The Progressive Response

Volume 8, Number 22
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 FAILED "TRANSITION": THE MOUNTING COSTS OF THE IRAQ WAR
Foreign Policy In Focus and the Institute for Policy Studies

A SECURE AMERICA IN A SECURE WORLD: A NEW FRAMEWORK
By the FPIF Task Force on Terrorism

FACT AND FICTION IN FOREIGN POLICY: MISLEADING FOREIGN POLICY STATEMENTS MADE BY THE CANDIDATES IN THE VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
By Stephen Zunes

AFGHAN ELECTIONS: U.S. SOLUTION TO A U.S. PROBLEM
By Jim Ingalls and Sonali Kolhatkar

WHEN TURNABOUT ISN'T FAIR PLAY
By Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.)

ELECTION YEAR BRINGS COMPETING DEBT RELIEF PROPOSALS
By Todd Tucker

 

II. Letters and Comments

DON'T WRITE BULLSHIT ABOUT VENEZUELA and RESPONSE FROM TODD TUCKER

TOO MUCH NAME-CALLING OVER PROGRESSIVES AND IRAQ and RESPONSE FROM FRANK SMYTH

 

I. Updates and Out-Takes

A FAILED "TRANSITION": THE MOUNTING COSTS OF THE IRAQ WAR
Foreign Policy In Focus and the Institute for Policy Studies

(Editor's Note: Foreign Policy In Focus and the Institute for Policy Studies have just released a new report, available in full at http://www.fpif.org/papers/0409iraqtrans.html and excerpted below, which provides is a new accounting of the costs of the Iraq War on the United States, Iraq, and the world.)

The report reveals stark figures about the escalation of costs in these most recent three months of “transition” to Iraqi rule, a period that the Bush administration claimed would be a time of increased stability and prosperity for Iraqis. Major findings of the report include:

1. U.S. Military Casualties Have Been Highest During the “Transition”: U.S. military casualties (wounded and killed) stand at a monthly average of 747 since the so-called “transition” to Iraqi rule on June 28, 2004. This contrasts with a monthly average of 482 U.S. military casualties during the invasion (March 20-May 1, 2003) and a monthly average of 415 during the occupation (May 2, 2003-June 28, 2004).

2. Non-Iraqi Contractor Deaths Have Also Been Highest During the “Transition”: There has also been a huge increase in the average monthly deaths of U.S. and other non-Iraqi contractors since the “transition.” On average, 17.5 contractors have died each month since the June 28 “transition,” versus 7.6 contractor deaths per month during the previous 14 months of occupation.

3. Estimated Strength of Iraqi Resistance Skyrockets: Because the U.S. military occupation remains in place, the “transition” has failed to win Iraqi support or diminish Iraqi resistance to the occupation. According to Pentagon estimates, the number of Iraqi resistance fighters has quadrupled between November of 2003 and early September 2004, from 5,000 to 20,000. This rise is even starker when juxtaposed to Brookings Institution estimates that an additional 24,000 Iraqi resistance fighters have been detained or killed between May 2003 and August 2004.

4. U.S.- led Coalition Shrinks Further After “Transition”: The number of countries identified as members of the Coalition backing the U.S.-led war started with 30 on March 18, 2003, then grew in the early months of the war. Since then, eight countries have withdrawn their troops and Costa Rica has demanded to be taken off the coalition list. At the war’s start, coalition countries represented 19.1 percent of the world’s population; today, the remaining countries represent only 13.6 percent of the world’s population.

The Bush administration declared on June 28, 2004 that the United States was “transferring sovereignty” to Iraq. We were told that this was a great victory for democracy. And yet, after 18 months of war and occupation in Iraq, and even as public support for the war plummets, there is still little understanding in the United States about the real costs of the war. This report offers evidence that we have paid a very high price for the war and have become less secure at home and in the world.

A SECURE AMERICA IN A SECURE WORLD: A NEW FRAMEWORK
By the 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 last week’s Progressive Response we presented a summary of the critique of the Bush administration’s agenda, and this week a summary of our alternative agenda. An executive summary and the complete report are available at http://www.fpif.org/papers/04terror/index.html .)

A different approach would not fight a “war on terrorism.” Rather, it would treat terrorism as an ongoing threat that needs to be tackled through a strong, coordinated strategy focused on strengthening civilian public sectors and enhancing the international cooperation necessary to prevent and respond to terrorist attacks. Although the military has a clear role to play, it is a supporting actor in the fight against terrorism and Washington must restructure the military in ways that enhance its capacities to respond to the threat posed by international terrorism. The safety challenge of terrorism exposes the weakness of Washington’s conventional ideas of national security and the folly of traditional responses—typically military—to threats against U.S. citizens.

America needs a new agenda for combating terrorism, one that secures citizens against attacks and that situates the use of force within an international legal and policy framework. This agenda must bring international terrorists to justice, debilitate their capacity to wage terrorism, and undermine the political credibility of terrorist networks by addressing related political grievances and injustices. Below, we outline a four-part framework for a new agenda to counter terrorism.

A. Strengthen Homeland Security

To do this, the emphasis needs to be on preventing terrorist attacks and mitigating the effects of terrorist violence. Specific initiatives should:

• Improve Intelligence Gathering and Oversight
• Strengthen Border Security:
• Protect Critical Infrastructure:
• Support Emergency Responders
• Prevent Terrorists from Obtaining Weapons:

B. Strengthen International and National Legal Systems to Hold Terrorists Accountable

An effective response to terrorism requires bolstering the national and international legal infrastructure necessary to identify and prosecute the individuals and organizations that facilitate, finance, perpetrate, and profit from terrorism.

Specific initiatives should:

• Expand international police cooperation;
• Adopt the Princeton Principles on Universal Jurisdiction for prosecutions of crimes against humanity;
• Strengthen the institutions of international law by supporting the creation of a specialized tribunal for judging international terrorists; and,
• Provide technical assistance to countries to implement all the recommendations of the Financial Action Task Force with respect to money laundering and terrorist financing.

In those instances where military force is necessary to combat nonstate actors like al-Qaida, working through international institutions is justified on both normative and pragmatic grounds. The use of force should require specific authorization from the United Nations Security Council that includes specific goals and a time line, and military operations would preferably be under UN control. In any event, the exercise of such force should adhere to international humanitarian law and the principles of the “just war” tradition.

C. Defend and Promote Democracy at Home and Abroad

Antiterrorist efforts should not sacrifice the very values that Americans are trying to defend. Washington must listen closely to the mounting concerns of civil libertarians and constitutional rights groups who caution that the new counterterrorism campaign may lead to a garrison state that undermines all that America stands for while doing little to protect citizens against unconventional threats. The USA PATRIOT Act is perhaps the greatest threat to civil liberties in the country today, and we applaud the numerous states, cities, towns, and counties that have passed resolutions demanding that local law enforcement not implement the provisions of those regulations that infringe on basic rights.

In forging international coalitions against terrorism, the administration should strengthen restrictions on the provision of military aid, weapons, and training to regimes that systematically violate human rights. Proactively, the White House and Congress should more rigorously condition such programs on adherence to internationally recognized human rights standards. In addition, the United States should support efforts to strengthen international legal and human rights norms, conventions, and organizations and should evaluate its own foreign policies in light of those norms.

D. Attack Root Causes

Combating terrorism requires looking beyond any one terrorist event—horrific as it may be—to address the broader socioeconomic, political, and military contexts from which international terrorism emerges. Because terrorism is a particular kind of violent act aimed at achieving a political objective, a preventive strategy must address its political roots.

U.S. policy must recognize a distinction between international terrorism in general and the specific threat posed by al-Qaida and other extremist Islamist movements, so as not to be perceived as waging a war on Islam. The 9/11 Commission Report, for example, is careful to make such a distinction. This requires that U.S. policymakers learn to distinguish between illegitimate demands and legitimate demands pursued through illegitimate means. The anti-democratic and jihadist character of al-Qaida’s ideology suggests that even if the United States were to pursue the kinds of alternative policies outlined here, Americans would still be the target of attacks by committed members of al-Qaida and similar groups. Addressing root causes is one way of insuring that terrorist group efforts to mobilize support meet as inhospitable a social, economic, and political climate as possible.

The success of these policies will only be fully realized when there are no more breeding grounds for terrorist politics. These political contexts include: repressive political regimes, which spawn terrorism; failed and failing states, which can provide terrorists with arenas for operations; poverty and inequality, which can enhance support for terrorist acts and provide a source of recruits, even though poverty itself does not cause terrorism; and efforts by the United States to institutionalize its positions of global dominance, including through alliances with repressive regimes.

No single component of this framework is an adequate response to terrorism. Only by joining all four strategies—pursuing prevention and preparedness, strengthening the international framework for multilateral action, defending and promoting civil rights, and addressing root causes—will the U.S. government be able to truthfully tell the American people that it is doing all that it can to prevent future terrorist attacks. Our proposed security strategy would be more effective at making the U.S. a safer place for all its citizens. It would also have the added advantages of improving the nation’s quality of life by improving public safety, health care, and air quality.

The challenge is to construct a national security policy that demonstrates America’s new commitment to protecting U.S. citizens by incorporating effective counterterror measures into the national security strategy. At the same time, American citizens must demand and U.S. foreign policy must assert a renewed commitment to constructing an international framework of peace, justice, and security that locks terrorists out in the cold—with no home, no supporters, no money, and no rallying cry. With that response, the events of September 11, 2001, will indeed have changed America and the world.

(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.)

FACT AND FICTION IN FOREIGN POLICY: MISLEADING FOREIGN POLICY STATEMENTS MADE BY THE CANDIDATES IN THE VICE PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE
By Stephen Zunes

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new policy report available in full at http://www.fpif.org/papers/0410fffp.html.)

The list below contains what I consider to be the sixteen most misleading statements made by Vice President Dick Cheney and Senator John Edwards during the foreign policy segment of their debate of October 5, followed by my critiques. This is a resolutely non-partisan analysis: eleven of the misleading statements cited are from Cheney and five are from Edwards. The quotes are listed in the order in which they appear in the transcript.

Cheney: “Concern about Iraq specifically focused on the fact that Saddam Hussein had been, for years, listed on the state sponsor of terror, that he had established relationships with Abu Nidal, who operated out of Baghdad;…and he had an established relationship with al Qaida.”

At the height of Iraq’s support for Abu Nidal, during the mid-1980s, the Reagan administration dropped Iraq from its list of states sponsoring terrorism in order to transfer arms and technology to Saddam Hussein’s regime that would have otherwise been illegal. Iraq was put back on the list immediately following its invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, despite evidence that Iraq’s support for international terrorism had actually declined. Abu Nidal’s group had been largely moribund for more than a decade when Saddam Hussein had him killed in his Baghdad apartment in 2002.

Despite seemingly desperate efforts by the Bush administration to find a working relationship between the secular Baathist government of Saddam Hussein and the Islamist al-Qaida network of Osama bin Laden, no credible links have been established. Indeed, recent reports from the 9/11 commission, the Central Intelligence Agency and other credible sources have gone on record denying that any evidence of such a relationship exists.

Edwards: “Saddam Hussein needed to be confronted. John Kerry and I have consistently said that. That’s why we voted for the resolution.”

Saddam Hussein’s regime was already being confronted through the United Nations Security Council, which had imposed strict sanctions upon the country and had overseen the disarmament of that country’s chemical weapons; its nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs; and its offensive delivery systems. There was no need and no legal right for Kerry and Edwards to authorize President Bush to unilaterally take military action, since the dispute regarding the destruction of proscribed weapons and weapons systems and access for UN inspectors was not between Iraq and the United States but between Iraq and the United Nations. Earlier the same day that Kerry and Edwards voted to give President Bush such unprecedented authority to unilaterally invade a foreign country, they both voted against a similar resolution granting President Bush the power to use military force if it was authorized by the UN Security Council. This underscores the willingness of the Democratic presidential and vice presidential nominees to defy the United Nations Charter and to project American military power unilaterally regardless of international law.

Cheney: “We’re four days away from a democratic election, the first one in history in Afghanistan. We’ve got 10 million voters who have registered to vote, nearly half of them women. That election will put in place a democratically elected government that will take over next December. We’ve made enormous progress in Afghanistan, in exactly the right direction, in spite of what John Edwards said two and a half years ago. He just got it wrong.”

In Afghanistan, vote-buying, intimidation, and the enormously disproportionate resources allocated to pro-government candidates raise serious questions as to how democratic these upcoming elections will be. Currently, there are more Afghan males registered to vote than there are eligible Afghan male voters; duplicate voting cards are commonplace and can be sold on the open market. The regime, which lacks solid control of much of the country outside the capital of Kabul, was largely hand-picked by the United States. The ongoing violence and chaos in the country, along with extremely high rates of illiteracy, raise serious questions as to whether the Western-style election the United States is trying to set up will have any credibility among the Afghans themselves. Edwards’ concerns about the growing power of opium magnates and war lords—casually dismissed by Cheney—are actually quite valid.

Cheney: “Twenty years ago we had a similar situation in El Salvador. We had—guerrilla insurgency controlled roughly a third of the country, 75,000 people dead, and we held free elections. I was there as an observer on behalf of the Congress. The human drive for freedom, the determination of these people to vote, was unbelievable. And the terrorists would come in and shoot up polling places; as soon as they left, the voters would come back and get in line and would not be denied the right to vote. And today El Salvador is a whale of a lot better because we held free elections.”

First of all, the United States was not supporting freedom in El Salvador twenty years ago. According to the United Nations Truth Commission and independent human rights organizations, the vast majority of those killed in El Salvador during this period were civilians murdered by the U.S.-backed junta and its allied paramilitary organizations.

Secondly, the Salvadoran elections Cheney observed in the 1980s were not free elections. The leading leftist and left-of-center politicians had been assassinated or driven underground and their newspapers and radio stations suppressed. The election was only between representatives of conservative and right-wing parties.

Thirdly, despite threats from some of the more radical guerrilla factions, there were very few attacks on polling stations.

Fourthly, people repeatedly lined up to vote because they were required to. Failure to get the requisite stamp that validated the fact that you had voted would likely get one labeled as a “subversive” and therefore a potential target for assassination.

Lastly, El Salvador finally did have free elections in 1994, only after Congress cut off aid to the Salvadoran government and the peace plan initiated by Costa Rican president Oscar Arias—which was initially opposed by the Republican administrations then in office in Washington—was finally implemented.

(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).)

AFGHAN ELECTIONS: U.S. SOLUTION TO A U.S. PROBLEM
By Jim Ingalls and Sonali Kolhatkar

(Editor's Note: Will the October 9 elections in Afghanistan mark a new progressive pathway in Afghanistan’s reconstruction? FPIF analysts Jim Ingalls and Sonali Kolhatkar explore the obstacles that the elections pose to a more progressive reconstruction process in Afghanistan in a new special report, which is available in full at http://www.fpif.org/papers/0410afghanelect.html and excerpted below. For additional FPIF coverage also see Mark Sedra’s Afghanistan: Democracy Before Peace? At http://www.fpif.org/papers/2004afghandem.html.)

Afghanistan will undergo the first presidential elections in the country’s history on October 9, 2004. As if surprised by the fact that Afghans could want a voice in their country’s future, President George W. Bush touted the over 10 million Afghans registered to vote as “a resounding endorsement for democracy.” The real surprise is that, despite rampant anti-election violence and threats of violence, so many people were brave enough to register. This certainly indicates that Afghans are desperate for a chance to control their own lives. But, even though many will risk their lives to vote, the majority of Afghans played no part in decision-making regarding the schedule and structure of the elections, and will not benefit from the results. This election process was imposed by the United States to solve “Afghan problems” as defined by the United States. In reality, the problems facing Afghans are the results of decisions made in Washington in the 1980s and 1990s.

To the Bush administration and media pundits, presidential elections in Afghanistan will bring the country closer to being a “democracy,” where people decide their own fate. Business Week describes the elections as a “first test” of President Bush’s claim that Afghanistan and Iraq “are on the path to democracy.” In a Washington Post opinion piece, Andrew Reynolds of the University of North Carolina similarly described the elections as a “Test for Afghan Democracy.” In this view, any failure of the process will be caused by a lack of readiness of Afghanistan and its people for “democracy,” not a failure of external players to fulfill their responsibilities to the country. What is being tested is solely the capacity of Afghans to embrace democracy. Indeed, Business Week describes only indigenous threats to the elections exercise: “Power brokers are trying to cut deals to eliminate competitive elections. Violence against election workers and politicians is on the rise...Hardly anyone expects the voting to meet international standards.” A commonly cited statistic indicating voter fraud is the estimated 10% over-registration countrywide. According to Business Week, “some areas have registration rates as high as 140% of projected eligible voters.” This is definitely disturbing, and is a blow to President Bush’s own election propaganda, since he uses the “over 10 million registered” figure in campaign speeches as an example of the success of his foreign policy. The focus on voter fraud, however, keeps the emphasis on the Afghan failure to measure up to international standards. Few media outlets have dared to blame the United States for the more egregious fraud of imposing early elections on a still war-ravaged country where Northern Alliance warlords legitimized by Washington will continue to hold real power, regardless of who wins the vote. If the Afghan elections fail, Afghans will be blamed and Afghans will continue to suffer, seemingly as a result of their own actions.

Another point rarely mentioned is that elections do not equal democracy. J. Alexander Thier, a former legal adviser to Afghanistan’s Constitutional and Judicial Reform Commissions, is one of the few commentators who dares to utter the simple fact: “Elections themselves are only a small part of democracy.” In Thier’s opinion, “Effective government service, protection of individual rights, accountability — these are the true fruits of democracy. Holding elections without the rule of law can undermine democracy by sparking violence, sowing cynicism and allowing undemocratic forces to become entrenched.” Elections are merely “the end product of a successful democracy.” Regardless of who wins the elections and by what means, civil society in Afghanistan is at the moment anything but democratic. Foreign influence, particularly U.S. influence, has ensured that insecurity, warlordism, and a severely curtailed media are entrenched features of the political landscape.

(Jim Ingalls and Sonali Kolhatkar are Co-Directors of the Afghan Women’s Mission, a U.S.-based non-profit organization that works in solidarity with the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA). They both write regularly for Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org). Jim is a staff scientist at the Spitzer Science Center, California Institute of Technology. Sonali is the host and co-producer of Uprising, a daily public affairs program on KPFK Pacifica Radio. Together they have published many articles on Afghanistan and are working on their first book about U.S. policy in Afghanistan. For more information visit www.afghanwomensmission.org and www.rawa.org.)

WHEN TURNABOUT ISN'T FAIR PLAY
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/2004/0410fairplay.html.)

Perry in Japan; Dewey at Manila Bay; the China Relief Expedition (Boxer Rebellion)—the West met the East “over there.”

Now, East—in the form of the Peoples Republic of China—seems about to meet the West in the persons of Louis-Jodel Chamberlain and Jackson Joanis. Should this particular meeting actually happen, it will be different from the previous East-West encounters in one important detail: it will happen “over here,” specifically, in the Caribbean—more specifically, in Haiti. It will come about because the unforeseen and unintended consequences of earlier decisions are finally emerging to upset the calculations of policymakers.

With Iraq and the U.S. election cycle dominating headlines, Haiti all but fell off the front pages until Hurricane Jeanne struck, killing more than 1,550 (with another 900 unaccounted for and presumed dead), 300,000 left homeless, and food, water and shelter in desperately short supply. For all the misery it has and is causing, however, Jeanne is not at the root of Haiti’s latest problems in the way Chamberlain and Joanis are. In February 2000, these two and their followers seemed on the verge of seizing control of Haiti when the U.S. stepped in and “induced” a regime change. Economic activity plunged, rebuilding only slowly until devasted again by natural disaster.

Moreover, the country remains factionalized and heavily armed despite the presence of a UN peacekeeping mission numbering 3,000. UN commanders report armed clashes as people fight over distribution of relief supplies. And while overt combat is rare, many observers suspect that the more organized armed factions are merely standing back, waiting until closer to the elections to re-engage—violently.

In short, Haiti is the Western Hemisphere’s chaotic if impoverished and smaller counterpart to Afghanistan and Iraq, just over seven months following the still-murky swirl of events that saw 300 Haitians die and President Jean Bertrand Aristide depart Port-au-Prince on a U.S. aircraft that finally deposited him in the Central African Republic.

Chamberlain, a notorious paramilitary leader, was one of two prominent anti-Aristide leaders with pretensions to the Haitian presidency. But advanced elements of a UN authorized, U.S.-led foreign military “coalition of the willing” were already at the presidential palace when the rebel forces arrived, thwarting an indigenous coup.

The 3,000 strong intervention force had one overriding goal: to provide enough stability for the new interim government to allow it to restore economic activity, reconstitute the police and justice systems, and prepare for elections in November 2005 that will bring a new government to power in February 2006. But time ran out. In late June, U.S. forces departed Haiti, handing peacekeeping duties to the UN Stabilization Mission (MINUSTAH) led by Brazil. Washington, battered by Iraq, was pleased to escape with no fatalities.

Since then, there has been good and bad news. A provisional administration was formed to govern the island and prepare for elections. In June, flooding killed an estimated 1,300 people and rendered thousands homeless. In July, a donors’ conference pledged $1.09 billion in “new money” to revitalize Haiti’s economy. But the original goals of the intervention remain unachieved.

And this is where China comes into the picture. For the first time, Beijing is set to participate in a UN peacekeeping mission by contributing an organized security unit—in this instance, 125-130 riot police.

What makes this move so interesting is that Haiti is one of only 26 countries worldwide that maintains formal diplomatic relations with Beijing’s “renegade” island-province of Taiwan. Many in Washington who support Taiwan’s independent stance as an evolving democracy see Beijing’s action as another inroad to the hegemonic 19th century “Monroe Doctrine” reoriented to the East.

As much as Washington might be uneasy about this first ever Chinese unit deployment in support of UN peacekeeping, it points to the reality of China taking initial steps in assuming a truly global role in the 21st century. Already, Beijing is affecting world oil markets as its energy demands mushroom. It is also facilitating the six-party discussions on North Korea’s nuclear weapons program that involve past and present superpowers.

In the 19th century, Euro-centric U.S. apologists of imperialism “traced” the gradual shift of dominant empires from east to west to explain and justify U.S. expansion. As flawed as this theory was (and is), their vision seems a reality today as the U.S. stands alone militarily and still dominates world economics. But if history is any guide, this unipolar dominance cannot last. Whether empire moves west—to the real East—or some other direction, move it will.

That movement will be resisted regardless of who runs Washington. The danger in this is two-fold: resistance will be military and thus destructively unproductive, or it will persist for so long that most if not all possibilities for a cooperative “soft landing” will be lost. The result will be, as the 2003 Nobelist, John Michael Coetzee of South Africa noted about earlier imperial realms in slow decline, a U.S. bedeviled by one consuming thought: “How not to end, how not to die, how to prolong its era.”

(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.)

ELECTION YEAR BRINGS COMPETING DEBT RELIEF PROPOSALS
By Todd Tucker

(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0410debtrelief.html.)

People looking to get excited about American democracy in an election year needn’t look further than the current proposals on poor country debt relief from multilateral institutions being put forward by the presidential campaigns. This has gone from an issue that concerned only a few committed activists to one that engages the political mainstream.

The Bush administration’s initial proposal as reported in the press was the first to offer specifics, offering 100% debt cancellation for around 30 nations considered “Highly Indebted Poor Countries” (HIPC). Most of this would be funded through the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF)’s existing gold and cash reserves. The President’s proposal would also convert World Bank loans to interest-free grants, according to reports from recent civil society meetings with the U.S. Treasury Department.

Not to be outdone, Senator John Kerry recently called attention to his own campaign’s proposal, which calls for the same end goal on debt but includes more countries. The Kerry initiative also notes that deeper debt cancellation “should not come at the expense of future foreign aid flows to poor countries” and suggests such measures can be made through “modifying the [existing] Enhanced Highly Indebted Poor Countries Initiative”.

Support from other G-7 countries is needed for either proposal to become policy. Recent press reports suggest that there may be some support in Europe, as UK Chancellor of the Exchequer Gordon Brown backed the goal of poor country debt cancellation, and suggested that British taxpayers would foot 10% of the bill. Whatever the outcome, the topic of debt cancellation will continue to loom large in the coming months.

(FPIF analyst Todd Tucker works with the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC, and writes frequently on trade, development and economic implications of foreign policy issues. For more information on CEPR’s work, please visit www.cepr.net.)

II. Letters and Comments

DON'T WRITE BULLSHIT ABOUT VENEZUELA

Re: Chávez Reconfirmed, Venezuelan Opposition Should Be Careful What They Wish For
By Todd Tucker (http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0408venrecount.html)

This article is clearly written by someone who was either on the side of the government, or of the same political tendency, or paid by the government, or someone who heard about what happened and was never present here in Venezuela. I am a 26-year-old medical doctor from Venezuela who did see what happened here and the narrative is far from the truth. The demonstration led by Ortega was the one that was massive and not the Chavez supporters who were just a few armed and ready to fire against unarmed people who were never in a violent mood. Please, stop writing bullshit about Venezuela and come see for yourself what is really going on here, such as the fraud that is being committed right now in the referendum elections and is starting to be unveiled now.

- Gustavo Lopez, MD

RESPONSE From Todd Tucker

Dr. Lopez raises the specter of fraud to bring into question the results of Venezuela's recent referendum, a claim echoed by the Venezuelan opposition, much of which is still refusing to accept the results as valid. The opposition is basing this claim on an exit poll of 20,000 voters conducted by the New York firm Penn, Schoen & Berland, which shows 59% in favor of recall. The margin of error on so large a sample is 1%.

My Center calculated the odds of a properly constructed survey resulting in such an error -- the chances are almost incomprehensible, far less than 1 chance in 10 to the 490th power (see our report at www.cepr.net for an indication of the magnitude of this number). In other words, four poker players would have a greater chance of each being dealt 21 consecutive royal flushes (i.e. A-K-Q-J-10 of the same suit) from the same unstacked deck of cards. The obvious implication is that the opposition's exit polls suffered from, at the least, serious methodological problems.

At the request of the Venezuelan opposition, the Carter Center and OAS conducted a random audit of voting centers that reconfirmed the initial results: the opposition meanwhile refused to participate in the audit performed at their own request, and is making noises about boycotting the upcoming regional elections. Fortunately for democracy, it appears that Washington is distancing itself from the opposition's quixotic strategy.

Todd Tucker is an analyst with CEPR, an independent, non-partisan think tank in Washington, DC.

TOO MUCH NAME-CALLING OVER PROGRESSIVES AND IRAQ

Re: Who Are the Progressives in Iraq? The Left, the Right, and the Islamists By Frank Smyth (http://www.fpif.org/papers/0409progiraq.html)

I thought the article was interesting, but indulged in too much name calling of writers of the left. You imply that they are supporting all sorts of bad people, which (a) was not backed up by any evidence in your article and (b) is unlikely to be true. Moreover, what good does this name calling serve?

In particular, after pissing on everyone else, you offer no solutions. Do we need the U.S. in Iraq to make sure "the good guys" prevail? I doubt you are arguing that. So if not, what's your solution?

I think all most of the leftist writers are arguing is that almost anything is better than the U.S. staying in there. Perhaps they are wrong, but that needs to be argued, and not from the point of view of what enlightened philosopher kings would do, but what we can expect political leaders like Bush to do.

- Alexander Pollatsek

RESPONSE from Frank Smyth

As American progressives campaign for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq, they should keep in mind how the United States has treated Iraqis before. First the Reagan administration shared military intelligence with Iraq against Iran, after Reagan officials like Donald Rumsfeld learned that Saddam had already used chemical weapons against both Iranian troops and Iraqi Kurds in the north. Then the first Bush administration, during after the first Gulf War encouraged Iraqis to “toss aside” Saddam, only to abandon millions of Iraqis to be slaughtered after they, indeed, rose up across most of Iraq in response to H.W. Bush’s call. Next the same Bush administration followed by the Clinton administration enforced UN sanctions, which were felt most of all in the Shiite-dominated south, impoverishing millions and killing thousands, especially babies. Finally, the second Bush administration invaded and then occupied Iraq, killing thousands more Iraqis. Now, if U.S. forces were to suddenly leave Iraq, it would lead to a full-scale civil war which would be, even after all they have already endured, the worse case scenario for Iraqis.

A better and more progressive solution would be to lay the groundwork for a political transition to Iraqi control as a way to end the American occupation. Many Iraqis including the top Shiite cleric, Ali Sistani, fear that the Bush administration is likely to manipulate any future elections to keep its own proxies in power. Progressives should instead demand international including probably United Nations oversight of any future electoral process to guarantee that a post-occupation government in Iraq genuinely reflects the will of most Iraqi people. In the interim, progressives should oppose any steps by the United States or Iraq’s currently unelected government to make any major decision concerning either Iraq’s economy or resources led by oil. At the same time, progressives should argue that the United States account for its own human rights abuses in Iraq including the torture inside Abu Ghraib prison. This should include the demand that any tribunals in Iraq including the pending trial of Saddam and others are held to the standards of international jurisprudence. Progressives should also continue to monitor ongoing Iraqi casualties from the U.S. occupation and ensure that they are not forgotten.

Each of these suggestions is more complicated than simply demanding an immediate U.S. troop withdrawal. But the results would be far better for most Iraqis, who are already too used to Americans treating them like their well-being doesn’t matter.

(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. His clips are posted at www.franksmyth.com.)

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