The Progressive Response

Volume 8, Number 21
September 28, 2004

Editor: John Gershman, Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC)

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>.

 

Table of Contents

I. Updates and Out-Takes

A SECURE AMERICA IN A SECURE WORLD
By FPIF Task Force on Terrorism

AFGHANISTAN: DEMOCRACY BEFORE PEACE?
By Mark Sedra

WHO ARE THE PROGRESSIVES IN IRAQ? THE LEFT, THE RIGHT, AND THE ISLAMISTS
By Frank Smyth

PRESIDENT BUSH'S UN SPEECH: IDEALISTIC RHETORIC DISGUISES SINISTER POLICIES
By Stephen Zunes

INDONESIA: U.S. UNDERWRITING TERRORISM?
By Conn Hallinan

TIME FOR BUSH TO WALK THE TALK
By Ronald Bruce St John

 

II. Letters and Comments

NO REAL DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BUSH AND KERRY POLICY TOWARD LATIN AMERICA AND RESPONSE BY TOM BARRY

SO-CALLED PROGRESSIVES AND RESPONSE BY STEPHEN ZUNES

NEGATIVE VIEW OF ISRAEL AND RESPONSE BY STEPHEN ZUNES

 

I. Updates and Out-Takes

A SECURE AMERICA IN A SECURE WORLD
By FPIF Task Force on Terrorism

(Editor’s Note: Over the past year FPIF coordinated a task force of over 20 security and foreign policy experts in crafting a critique of the Bush administration’s “global war on terror” and an alternative agenda to combat terrorism. In this week’s Progressive Response we present a summary of the critique of the Bush administration’s agenda, and next week a summary of our alternative agenda. Follows is a brief summary of the main points of the report. An executive summary and the complete report are available at http://www.fpif.org/papers/04terror/index.html .)

The Bush administration’s “war on terrorism” reflects a major failure of leadership and makes Americans more vulnerable rather than more secure. The administration has chosen a path to combat terrorism that has weakened multilateral institutions and squandered international goodwill. Not only has Bush failed to support effective reconstruction in Afghanistan, but his war and occupation in Iraq have made the United States more vulnerable and have opened a new front and a recruiting tool for terrorists while diverting resources from essential homeland security efforts. In short, Washington’s approach to homeland security fails to address key vulnerabilities, undermines civil liberties, and misallocates resources.

The administration has taken some successful steps to counter terrorism, such as improved airline and border security, a partial crackdown on terrorist financing, improved international cooperation in sharing intelligence, the arrest of several high-level al-Qaida figures, and the disruption of a number of planned attacks. But these successes are overwhelmed by policy choices that have made U.S. citizens more rather than less vulnerable. The Bush White House has undermined the very values it claims to be defending at home and abroad—democracy and human rights; both Washington’s credibility and its efforts to combat terrorism are hampered when it aids repressive regimes. Furthermore, the administration has weakened the international legal framework essential to creating a global effort to counter terrorism, and it has failed to address the political contexts—failed states and repressive regimes—that enable and facilitate terrorism.

Six factors explain the failure of the Bush administration’s approach:

A. Overemphasis on Military Responses: The Bush administration has used everyone’s legitimate concerns about terrorism to justify a massive increase in military spending that has little or nothing to do with combating terrorism. According to the Center for Defense Information, only about one-third of the increase in the FY2003 Pentagon budget over pre-Sept. 11 budgets funds programs and activities closely related to homeland security or counterterrorism operations. In addition, by enshrining preventive war in the national security strategy both as a general policy doctrine and for countering terrorism in particular, the administration has further reduced everyone’s security.

B. Failure in Intelligence Sharing: The White House has failed to develop better mechanisms to share critical information both among intelligence agencies and between federal and local agencies. The recently created Terrorist Threat Intelligence Center is unaccountable to Congress and fails to place the coordination of intelligence gathering in the hands of those who must act on the findings.

C. Undermining Democracy and Civil Liberties: The Bush administration has undermined democracy at home through increased government secrecy. On the civil liberties front, the USA PATRIOT Act imposes guilt by association on immigrants, expands the government’s authority to conduct criminal searches and wiretaps, and undermines fundamental freedoms guaranteed by the Bill of Rights—none of which have proved necessary or effective in tracking down terrorists.

D. Undermining Homeland Security: Bush’s approach to homeland security has two key flaws. First, his administration has been far too laissez-faire in its approach to ensuring the security of the 85 percent of the nation’s critical infrastructure owned or controlled by the private sector. Second, it has failed to meet the basic needs of emergency responders, has underfunded key national agencies like the Coast Guard and the Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, and has created new unfunded mandates for local governments, forcing them to transfer scarce funds from social services and public safety to homeland security tasks.

E. Weakening International Institutions: The Bush administration has been hostile to a whole set of multilateral institutions that are central to enhancing international law and security, from the International Criminal Court to nearly all multilateral arms control and disarmament efforts, including the Biological and Chemical Weapons Conventions, the ABM Treaty, and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

F. Failure to Attack Root Causes: The Bush White House has failed to address the root causes of international terrorism and the social and political contexts in which such terrorism thrives, including repressive regimes, failed states, and the way in which poverty and inequality can create conditions of support for terrorist acts. Addressing the basic causes and conditions that facilitate terrorism in no way implies appeasement. Rather, it reflects both a pragmatic commitment to diffuse terrorism’s political roots and a normative commitment to respect the values the United States preaches. Yet, heedless to the time bomb of widening global wealth disparity, the Bush administration has taken advantage of the crisis surrounding the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks to justify its pursuit of an expanded trade and investment liberalization agenda. This agenda fails to address the central challenges of reducing poverty and inequality and of promoting sustainable growth in developing countries.

(John Gershman, FPIF Codirector, was the principal author of the report and the Task Force Members are: Robert Alvarez, Salih Booker, Elsbeth L. Bothe, John Cavanagh, Marcus Corbin, David Cortright, Kristen Dawkins, Lloyd J. Dumas, Rev. Dr. Robert W. Edgar, John Feffer, Van Gosse, William D. Hartung, Colleen Kelly, Michael Klare, Dr. Lawrence J. Korb, Jules Lobel, Robert K. Musil, Ph.D, M.P.H., Col. Dan Smith, U.S. Army (Ret.), Joe Stork, Joe Volk, Bruce Zagaris, John Zavales, and Stephen Zunes.)

AFGHANISTAN: DEMOCRACY BEFORE PEACE?
By Mark Sedra

(Editor’s Note: With presidential elections scheduled for October 9, the challenges facing reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan are thrown into stark focus by FPIF analyst Mark Sedra in this new policy report excerpted below and available in full at http://www.fpif.org/papers/2004afghandem.html .)

Afghanistan’s first election in decades is less than a month away, and, contrary to dire predictions by many analysts and observers, the UN-led voter registration program has proven to be a remarkable success. As of August 21, 2004, one week following the official close of the registration period, 10.35 million Afghans had registered to vote, 41% of them women. The registration drive was perhaps too successful—the number of voters registered exceeded the estimated number of eligible voters by more than 800,000. To some, this discrepancy would be cause for concern, but not to President Karzai. “People are enthusiastic, and they want to have cards,” Karzai recently explained. “If they want to vote twice, they’re welcome,” he quipped (Washington Post, August 12, 2004). Karzai and UN electoral officials are correct to point out that such inconsistencies are inevitable in a first election, especially in a setting as complex as Afghanistan. Nevertheless, the issue is emblematic of an expanding array of challenges to the electoral process that has prompted many prominent Afghans and international observers to reaffirm doubts about the timing of the country’s first experiment with democracy.

Many Afghan and foreign experts have argued that the time is not ripe for balloting in Afghanistan. Perhaps the most prominent advocate of this view is Foreign Minister Abdallah Abdallah, who stated in early August that “a preferable situation might have been if we had a five-year term for the government, so we could create institutions and [do] the basic work” (Washington Post, August 1, 2004). The general perception in Afghanistan is that the Bush administration’s ardent determination to maintain the current timetable is motivated more by U.S. domestic politics—notably the tightly contested November presidential election—than any consideration of Afghanistan’s best interests. With the situation in Iraq worsening with each passing day, the prospect of claiming success in Afghanistan has become all too appealing to Bush administration officials. “We are sacrificing our elections for the November elections in America—otherwise there is no reason to have our election in such a hurry,” Afghan presidential candidate Ahmad Shah Hamada lamented (Washington Post, August 1, 2004).

The approach currently taken by the international community in Afghanistan amounts to an effort to consolidate democracy before winning the peace. This approach is not without precedent, having been employed with disastrous ramifications in countries ranging from Cambodia to Liberia. Angola provides a particularly instructive example of the dangers of premature balloting. In 1992 the UN achieved what was widely perceived as a “logistical miracle” solution to the country’s long civil war by organizing an election contested by the two rival movements, both of which maintained armed wings. However, only days after the polls, a military offensive was launched by the losing party, igniting another decade of civil war (Ottaway & Carothers 2003, p. 2). The parallels with the current situation in Afghanistan, where the principal contenders in the presidential race (with the exception of Karzai) remain armed, are undeniable. In unstable and fragmented societies, such as Angola and Afghanistan, elections typically act as a lightning rod for violence.

(Mark Sedra is a research associate at the Bonn International Center for Conversion (BICC) and writes regularly for Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org).)

WHO ARE THE PROGRESSIVES IN IRAQ? THE LEFT, THE RIGHT, AND THE ISLAMISTS
By Frank Smyth

(Editor’s Note: As the debate over U.S. policy in Iraq continues, an issue for many progressives is how to respond to the range of groups engaged in armed resistance to the U.S. occupation as well as some progressive groups working either in the interim government or advancing their interests through non-violent means. Frank Smyth explores these issues for FPIF in this excerpt, the complete version of which is available at http://www.fpif.org/papers/0409progiraq.html .)

One event in Baghdad went unreported this month, not only by the mainstream media but also by the “alternative” press, even though it implies that U.S. control over Iraq’s political future may already be waning. In August, the White House supported the establishment of an Iraqi National Council comprising 100 Iraqis from various tribal, ethnic, and religious groups in an effort to influence the composition of an electoral oversight body. Yet this month, two large political parties, each of which has long been viewed with suspicion by Washington, came out ahead in the voting.

In the September balloting, the delegate from the Supreme Assembly for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, Jawad al-Maliki, came in first with 56 votes. This is a Shiite group that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld lambasted as a tool of Iran during the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. Another Iraqi even less attractive to Washington, the Secretary General of the Iraqi Communist Party (www.iraqcp.org), Hamid Majid Moussa, came in second with 55 votes. Meanwhile, Rasim al-Awadi, the delegate from the Iraqi National Accord--the group once backed by the CIA and whose leader, Iyad Allawi, who was supported by the Bush administration to become the Iraqi prime minister--came in third with 53 votes. Nasir A`if al-Ani--the delegate from the Iraqi Islamic Party, a Sunni group, sympathetic to the Ba’athist-based, anti-American resistance operating both west and north of Baghdad--came in fourth with 48 votes.

By any count, getting only one ally elected out of four seats on this potentially all-important electoral oversight body does not bode well for the Bush administration. After the Iraqi National Council was formed, but before it voted, White House spokesman Scott McClellan, while at President Bush’s family ranch in Crawford, Texas, declared: “The selection of the council is a sign that the Iraqi people will not allow terrorist elements to stand in the way of their democratic future.”

But what if elections in Iraq early next year lead to a government unlike anything ever expected by the Bush administration? The respected Arabist from the University of Michigan, Juan Cole, was among the first to report the Iraqi National Council election results on his blog, www.juancole.com. “So,” he quipped, “this list is further evidence that the U.S. invaded Iraq to install in power a coalition of Communists, Islamists and ex-Ba’athist nationalists. If you had said such a thing 3 years ago you would have been laughed at.”

Many American leftists seem to know little about their Iraqi counterparts, since understanding the role of the Iraqi left requires a nuanced approach. Unfortunately the knee-jerk, anti-imperialist analysis of groups like International A.N.S.W.E.R. has wormed its way into several progressive outlets. Dispatches and columns in The Nation as well as reports and commentary on the independently syndicated radio program “Democracy Now” have all but ignored the role of Iraqi progressives while highlighting, if not championing, the various factions of the Iraqi-based resistance against the U.S.-led occupation without bothering to ask who these groups are and what they represent for Iraqis.

U.S. activists who demonstrated against the Iraq War made an invaluable contribution by letting the rest of the world know that millions of Americans opposed the U.S.-led invasion. But the enemy of one’s enemy is not necessarily one’s friend. To think otherwise is to embrace an Orwellian logic that makes anti-war Americans appear not only uninformed but also as cynical as the pro-war protagonists whom they oppose.

(Frank Smyth is a freelance journalist who has “embedded” with leftist guerrillas in El Salvador, Iraq, and Rwanda. He covered the 1991 uprisings against Saddam Hussein’s regime, and was later captured and held for two weeks inside Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison. He wrote this policy report for Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org). His clips are posted at www.franksmyth.com.)

PRESIDENT BUSH'S UN SPEECH: IDEALISTIC RHETORIC DISGUISES SINISTER POLICIES
By Stephen Zunes

(Editor’s Note: The latest in FPIF Middle East editor Stephen Zunes’ series of dissecting President Bush’s major speeches is excerpted below, while the full version is available at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0409sinister.html .)

Commentators in the mainstream media seem genuinely perplexed over the polite but notably unenthusiastic reception given to President George W. Bush’s September 21 address before the United Nations General Assembly. Why wasn’t a speech that emphasized such high ideals as democracy, the rule of law, and the threat of terrorism better received?

The answer may be found through a critical examination of the assumptions underlying the idealistic rhetoric of the U.S. president’s message. Below are a number of examples:

“We know that dictators are quick to choose aggression, while free nations strive to resolve differences in peace. We know that oppressive governments support terror, while free governments fight the terrorists in their midst.”
Notwithstanding the clear moral preference of democracy over dictatorship, this formula fails to withstand closer scrutiny. There are many dictators in the past and present—as nasty as they may have been toward their own people—who have not engaged in acts of aggression against other nations and have not supported terrorists. Furthermore, the United States—one of the world’s oldest democracies—has demonstrated through its invasion of Iraq, as well as its earlier invasions of Panama, Grenada, and other countries, that it can certainly be “quick to choose aggression.” Similarly, the decision by the Bush administration a few weeks ago to allow into the country a group of right-wing Cuban exiles who had been implicated in a series of attacks against civilian targets—including an attempt to set off a series of explosions in a crowded auditorium at a Panamanian university in 1998, and the blowing up of an airliner in Barbados in 1976—as well as the active U.S. support for the Contra terrorists who attacked civilian targets in Nicaragua during the 1980s—demonstrate that democracies do indeed allow “terrorists in their midst.”

“We’re determined to prevent proliferation, and to enforce the demands of the world [demanding that nations] fully comply with all Security Council resolutions.”
In reality, U.S. policy is not nearly as categorical as this statement implies. For example, since 1998, India and Pakistan have been in violation of UN Security Council resolution 1172, which calls upon these governments to cease their development of nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. Since 1981, Israel has stood in violation of UN Security Council resolution 487, which calls upon that government to place its nuclear facilities under the trusteeship of the International Atomic Energy Agency. The United States has repeatedly blocked the United Nations from enforcing those resolutions, even as it insisted that Iraqi noncompliance with similar resolutions required that the UN authorize an invasion of that country and the overthrow of its government.

“The Russian children [in Beslan] did nothing to deserve such awful suffering, and fright, and death. The people of Madrid and Jerusalem and Istanbul and Baghdad have done nothing to deserve sudden and random murder. These acts violate the standards of justice in all cultures, and the principles of all religions. All civilized nations are in this struggle together, and all must fight the murderers.”
All true. Yet the numbers of innocent civilians killed in recent years by American forces in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as by U.S.-armed Israeli forces in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and by U.S.-armed Turkish forces in Kurdistan have far surpassed those killed by all Middle Eastern terrorist groups combined. While a case can certainly be made that the killings of civilians by the United States and its allies was, in most cases, not as wanton as the killings in these terrorist attacks, the callous disregard for civilian lives in many of these military operations did constitute clear violations of international humanitarian law.

(Stephen Zunes is professor of politics and chair of the peace & justice studies program at the University of San Francisco. He serves as Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus project, www.fpif.org, and is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003).)

INDONESIA: U.S. UNDERWRITING TERRORISM?
By Conn Hallinan

(Editor’s Note: With the recent election of former general Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as the new president of Indonesia, the issue of strengthening U.S.-Indonesian military ties is likely to be on the agenda, something that would strengthen the forces of impunity in Indonesia, argues FPIF analyst Conn Hallinan in this excerpt below, the full version of which is available at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0409indonesia.html .)

Behind a recent, highly controversial indictment by the U.S. Department of Justice, the Bush administration is maneuvering to revive military ties with the Indonesian Army (TNI), one of the world's most oppressive institutions.

In late June, U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft convinced a federal grand jury to indict Anthonuis Wamang for a 2002 ambush in West Papua that killed two Americans, an Indonesian, and wounded 12 others. The indictment identifies Wamang as a commander in the Free Papua Movement (OPM) and, despite strong evidence to the contrary, clears the Indonesian military of charges that it engineered the incident.

Human rights groups, long-time observers of Indonesia, and even the Indonesian police say the indictment ignores evidence tying the ambush to the most notorious unit of the TNI, Kopassus. Indeed, rights groups charge that Wamang works for Kopassus, not the OPM.

The OPM has been fighting a low-key rebellion since Indonesia--with U.S. support--short-circuited a UN election and engineered the seizure of West Papua in 1969. West Papua is the western half of New Guinea and Indonesia's eastern-most province.

The U.S. has a long relationship with the TNI, dating back to the 1965 coup that overthrew President Sukarno and led to the murder of over 500,000 Communists and leftists. According to declassified U.S. documents, American intelligence helped finger some of the coup's victims. The U.S. also supported Indonesia's violent takeover of East Timor in 1975. The Bush administration is currently pushing Congress to fund an International Military Education and Training (IMET) program for Indonesia, but Congress is holding up the monies because of Indonesia's resistance to seriously investigate the 2002 ambush.

The U.S. first restricted Indonesia's IMET funds following the 1991 massacre of 270 civilians in Santa Cruz , East Timor. All military ties were suspended in 1999 when TNI-organized civilian death squads ravaged East Timor following that country's independence vote. IMET funds were suspended after the 2002 West Papua ambush.

While the TNI blamed the OPM for the attack, not even the local police agree. Two months after the Aug. 31 ambush, a police report found that the OPM was an unlikely suspect because the group "never attacks white people." It concluded that TNI involvement "was a strong possibility."

At the time, U.S. officials concurred with the charge of TNI involvement. A "senior (Bush) administration official" told Raymond Bonner of the New York Times, that "there is no question there was military involvement. There is no question it was premeditated."

(Conn Hallinan is a foreign policy analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus and a Lecturer in Journalism at the University of California, Santa Cruz.)

TIME FOR BUSH TO WALK THE TALK
By Ronald Bruce St John

(Editor’s Note: FPIF analyst Bruce St John provides his latest assessment of the Bush administration’s record. The full piece is available at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0409bushwalk.html, and is excerpted below.)

President Bush, in his January 2001 inaugural address, described the United States as “a place where personal responsibility is valued and respected,” pledging “to call for responsibility and try to live it as well.” Four years later, in his September 2004 speech accepting the Republican nomination for a second term, the president returned to this theme, telling Americans they would have a choice to make on election day “based on the records we have built.” That said, his acceptance speech was notable, not for what he included but for what he left out--the problems and missteps that have plagued the Bush administration’s foreign policy. It’s time for the president to speak “on the record,” accepting responsibility for his flawed policies and discussing what he would do differently, if anything, in a second term.

When it comes to talking “on the record,” the president’s problem is that he has few positive achievements to discuss. Consequently, the administration has increasingly offered the American people a fantasy world, composed of how the White House would like things to be as opposed to how they are. The president’s September 2004 speech accepting the Republican nomination for a second term illustrates the point.

Regarding Palestine, the president in his acceptance speech suggested the “advance of freedom” in Afghanistan and Iraq would “send a message of hope throughout a vital region. Palestinians will hear the message that democracy and reform are within their reach, and so is peace with our good friend Israel.” First of all, neither Afghanistan nor Iraq is likely to become a peaceful democracy any time soon. In addition, it is difficult to see how the current Israeli government’s iron-fisted approach in the West Bank and Gaza Strip will promote democracy and reform in or out of Palestine. Israel has quietly rejected the Middle East peace process, know as the “road map,” with the acknowledgment, if not the tacit consent, of the Bush administration. And Israel continues to support settlements in the West Bank.

On democracy, President Bush suggested “a vibrant, successful democracy [in Iraq] at the heart of the Middle East will discredit their [the terrorists] radical ideology of hate.” On the contrary, the Bush strategy in the war on terrorism has played into al-Qaida’s hands. Americans today live in anger, fear, and uncertainty, plagued by incessant terrorist warnings and repeated changes in the “terrorist alert” status. Three decades after Vietnam, U.S. soldiers are again dying in a war with no apparent end that was sold on false pretenses and creates far more enemies that it eliminates. In consequence, terrorists around the globe, to paraphrase the words of the late Chinese leader, Mao Zedong, “bloom like one hundred flowers.”

There was also no mention by the president in his acceptance speech of the rampant anti-Americanism his policies have provoked around the world. A recent poll of 35 countries conducted by GlobeSpan, a Canadian research company, in conjunction with the University of Maryland and research institutes in each country, indicates only one in five people outside the United States would vote to reelect the president. If a “global election” were held, President Bush’s opponent would win hands-down in 30 of the 35 countries with strong majorities in European states allied to the United States and pluralities in all nine Latin American countries surveyed. Only Nigeria, the Philippines, and Poland preferred Bush with India and Thailand closely divided.

Benign neglect characterizes the Bush administration’s policy in most other parts of the world. Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia did not merit a mention in the president’s speech. Focused entirely on al-Qaida and the war on terrorism, the administration is not paying enough attention to other problems in the world that have little or nothing to do with terrorism but are still highly significant. In an acceptance speech celebrated by Bush loyalists as a blueprint for a second term, the president failed to mention either Iran or North Korea, the most serious threats to nuclear proliferation today.

Before, during, and after the Republican National Convention, President Bush has provided the American people with an overly optimistic, “Pollyanna” view of the world. He has resorted to deceit, deception, and denial in lieu of engaging in a serious, useful debate. He owes the American people more than that; he owes them a frank discussion of his foreign policy record, warts and all. The 2004 presidential election is the most important one in the past half-century. American foreign policy is at a crucial crossroads in which we either continue with the failed policies of the past or move in new directions. The president in his acceptance speech tried to introduce a little humor. “Some folks look at me and see a certain swagger,” he said, “which in Texas is called ‘walking’.” When it comes to foreign policy, it is time for the president to begin walking, walking the talk.

(Ronald Bruce St John, an analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus, has published widely on Middle Eastern issues. His latest book on the region is Libya and the United States: Two Centuries of Strife (Penn Press, 2002).)

II. Letters and Comments

Re: "Not a Good Neighbor: A Critique of Kerry's Latin America Policy" (http://www.americaspolicy.org/briefs/2004/0407kerry.html)

Kerry subscribes to the general view of every USA administration since the turn of the 19th Century, including Bush II--gunboat diplomacy, military occupation, massacres of the poor and their activists, violent coups, entrenched feudalism--the dominant recurring themes of the history of Latin American republics. The nations of Latin America have long existed to serve the wealthy--if not local oligarchs, then the wealthy of Europe and North America--especially the USA. They exist to provide tropical produce, raw materials, and cheap labor. Outside their country and in the USA, they are useful for back-breaking agricultural jobs, cleaning buildings, or driving cabs. They are allowed to survive only so that they may continue to serve the wealthy. The advent of any popular democracy threatens to interrupt this service function. What happens then is no great mystery. The USA, either directly, or indirectly through regimes we prop up, train, and fund, reaches out ruthlessly to crush it. This happened in Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Peru, and Chile (to name just some major ones), and more recently in Haiti (again), and in Venezuela (unsuccessfully). We've been crushing Cuba with an embargo--that Bush II is increasing in intensity--since the Eisenhower administration. Kerry is a member of the elite who have benefited from this state terror in Latin America; he has given us no reason to believe he will change it.

To support my general conclusion about Kerry's view of Latin America, I would add a couple of specific points:

(1) Kerry has stated more than once that Jean Bertrand Aristide's regime in Haiti was "unacceptable" and "flawed," even though he was elected by a 60% majority from a field of a dozen candidates in a 75% voter turnout. He was overthrown in 1991 by a military junta we trained and financed. Again in February of this year our shenanigans led to his kidnapping and removal, and a return to power of the remains of the despotic Papa and Baby Doc--François and Jean-Claude Duvalier--regimes. Thus the poor of Haiti have been re-secured in their service to the wealthy of Haiti and the USA.

And, control of a puppet regime in Haiti is useful for the USA not merely for cheap Haitian labor in sweatshops making t-shirts, and production lines manufacturing electronic sub-assemblies for our transnational corporations. That's not the main issue; it's a strategic position to help achieve what the USA wants in the rest of Latin America. Having control and toppling the government in Haiti is a smaller example of what we are doing on a larger scale in other places such as Venezuela--a government that won't submit to neoliberal economics. Accordingly, Kerry has said nothing about restoring Aristide, but rather that he is "unacceptable" and "flawed."

(2) Hugo Chávez is the great hope for Latin American independence from USA domination. He also is "unacceptable" to Kerry, again, though elected overwhelmingly in a democratic election. Kerry claims that Chávez is somehow not allowing the upcoming (Aug 15) recall referendum in Venezuela to proceed, when in fact Chávez is accepting the referendum. This in the face of opposition that has used the USA's NED and IRI $millions, and a huge campaign, including massive forged signatures to meet the constitutional requirement. Kerry calls Chávez undemocratic for standing up to USA-funded and -fomented critics. Kerry calls him authoritarian when Chávez takes government windfalls from high oil prices to build a health care program, and a housing program, rather than the usual distribution to the Venezuelan oligarchy and USA transnational corporations. He says Chávez is arming militia to intimidate referendum voters, when Chávez has used the militia to defeat paramilitaries from Colombia, trained and funded by the USA, who crossed over into Venezuela to effect a coup. He criticizes Chávez's relationship with Fidel Castro, one that has brought thousands of Cuban doctors to Venezuela to jump-start the health care program while Venezuela trains its own. Kerry is upset that Chávez doesn't support our coca eradication program in neighboring countries--a program that has displaced millions (that's right, millions) of now jobless and starving citizens in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru. In all of this, Kerry accuses Chávez of punishing political opponents, never mentioning Chávez's overwhelming election victory, but rather comparing him as an equal to those whom he has defeated soundly--in a manner similar to how we treated Aristide alongside the coup that overthrew him in 1991. Kerry doesn't mention USA complicity in the short-lived coup that overthrew Chávez, and our immediate egg-on-face statements of approval of this affront to democracy, only to see Chávez reseated immediately by his loyal military.

Just as Bush II, Kerry shows no signs that he would stop or decrease our efforts to depose Chávez by any means. You see, Venezuela--because of its oil and populist leader--is on the verge of breaking away from USA servitude. And Chávez is fostering bilateral relations with other Latin American countries that, if fruitful, can serve to form a powerful Latin American consortium that will help them break away, too. Kerry, like others before him, will do everything in his power to bring down Chávez, and return Venezuela to its proper place in its service to us, and to prevent others from breaking out as well.

- Michael Stallard

RESPONSE BY TOM BARRY

Assuming that Mr. Stallard votes, he has only two choices in the coming presidential election: the incumbent or Kerry. Apparently he believes, when in comes to U.S.-Latin American relations, that either choice will have the same result since both Bush and Kerry are members of the U.S. elite. Like the ideologues that argued for the invasion of Iraq and the deposition of Aristide in Haiti, Mr. Stallard sees history and politics through the prism of dogma, ignoring facts and nuance.

First, a few facts:

* Kerry sharply criticized the Bush's administration's meddling in Haiti, saying: "This administration has been engaged [in Haiti] in very manipulative and wrongful ways. They have a theological and an ideological hatred for Aristide."

* Kerry has taken positions on U.S.-Latin America relations that vary sharply from those of the right-wing ideologues and military hardliners. Two decades ago Kerry opposed U.S. aid to the contras after visiting Nicaragua, and last month joined twenty other senators in demanding that respect for human rights be central to our aid programs in Colombia.

* Although Kerry has echoed administration concerns about Cuba and Venezuela, he has moderated his positions and has recently spoken out against the administration's "meddling" in the region. "We should not countenance mob rule nor military force or inaction to oust an elected president," said Kerry, "even an imperfect one such as Aristide or Chávez in Venezuela."

And some nuance:

* U.S. elites have their differences, and sometimes those differences can make for improved U.S.-Latin American relations. President Franklin Roosevelt explicitly rejected the politics of gunboat diplomacy and military occupation, and as a result the 1930s were years of dramatically improved relations. Under the Alliance for Progress in the 1960s, the U.S. government recognized that "entrenched feudalism" contributed to political and economic instability. For a brief period, the U.S. government supported agrarian reform and rural cooperatives as an alternative path to development in the region.

* Certainly the U.S. elite is interested in the economic benefits that result from U.S. hegemonic control. But any analysis of U.S.-Latin American relations, such as the one Mr. Stallard advances, that argues that U.S. strategy is always tied to economic interests, whether short- or long-term, misses that role of ideology in shaping U.S. foreign policy, whether in Latin America or in Iraq. Kerry got this nuance right when he said that the Bush administration's disastrous Haiti policy was driven by ideology--rather than by any grand geopolitical strategy or concerns about stabilizing Haiti for maquila production.

* Describing Hugo Chávez as "the great hope for Latin American independence" is symptomatic of the practice of the left to view the future through a series of great hopes. This great-hopism, time and again, has brushed aside the flaws of the political leadership of region's socialists, populists, and even social democrats--in Cuba, Nicaragua, Salvadoran and Guatemalan guerrilla armies, Grenada, or more recently in Brazil and Venezuela. Yes, Chávez should be credited for his social programs and his effort to shatter the stranglehold of the traditional elites. But hope for Latin America can be found in many places--including the rise of social movements such as those of indigenous populations throughout the hemisphere, the new independence of governments in Brazil and Argentina with respect to the United States and international economic institutions, and the widespread recognition that not all the region's problems can be attributed to U.S. imperialism. Interpreting U.S.-Latin American relations solely through the prism of imperialism and anti-imperialism not only results in ignorance but also in disillusionment.

A vote for Kerry is undoubtedly a vote for a member of our country's political elite. Latin Americans, like people throughout the world, are hoping that U.S. voters get the Bush team out of Washington. No argument that Kerry is no great hope for Latin America or for all that ails the United States. But some hope is better than none at all--and that's what we all will be left with if the Bush faction of the elite returns to the White House.

Re: Democratic Party Platform
(http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0408shift.html)

Nice going Zunes. You may now remain with the so-called "Progressives" because you remembered to dis Israel and stay in good favor with other so-called Progressives such as the self-loathing Amy Goodman.

If the Arabs and Muslims are always deemed in great favor by the so-called "Progressives," then I must assume they were born pure and remain that way. Why not hand out their essence at rallies so the world would be at peace.

After all, the great UN rarely censors them for their participation in killing, raping, and maiming non-Arabs and non-Muslims.

How exactly are the so-called "Progressives" any less vitriolic and less stupid than the Right?

- Robert Faner

RESPONSE BY STEPHEN ZUNES

I’m not sure what Mr. Faner is talking about.

First of all, I did not “dis” Israel. I expressed opposition to the Democratic Party’s endorsement of policies of the right-wing Likud Party currently in power. If the Democrats had instead endorsed the policies of one of the moderate Israeli parties, like Meretz, I would have had no objections. Those Democrats who claim that opposition to the policies of the current right-wing government in Israel is the same as being anti-Israel are no different than the Republicans who claim that criticizing policies of the Bush administration are anti-American.

Secondly, I would never say anything in order to be “counted among progressives.” I don’t even know what Amy Goodman’s position is regarding the issues in the platform I mentioned in the article.

Thirdly, it is inaccurate to say the UN rarely censors Arabs and Muslims. It reality, the UN has censored Muslim countries like Morocco, Turkey, Indonesia, and Iraq when they invaded and occupied neighbors. In the latter case, the UN Security Council even authorized the use of force to end the occupation. The UN also imposed tough measures against Iraq to stop the repression of the Kurds and other minorities. Sanctions have also been placed against Libya, Sudan, Iran, and other Muslim countries for abuses of human rights and international law, though no sanctions have been placed against Israel. To claim that the UN Security Council has unfairly singled out Israel, therefore, is contrary to the facts.

Re: Democratic Party Platform Leaning To The Right (http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0408shift.html)

Mr. Zunes, I respect many of your ideas, and even agree with a few. However, though the U.S. may have made a mistake with its current policies regarding Iraq, it is now imperative to continue the operation. My regret is that Iraq will not be divided into three states.

Your views of Israel strike me as negative. If Israel had lost in 1967, what would be your views today? Would you be for the creation of the Jewish state if the Arabs had control of Palestine?

- Mark Mathews

RESPONSE FROM STEPHEN ZUNES

I have never wished Israel to lose any war, I support the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, and have said so many times. Unlike the Democrats, however, I think that no country has the right to invade, occupy, and colonize other countries in violation of international law.

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