon ideologues tactically (and almost certainly temporarily) giving way to electorally focused considerations. In the battle between Rumsfeld/Cheney and Karl Rove, the Rumsfeld/Cheney team seems to have blinked first. 2) There is no doubt that unilateralist, anti-UN sentiments continue to dominate the Bush White House. But hypocrisy aside, changes are afoot. One piece of evidence is Dick Cheney's unexpected European foray. While arrogantly refusing to even hint at an apology for launching Washington's war in the face of UN and broad international opposition, the fact that he left his undisclosed location at all to travel to European capitals urging greater international support for the U.S. in Iraq, even calling on (though only once) the UN to respond to the request of the Iraqis, indicates a significant level of pressure on Cheney's longstanding antagonism to multilateralism and the UN. What is the Danger to the United Nations if it Refuses to Return to Iraq Under U.S. Terms? What is the Danger to the United Nations if it Agrees to U.S. Terms? 1) If the UN completely rejects the U.S. proposal that it return to Iraq under the auspices of the U.S. occupation, it faces the possibility of escalating marginalization by the Bush administration, further threats to its independence, and the likelihood of being deemed “irrelevant” by the world's sole super-power. Washington might make additional cuts in dues to the world organization and the humanitarian agencies, reduce its already insufficient political support, and increase its threats and punishments of UN member states who stand defiant. 2) If the UN agrees to return to Iraq under terms set by the U.S. occupation, the dangers are even higher. The global organization risks a serious loss of international credibility, and the danger of being deemed an agent for or facilitator of occupation. Aside from the credibility factor itself, UN staff in Iraq would again face the likely possibility of physical attack, based on the opposition's view that the UN was acting as an agent of an illegitimate occupation. Passed under extreme U.S. pressure, Security Council resolution 1483 arguably provides a kind of forced legality to the U.S. occupation of Iraq; it does not provide any legitimacy. So, What Should Be Done 1) There should be an immediate end to U.S. occupation, and withdrawal of American troops. Because the U.S. invasion destroyed the governing capacity in Baghdad and undermined security for civilians throughout much of the country, the withdrawal of the U.S. forces should be followed by a temporary combined mandate for the United Nations, Arab League, and OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference) to provide direct support for Iraq's reclaiming of sovereignty. That would include election assistance, humanitarian and reconstruction aid (including control over all international funds, including those coming from the U.S. Congress, designated for Iraqi rebuilding), and peacekeeping/security deployment. 2) The UN investigation team should reject the artificial U.S.-imposed June 30th deadline, and broaden its mandate to examine what conditions would have to change before an election could be organized, assess what time frame would be required to accomplish those changes, and determine whether any election conducted under foreign military occupation could be free and fair. (Phyllis Bennis <<a href="mailto:pbennis@compuserve.com">pbennis@compuserve.com</a>> is a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and is a contributor to Foreign Policy in Focus (online at <a href="../../index.html" target="_parent">www.fpif.org</a>).)   <a name="libyan"></a>LIBYAN DISARMAMENT A POSITIVE STEP, BUT THREAT OF PROLIFERATION REMAINS By Stephen Zunes <blockquote> (Editor’s Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full at <a href="../../2004/0401libya.html" target="_parent">http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0401libya.html</a>). </blockquote> In a world seemingly gone mad, it is ironic that one of the most sane and reasonable actions to come out of the Middle East recently has emanated from the government of Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator long recognized as an international outlaw. Libya's stunning announcement that it is giving up its nascent biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons programs and accepting international assistance and verification of its disarmament efforts is a small but important positive step in the struggle to curb the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). It would be a big mistake, however, to accept claims by the Bush administration and its supporters that it was the invasion of Iraq and other threatened uses of force against so-called "rogue states" which pursue WMD programs that led to Libya's decision to end its WMD programs. While Saddam Hussein was less than cooperative with United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) efforts in the 1990s, it appears that they were successful in ridding the country of its chemical and biological weapons and related facilities. The Iraqi regime was more cooperative during that period with the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), with the IAEA announcing in 1998 that Iraq's nuclear program had been completely dismantled. When IAEA inspectors returned in the fall of 2002 as part of UN Security Council resolution 1441, they reported that no signs that the program had been revived. Iraq also allowed the return of a revived and strengthened inspections regime for chemical and biological weapons systems (known as UNMOVIC) at that time, which also found no evidence of any proscribed weapons or weapons programs. Despite this, the United States invaded Iraq and overthrew the government. As a result, Libya presumably knows that unilateral disarmament and allowing UN inspectors does not necessarily make you less safe from a possible U.S. invasion. More likely, Libya simply recognized that they would not get anything worthwhile as a result of continuing with an expensive, dangerous, and complex process of weapons development and would instead continue to face international isolation and difficulty obtaining certain dual-use technologies which could enhance the country's economic development. (Stephen Zunes 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 Foreign Policy in Focus (online at <a href="../../index.html" target="_blank">www.fpif.org</a>) and the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (online at <a href="http://www.commoncouragepress.com" target="_blank">www.commoncouragepress.com</a>).)   <a name="blair"></a>BLAIR'S PYRRHIC VICTORIES By Ian Williams <blockquote> (Editor’s Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full at <a href="../../commentary/2004/0402blair.html" target="_parent">http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0402blair.html</a>). </blockquote> On the face of it, Tony Blair had an almost Clintonesque week as he walked away from two separate train wrecks seemingly unhurt. However, beneath the surface, there are deep internal injuries that have left him seriously weakened. His escape on the University fees issue by the tiniest handful of defections among Labor rebels was only contrived by Gordon Brown exercising his influence on some of the more prominent of them. Brown is preparing the ground for a “more in sorrow than in anger” replacement of an unelectable Blair before the next elections. He has pre-emptively cleared himself of disloyalty by acting as the, strictly temporary, king-saver. The leadership conflict in the Labor Party has been brought forward all the more sharply by the other “victory,” the Hutton Report. The Law Lord may have done British Prime Minister Tony Blair no favors at all, since public opinion overwhelmingly sees the report as a whitewash, and thus that the government has something to hide. Even the Report's attack on the integrity of the BBC has backfired. Three times as many British people polled trusted the BBC as compared to trusting the government. Indeed almost the only supporters the government and the Report had were the Murdoch press, the Sun and Times. And even their readers may wonder whether a media empire that has never allowed the truth to interfere with the smooth flow of proprietary prejudices really has the proper standing to attack the BBC's journalistic standards. There was a germ of truth in some of the Report's criticisms of the BBC's journalism. Ironically, under Thatcherite and New Labor pressures, it has relaxed its previous standards. The news is no longer scripted and read, based on “balance,” airing both sides. The good aspect is that, even though nominally a state-owned body, it has proved far more skeptical of the government than its privately owned counterparts in the USA. But if Andrew Gilligan had but just a shade more balance and qualifications in his initial report, as in fact he did in later versions, then he would not have left the Achilles Heel that Blair's media minders and Hutton got a noose into. Without some admission on his part, the public has to decide whether the Prime Minister was sincere, but either misled or stupid. Or he could have been so desperate to please George W. Bush that he persuaded himself that more evidence actually existed than there really was. Or he was so mendacious, that to conceal his real agenda of regime change, he marshaled a set of excuses that later failed. None of these positions actually strengthen his position, so he may follow the example of the BBC's bosses and do the honorable thing. Resign before the election. But like them, he will need a shove. Brown is waiting. (Ian Williams <<a href="mailto:uswarreport@igc.org">uswarreport@igc.org</a>> contributes frequently to Foreign Policy in Focus (online at <a href="../../index.html" target="_parent">www.fpif.org</a>) on UN and international affairs.)   <hr size="1" noshade> <h3>II. Letters and Comments</h3> <a name="best" id="best"></a>THE BEST WE CAN DO Re: <a href="../..papers/03petropol/development.html">The Global Record on Oil</a> The best we European and American would do to end the waste of oil is to build smaller cars, go by bike, walk or take public transport electrically driven. And instead of spending money for exploring the Mars, we better invent electrically driven cars and use Earth Energy. And airplanes are, sorry to say, vehicles of the last century. Consumer must change their habits, above all. - Edwin Wagner, <a href="mailto:aewagth72@bluewin.ch"><aewagth72@bluewin.ch></a> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- <a name="interesting"></a>VERY INTERESTING Re: <a href="../../commentary/2003/0305roh.html" target="_parent">Eyes on Different Prizes </a> I found this article to be very interesting. Although I am young, I do have an interest in what happens in our world and how we would go about dealing with those issues. What I thought was the most interesting about this article was that how the U.S. and N. Korea have different goals set in my mind, I am pleased to hear that N. Korea abd S. Korea are working on their peace issues, and how we are building a better relationship then the one that we have with S. Korea already. Things obviously get rough but through our efforts and our patience we can get it all worked out. And with this article I think that's what we are doing with our best abilities. - Tina Dickerson, <a href="mailto:Wolfsreign@Wapda.com"><Wolfsreign@Wapda.com</a>>   <hr size="1" noshade> Please consider supporting Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF). FPIF is a new kind of think tank&#151one serving citizen movements and advancing a fresh, internationalist understanding of global affairs. Although we make our FPIF products freely available on the Internet, we need financial support to cover our staff time and expenses. Increasingly, FPIF depends on you and other individual donors to sustain our bare-bones budget. Click on <a href="https://secure.iexposure.com/fpif.org/donate.cfm" target="_parent">https://secure.iexposure.com/fpif.org/donate.cfm</a> to support FPIF online, or for information about making contributions over the phone or through the mail. We Count on Your Support. 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