It is a long way from Washington, D.C., to Baghdad. Over 6200 miles to be exact. But watching the events of the last week, it would be possible to think that the two were ever further apart. On different planets, perhaps.
On Friday, the House of Representatives, after over 45 hours of debate spread over 5 days, passed a measure formally disapproving of President Bush’s plan to send an additional 20,000 combat troops to Iraq. Over the course of the debate, 392 House members took their 5 minutes to passionately defend their positions in front of a largely empty chamber, speaking only into the air that is the C-SPAN viewership. The bill that passed, however, was really only a “nonbinding resolution.” From a policy perspective, this nonbinding resolution has exactly zero effect on the future direction of Iraq other than lobbing some harsh words at the Administration. So much for sticks and stones, eh?
The House’s expression of public outrage may not have been much, but it still bested the performance of the Senate. In a startling display of Congressional impotence, the Senate failed to even get to a debate on the resolution passed by the House thanks to procedural rules. This failure means that, for now, Senators – many of whom are running for president – will not engage in debate, much less put themselves on record, regarding a crucial issue in our nation’s life.
Meanwhile, President Bush seems content to run out the clock on his term so that he will never have to admit a mistake and can pass his fiasco on to the next president.
This entire scene unfolds amid a backdrop of increasing American casualties and downed helicopters and bombs that kill scores of Iraqis even as security forces crack down. The contrast between real lives being lost and symbolic resolutions being debated – or not even debated in the case of the Senate – vividly drives home the disconnect between the powers that be in Washington and the events of the real world. It is no wonder that both congressional and presidential approval ratings are at historic lows – neither Congress nor the President is responding effectively to an immense national problem.
The sad fact is that the decision makers in Washington are not leaders, but politicians. Even as they debate crucial issues, they keep an eye on partisan strategy and the next election. Questions that may be asked when a vote must be cast could be, in this order: Is it good for me? Is it good for my party? Is it good for the country? These are the priorities of politicians. I have no doubt that many start in politics for all the right reasons – to serve the public and improve the country – but years within the Beltway have a tendency to warp perspectives to the point that nonbinding resolutions pass for bold action.
The real power of Congress when it comes to foreign policy – the power of the purse – was explicitly not on the table during last week’s debate and non-debate. Why? Because forcing politicians to take a stand on such a politically-charged issue may put politicians in politically-uncomfortable situations. The result of this reticence, unfortunately, is that American troops and an entire nation of Iraqis are put in truly uncomfortable, even deadly, situations every day.
Showing posts with label Foreign Policy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Foreign Policy. Show all posts
February 19, 2007
October 23, 2006
Spin Zone
North Korea is in rarefied status among the world's evildoers these days. This is due to both the attention President Bush brought to North Korea in naming it among the axis of evil (a good thing) and the inattention President Bush gave to North Korea while concentrating all resources on Iraq (not a good thing). This month’s nuclear test revealed the result of the Bush Administration’s distraction: WMDs in North Korea. North Korea has gone from an isolated, hostile, dangerous country engaged in negotiations with the global community that helped prevent it from developing a nuclear weapon in 2000 to an isolated, hostile, dangerous country that has tested a nuclear weapon in 2006. The George W. Bush era, it would seem, has not been terribly unkind to North Korea.
Yet, to hear Bill O’Reilly tell it, North Korea is working feverishly to support the Democrats in the upcoming mid-term election. In his “no spin zone,” O'Reilly declared the North Korean nuclear test a calculated effort to influence the American election. Similarly, O’Reilly asserted that Iran is ramping up the violence in Iraq so Americans will turn against the Bush Administration. “Why does Iran want the Democrats to win in November?” O’Reilly asks. Iran, it seems, is pushing insurgents to increase the violence in Iraq not to crush Iraqi democracy, but to influence American democracy.
Normally, what Bill O’Reilly says is as meaningless as it sounds, but on this issue, it appears he is not alone in his thinking. Discussing the similarities between the recent spike in violence in Iraq and the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, President Bush threw out the election card: “There’s certainly a stepped-up level of violence, and we're heading into an election.” Lest anyone be confused as to what the President meant, Press Secretary Tony Snow explained that Bush “was making a point he’s made before, which is that terrorists try to exploit pictures and try to use the media as conduits for influencing public opinion in the United States.”
The O’Reilly/Bush argument goes something like this: North Korea/Iran/Iraqi insurgency are taking action aimed at helping Democrats win elections in the United States, so if you vote for the Democrats, you are actually helping the cause of North Korea/Iran/Iraqi insurgency.
But a look at American politics from the perspective of our enemies makes you wonder why these regimes would be so eager to end the Bush era. Assuming that the goal of American enemies is to weaken the United States, it seems that these regimes ought to be rooting for more of the same from the Bush Administration rather than working for a Democratic majority in Congress.
The Bush Administration has done more to weaken America’s standing in the world than any anti-American rhetoric from Tehran or nuclear test from Pyongyang. By thumbing its nose at international treaties, flouting international standards for the treatment of prisoners, and starting a war without an international mandate, the Bush Administration has put the U.S. in an increasingly isolated global position. That position is further weakened by the enormous commitment of resources to Iraq and the lack of short-term success there. Given the kind of bumbling they’ve seen from Bush Administration, why would North Korea or Iran really want change?
Neither O’Reilly nor Bush wants you to answer, or even ask that question. They are instead searching for any way possible to save the Republican majority by shifting the focus off the Bush administration’s record.
Given that record, Democrats do not need any help from America’s enemies to convince voters that change is necessary, no matter what Bill O’Reilly says.
Yet, to hear Bill O’Reilly tell it, North Korea is working feverishly to support the Democrats in the upcoming mid-term election. In his “no spin zone,” O'Reilly declared the North Korean nuclear test a calculated effort to influence the American election. Similarly, O’Reilly asserted that Iran is ramping up the violence in Iraq so Americans will turn against the Bush Administration. “Why does Iran want the Democrats to win in November?” O’Reilly asks. Iran, it seems, is pushing insurgents to increase the violence in Iraq not to crush Iraqi democracy, but to influence American democracy.
Normally, what Bill O’Reilly says is as meaningless as it sounds, but on this issue, it appears he is not alone in his thinking. Discussing the similarities between the recent spike in violence in Iraq and the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, President Bush threw out the election card: “There’s certainly a stepped-up level of violence, and we're heading into an election.” Lest anyone be confused as to what the President meant, Press Secretary Tony Snow explained that Bush “was making a point he’s made before, which is that terrorists try to exploit pictures and try to use the media as conduits for influencing public opinion in the United States.”
The O’Reilly/Bush argument goes something like this: North Korea/Iran/Iraqi insurgency are taking action aimed at helping Democrats win elections in the United States, so if you vote for the Democrats, you are actually helping the cause of North Korea/Iran/Iraqi insurgency.
But a look at American politics from the perspective of our enemies makes you wonder why these regimes would be so eager to end the Bush era. Assuming that the goal of American enemies is to weaken the United States, it seems that these regimes ought to be rooting for more of the same from the Bush Administration rather than working for a Democratic majority in Congress.
The Bush Administration has done more to weaken America’s standing in the world than any anti-American rhetoric from Tehran or nuclear test from Pyongyang. By thumbing its nose at international treaties, flouting international standards for the treatment of prisoners, and starting a war without an international mandate, the Bush Administration has put the U.S. in an increasingly isolated global position. That position is further weakened by the enormous commitment of resources to Iraq and the lack of short-term success there. Given the kind of bumbling they’ve seen from Bush Administration, why would North Korea or Iran really want change?
Neither O’Reilly nor Bush wants you to answer, or even ask that question. They are instead searching for any way possible to save the Republican majority by shifting the focus off the Bush administration’s record.
Given that record, Democrats do not need any help from America’s enemies to convince voters that change is necessary, no matter what Bill O’Reilly says.
October 16, 2006
Collateral Damage in Iraq
Six hundred thousand is a lot of people. There are just under 600,000 people living within the District of Columbia city limits and just over 600,000 people living in the state of Vermont. Six hundred thousand people could fill the Rose Bowl more than six times or Madison Square Garden more than twenty times.
And according to a recently-published study done by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 600,000 also represents the approximate number of Iraqis who have died violent deaths since the American invasion in March 2003.
Six hundred thousand is a lot of people.
The official finding of the study is that over 600,000 more Iraqis have died since the invasion than “would have been expected in a non-conflict situation.” The Johns Hopkins figure, reached by studying the mortality rate of a broad cross-section of the Iraq community rather than relying on reporting from morgues, hospitals, or governments, is significantly higher than previous estimates from the U.S. military, the U.N. and various human rights organizations. The standard of error puts the number anywhere from 426,369 to 793,663.
President Bush, who has avoided talking much about the number of Iraqis dead, has publicly acknowledged that as many as 50,000 Iraqis may have died since the American invasion. When told of the 600,000 figure, the President said of the report that “the methodology is pretty well discredited.”
The same, of course, could be said of the President’s various rationales for beginning the war in the first place. The alleged terrorism connection and the threat of WMDs have been disproved. Even democracy promotion is taking a back seat after Hamas’s electoral victory in the Palestinian territories. The Iraq war is increasingly only justifiable as a humanitarian war – an effort to rid Iraq of the Hussein dictatorship and allow Iraqis to determine their own futures. Even assuming that the 600,000 figure is too high, even one fourth of that number of deaths seems terribly un-humanitarian. One hundred and fifty thousand, after all, is a lot of people.
Even though the root cause of the massive Iraqi chaos and suffering is the continued and destructive presence of elements desperate to spread violence and fear, the loss of Iraqi life is in part an American responsibility. The American failure to adequately plan for the protection of the very civilians its war was ostensibly waged to benefit reveals how low a priority Iraqi life was given in the run-up to the war. The result of that failure is tragic. Whatever the precise number, scores of thousands of human beings are no longer alive as a result of a life-or-death decision made in Washington.
So long as the American calculus discounts or ignores the collateral damage caused by American actions, we will continue to isolate ourselves and sow resentment around the world. It is difficult to believe a government that claims it is engaged in a humanitarian activity when the human toll of that activity is so high.
American credibility is just one more casualty of the Iraq war.
And according to a recently-published study done by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, 600,000 also represents the approximate number of Iraqis who have died violent deaths since the American invasion in March 2003.
Six hundred thousand is a lot of people.
The official finding of the study is that over 600,000 more Iraqis have died since the invasion than “would have been expected in a non-conflict situation.” The Johns Hopkins figure, reached by studying the mortality rate of a broad cross-section of the Iraq community rather than relying on reporting from morgues, hospitals, or governments, is significantly higher than previous estimates from the U.S. military, the U.N. and various human rights organizations. The standard of error puts the number anywhere from 426,369 to 793,663.
President Bush, who has avoided talking much about the number of Iraqis dead, has publicly acknowledged that as many as 50,000 Iraqis may have died since the American invasion. When told of the 600,000 figure, the President said of the report that “the methodology is pretty well discredited.”
The same, of course, could be said of the President’s various rationales for beginning the war in the first place. The alleged terrorism connection and the threat of WMDs have been disproved. Even democracy promotion is taking a back seat after Hamas’s electoral victory in the Palestinian territories. The Iraq war is increasingly only justifiable as a humanitarian war – an effort to rid Iraq of the Hussein dictatorship and allow Iraqis to determine their own futures. Even assuming that the 600,000 figure is too high, even one fourth of that number of deaths seems terribly un-humanitarian. One hundred and fifty thousand, after all, is a lot of people.
Even though the root cause of the massive Iraqi chaos and suffering is the continued and destructive presence of elements desperate to spread violence and fear, the loss of Iraqi life is in part an American responsibility. The American failure to adequately plan for the protection of the very civilians its war was ostensibly waged to benefit reveals how low a priority Iraqi life was given in the run-up to the war. The result of that failure is tragic. Whatever the precise number, scores of thousands of human beings are no longer alive as a result of a life-or-death decision made in Washington.
So long as the American calculus discounts or ignores the collateral damage caused by American actions, we will continue to isolate ourselves and sow resentment around the world. It is difficult to believe a government that claims it is engaged in a humanitarian activity when the human toll of that activity is so high.
American credibility is just one more casualty of the Iraq war.
September 15, 2006
Dallaire's New Mission
When Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire speaks of Rwanda, his voice quickens. His tone hardens. The room he is in becomes silent as his audience can feel the emotion barely hidden beneath the general’s tough exterior. He poses unanswerable questions about the decisions his soldiers confronted in Rwanda. He spares no party – including himself – in assessing how the world failed to act to stop the Rwandan genocide. On other topics, Dallaire can be charming, even humorous, but on Rwanda, there is only passion.
Underlying Dallaire’s persistent frustration, perhaps even shame, about the inaction of the global community is a belief that, as he puts it, “no human is any more human than any other.” He believes this despite the glaring contradictions in resources committed to confronting crises around the world. He believes it despite his own experience in Rwanda, where the slaughter of 800,000 was deemed unworthy of the risk of casualties from peacekeeping nations.
Dallaire tells of a young boy he encountered on a road in Rwanda amid huts filled with decomposing bodies. Fearful of a trap, Dallaire approached cautiously. Beyond the malnourished body and filthy rags, Dallaire recognized in the boy’s eyes the same thing he had seen in his own four-year-old son’s eyes when he had departed for Rwanda. They were the eyes of a human child. In the boy’s eyes and those of his son, Dallaire recognized a common humanity that sustains his belief that no human life is worth more or less than any other.
Today, Dallaire’s beliefs are being challenged, again in Africa. Although the global community has been more active in Darfur than it was in Rwanda, the results have been modest.
At the end of this month, the African Union force that has been monitoring the situation in Darfur, Sudan, will officially run out of funds and abandon the region. Although no one believes that the African Union force is adequate to fully stop the violence in Darfur, their removal would result in even greater lawlessness and suffering. The United Nations has approved the deployment of a mission in Darfur – a mission far short of the 44,000 peacekeepers Dallaire recommends – but that mission will not deploy without the consent of the Sudanese government. The Sudanese government, of course, has been complicit in the effort to displace or eliminate the African tribes suffering the most in Darfur, and the government has steadfastly refused to accept any non-African troops.
Witnessing the lack of will by the developed world to sustain the attention and pressure necessary to take effective action in Darfur, Dallaire recognizes the same double standard he encountered in Rwanda. Where, he wonders, is the rule that says it is OK to send 63,000 troops to the former Yugoslavia to contain suffering there, but it is completely unreasonable to send 44,000 troops to Darfur? Who makes the decision, he asks bluntly, that it is not worth a single soldier’s life to save thousands of lives just because of where those who will die live or what they look like?
Perhaps Dallaire is being naïve. After all, it is self-interest that drives foreign policy, not some overriding altruistic concern for humanity. Yet, how could Dallaire be naïve after witnessing the most horrific consequences of strictly self-interested foreign policy, the most rapid genocide in human history? To Dallaire, these consequences are morally unacceptable and he has made it his mission to call the world out on its policies.
When Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire speaks, people listen. We listen because Dallaire refuses to remain in the comfortable world of pragmatic foreign policy, wading instead into the complex realm of morality. We listen because we all know that on a fundamental level, he is right – no human life is more valuable than any other. But mostly, we listen because although Dallaire has seen the very worst of humanity, he refuses to surrender hope of a peaceful future and offers us tools with which to get there.
Check out my article in the Memphis Commercial Appeal previewing Dallaire's visit.
Underlying Dallaire’s persistent frustration, perhaps even shame, about the inaction of the global community is a belief that, as he puts it, “no human is any more human than any other.” He believes this despite the glaring contradictions in resources committed to confronting crises around the world. He believes it despite his own experience in Rwanda, where the slaughter of 800,000 was deemed unworthy of the risk of casualties from peacekeeping nations.
Dallaire tells of a young boy he encountered on a road in Rwanda amid huts filled with decomposing bodies. Fearful of a trap, Dallaire approached cautiously. Beyond the malnourished body and filthy rags, Dallaire recognized in the boy’s eyes the same thing he had seen in his own four-year-old son’s eyes when he had departed for Rwanda. They were the eyes of a human child. In the boy’s eyes and those of his son, Dallaire recognized a common humanity that sustains his belief that no human life is worth more or less than any other.
Today, Dallaire’s beliefs are being challenged, again in Africa. Although the global community has been more active in Darfur than it was in Rwanda, the results have been modest.
At the end of this month, the African Union force that has been monitoring the situation in Darfur, Sudan, will officially run out of funds and abandon the region. Although no one believes that the African Union force is adequate to fully stop the violence in Darfur, their removal would result in even greater lawlessness and suffering. The United Nations has approved the deployment of a mission in Darfur – a mission far short of the 44,000 peacekeepers Dallaire recommends – but that mission will not deploy without the consent of the Sudanese government. The Sudanese government, of course, has been complicit in the effort to displace or eliminate the African tribes suffering the most in Darfur, and the government has steadfastly refused to accept any non-African troops.
Witnessing the lack of will by the developed world to sustain the attention and pressure necessary to take effective action in Darfur, Dallaire recognizes the same double standard he encountered in Rwanda. Where, he wonders, is the rule that says it is OK to send 63,000 troops to the former Yugoslavia to contain suffering there, but it is completely unreasonable to send 44,000 troops to Darfur? Who makes the decision, he asks bluntly, that it is not worth a single soldier’s life to save thousands of lives just because of where those who will die live or what they look like?
Perhaps Dallaire is being naïve. After all, it is self-interest that drives foreign policy, not some overriding altruistic concern for humanity. Yet, how could Dallaire be naïve after witnessing the most horrific consequences of strictly self-interested foreign policy, the most rapid genocide in human history? To Dallaire, these consequences are morally unacceptable and he has made it his mission to call the world out on its policies.
When Lt. Gen. Romeo Dallaire speaks, people listen. We listen because Dallaire refuses to remain in the comfortable world of pragmatic foreign policy, wading instead into the complex realm of morality. We listen because we all know that on a fundamental level, he is right – no human life is more valuable than any other. But mostly, we listen because although Dallaire has seen the very worst of humanity, he refuses to surrender hope of a peaceful future and offers us tools with which to get there.
Check out my article in the Memphis Commercial Appeal previewing Dallaire's visit.
September 14, 2006
Facing Horrors of Rwanda Offers Crucial History Lesson
(published in Memphis Commercial Appeal - September 14, 2006)
Twelve years after the Rwandan genocide, Romeo Dallaire is still on a mission, and tonight he will bring that mission to Memphis.
Rather than allowing himself and his traumatic experience as military head of the United Nations mission in Rwanda to fade into history, Dallaire insists on reminding us of the fastest genocide in human history, a three-month period in which 800,000 Rwandans were murdered. By refusing to let go of his horrific memories from Rwanda, Dallaire has embarked on a new mission: to force the global community to confront the reasons for and consequences of inaction in the face of unfolding genocide.
In 1993, Lt. Gen. Dallaire, a Canadian officer, was deployed as head of a multi-national United Nations force charged with enforcing a fragile peace in Rwanda, an obscure African country he could not locate on a map. In early 1994, Dallaire began to understand that rather than working to sustain that peace, some elements within Rwanda were instead plotting the "extermination" of the country's Tutsi population. Dallaire pleaded with his superiors for the authority to act early to impede this genocidal plot, only to be told that such action was beyond the scope of his mandate.
Several months later, as extremists ruthlessly executed the very plot of which Dallaire had been warned, Dallaire was constrained by limited supplies, manpower and authority to effectively confront the perpetrators. Despite the limitations imposed upon him by others, the result, 800,000 murdered Rwandans, weighs heavily on Dallaire's conscience.
After leaving Rwanda, Dallaire attempted to return to a normal life, but how could he return to the world he knew before, knowing that it was the global community who forced him to sit with his hands behind his back as 800,000 human beings were slaughtered in front of him?
The immediate effect upon Dallaire was a severe case of post traumatic stress disorder that ultimately led to a medical discharge from the Canadian military and even a desperate suicide attempt. Fortunately, Dallaire has emerged from this dark period with the energy to face the history of genocide in Rwanda and apply its lessons to crises of today.
When Dallaire speaks, it is not simply to recap the history of the Rwandan genocide, although he certainly has a unique perspective and unflinching willingness to discuss the horrors he witnessed there. Instead, Dallaire tells his stories from Rwanda to expose the flaws in the global response (or lack thereof) to urge his audience to act to address those flaws and prevent their repetition elsewhere, such as in Darfur, Sudan.
In this way, Dallaire is an embodiment of the mission of Facing History and Ourselves, an organization aimed at using events of history as a lens to examine problems confronting students and communities today. Through teacher training, student symposia and community events, such as the visit by Dallaire, Facing History encourages individuals to understand how human behavior and individual choice play a critical role in shaping history.
Facing History has even reached Rwanda itself, having been part of an effort to create a curriculum for teaching Rwandan history despite a moratorium on teaching that history imposed in the aftermath of the genocide. Facing History is now charged with training Rwandan teachers to instruct students on this most sensitive topic in a way that lays a foundation for a future generation that will not have to endure such crimes. Thus far, Facing History has trained an ethnically and geographically diverse group of more than 150 Rwandan teachers, demonstrating its understanding that while the world can learn a great deal from the genocide in Rwanda, it is Rwandans themselves that must most directly confront their own history.
In the case of Rwanda, Romeo Dallaire is at once the history we must face, having played a critical role in the Rwanda narrative, and a powerful, moral voice on how that history applies to today's world.
His continued refusal to fade away serves as a living, breathing testament to what can happen when the world sits idly by in the face of crimes against humanity. This is Dallaire's current mission and the world is fortunate that he remains strong enough to accept it.
Twelve years after the Rwandan genocide, Romeo Dallaire is still on a mission, and tonight he will bring that mission to Memphis.
Rather than allowing himself and his traumatic experience as military head of the United Nations mission in Rwanda to fade into history, Dallaire insists on reminding us of the fastest genocide in human history, a three-month period in which 800,000 Rwandans were murdered. By refusing to let go of his horrific memories from Rwanda, Dallaire has embarked on a new mission: to force the global community to confront the reasons for and consequences of inaction in the face of unfolding genocide.
In 1993, Lt. Gen. Dallaire, a Canadian officer, was deployed as head of a multi-national United Nations force charged with enforcing a fragile peace in Rwanda, an obscure African country he could not locate on a map. In early 1994, Dallaire began to understand that rather than working to sustain that peace, some elements within Rwanda were instead plotting the "extermination" of the country's Tutsi population. Dallaire pleaded with his superiors for the authority to act early to impede this genocidal plot, only to be told that such action was beyond the scope of his mandate.
Several months later, as extremists ruthlessly executed the very plot of which Dallaire had been warned, Dallaire was constrained by limited supplies, manpower and authority to effectively confront the perpetrators. Despite the limitations imposed upon him by others, the result, 800,000 murdered Rwandans, weighs heavily on Dallaire's conscience.
After leaving Rwanda, Dallaire attempted to return to a normal life, but how could he return to the world he knew before, knowing that it was the global community who forced him to sit with his hands behind his back as 800,000 human beings were slaughtered in front of him?
The immediate effect upon Dallaire was a severe case of post traumatic stress disorder that ultimately led to a medical discharge from the Canadian military and even a desperate suicide attempt. Fortunately, Dallaire has emerged from this dark period with the energy to face the history of genocide in Rwanda and apply its lessons to crises of today.
When Dallaire speaks, it is not simply to recap the history of the Rwandan genocide, although he certainly has a unique perspective and unflinching willingness to discuss the horrors he witnessed there. Instead, Dallaire tells his stories from Rwanda to expose the flaws in the global response (or lack thereof) to urge his audience to act to address those flaws and prevent their repetition elsewhere, such as in Darfur, Sudan.
In this way, Dallaire is an embodiment of the mission of Facing History and Ourselves, an organization aimed at using events of history as a lens to examine problems confronting students and communities today. Through teacher training, student symposia and community events, such as the visit by Dallaire, Facing History encourages individuals to understand how human behavior and individual choice play a critical role in shaping history.
Facing History has even reached Rwanda itself, having been part of an effort to create a curriculum for teaching Rwandan history despite a moratorium on teaching that history imposed in the aftermath of the genocide. Facing History is now charged with training Rwandan teachers to instruct students on this most sensitive topic in a way that lays a foundation for a future generation that will not have to endure such crimes. Thus far, Facing History has trained an ethnically and geographically diverse group of more than 150 Rwandan teachers, demonstrating its understanding that while the world can learn a great deal from the genocide in Rwanda, it is Rwandans themselves that must most directly confront their own history.
In the case of Rwanda, Romeo Dallaire is at once the history we must face, having played a critical role in the Rwanda narrative, and a powerful, moral voice on how that history applies to today's world.
His continued refusal to fade away serves as a living, breathing testament to what can happen when the world sits idly by in the face of crimes against humanity. This is Dallaire's current mission and the world is fortunate that he remains strong enough to accept it.
September 08, 2006
Still Haunted
There has been much talk from liberal commentators during this anniversary week that the “new normal” that was supposed to follow the attacks of September 11 was either short-lived or altogether illusory. I could not disagree more. Five years later, I remain haunted by that morning and I do not think I am alone.
For my generation, September 11 marked the first time our country had been stung and it carried with it a new and disturbing sense of national vulnerability. For the first time, I began to question American dominance in more than just a theoretical way. No longer were we impervious and untouchable. The safety that was taken for granted as I went about my life could no longer be taken for granted. After all, the attacks were aimed at civilians, just like me, going about their daily routine. The attackers were aiming at all of us.
I remember sitting alone in my apartment that morning in utter shock, spending the entire day glued to the television. I remember waking up in the middle of the night and checking the news with hopes that the whole tragedy had been somehow imagined. My law school classes were cancelled the next day, leaving me with nothing to do but worry and wait, growing more aware by the minute that the certainty of September 10 would not be returning any time soon.
What I remember most about the immediate aftermath was the unnerving sense that anything was possible. At that point, we did not know if September 11 was only the beginning of something even more diabolical. We did not know then that the next five years would pass without another attack on American soil.
In the five years since September 11, the events of that day have been used by various individuals and groups for all sorts of purposes. Both political parties have used September 11 to suit their political needs; the government has been particularly successful in capitalizing on the patriotism that followed the attacks to push various items on its agenda; a terrorism industry has sprouted; the 9/11 commission sought to provide a definitive account of what went wrong; lately, Hollywood has weighed in with movies.
But through all this, for me at least, the core of raw emotion unleashed that morning remains.
I am reminded often of the attacks – every time I see a skyscraper or an airplane, certainly every time I’m on an airplane – and each time I am returned to the fear of that morning. I find myself shaking my head, still in shock at such a traumatic event. Making the national trauma personal, I have had several dreams relating to the attacks and I have great difficulty watching coverage of the attacks.
So while it may be true that my every day life has returned more or less to September 10 normalcy – at least on the days when I am not at the airport, from which convenience departed long ago – it is not at all true that the “new normal” that followed September 11 is gone. I am still adjusting to living in a country that is vulnerable and in a world where people who know nothing about me or my beliefs want to kill me.
Five years later, I am still haunted by September 11, 2001.
For my generation, September 11 marked the first time our country had been stung and it carried with it a new and disturbing sense of national vulnerability. For the first time, I began to question American dominance in more than just a theoretical way. No longer were we impervious and untouchable. The safety that was taken for granted as I went about my life could no longer be taken for granted. After all, the attacks were aimed at civilians, just like me, going about their daily routine. The attackers were aiming at all of us.
I remember sitting alone in my apartment that morning in utter shock, spending the entire day glued to the television. I remember waking up in the middle of the night and checking the news with hopes that the whole tragedy had been somehow imagined. My law school classes were cancelled the next day, leaving me with nothing to do but worry and wait, growing more aware by the minute that the certainty of September 10 would not be returning any time soon.
What I remember most about the immediate aftermath was the unnerving sense that anything was possible. At that point, we did not know if September 11 was only the beginning of something even more diabolical. We did not know then that the next five years would pass without another attack on American soil.
In the five years since September 11, the events of that day have been used by various individuals and groups for all sorts of purposes. Both political parties have used September 11 to suit their political needs; the government has been particularly successful in capitalizing on the patriotism that followed the attacks to push various items on its agenda; a terrorism industry has sprouted; the 9/11 commission sought to provide a definitive account of what went wrong; lately, Hollywood has weighed in with movies.
But through all this, for me at least, the core of raw emotion unleashed that morning remains.
I am reminded often of the attacks – every time I see a skyscraper or an airplane, certainly every time I’m on an airplane – and each time I am returned to the fear of that morning. I find myself shaking my head, still in shock at such a traumatic event. Making the national trauma personal, I have had several dreams relating to the attacks and I have great difficulty watching coverage of the attacks.
So while it may be true that my every day life has returned more or less to September 10 normalcy – at least on the days when I am not at the airport, from which convenience departed long ago – it is not at all true that the “new normal” that followed September 11 is gone. I am still adjusting to living in a country that is vulnerable and in a world where people who know nothing about me or my beliefs want to kill me.
Five years later, I am still haunted by September 11, 2001.
August 25, 2006
UNfair Criticism
In the midst of the outbreak of violence in Lebanon and northern Israel, much hope for halting the war was placed on the United Nations. Now, it appears that a UN force will be charged with keeping the peace between Hezbollah and Israel. Unfortunately, the hope for stopping violence and maintaining peace is placed in a United Nations that does not and never did exist. When people look to the UN to step in and solve conflicts, they imagine a fictional world governing body with the power, will, and clear-mindedness necessary to make an impact around the world.
However, because of the very structure and authority of the organization, the UN’s true power, will, and perhaps above all, clear-mindedness, fall far short of the hopes placed on it, leaving the UN open to consistent criticism when things go badly.
The UN as it actually exists is by definition limited, constrained, handcuffed, paralyzed. Despite lofty rhetoric, it is not a world government with world peace as its agenda, but a collection of national governments with national interest as their agendas. Without the consent of the member states, the United Nations cannot even issue staplers to its employees, much less compel the deployment of troops sufficient to quell violence in Lebanon, Darfur, or anywhere else.
Yet it is the UN that is the convenient answer to all the world’s ills and the convenient scapegoat when all the world’s ills go unsolved. Yale historian Paul Kennedy, author of “The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present and Future of the United Nations,” notes that if the UN fails to bring a lasting peace to Lebanon, the consolation for the world will be that “we will all be able to blame the United Nations for being ineffectual, weak-toothed, anti-Israel or anti-Arab, and thus of no good to the world community.”
Such proclamations have become standard accompaniment to global conflicts, as though it is the UN that is the source of the world’s discord rather than the bad-behaving individual nations – or as though it is the UN itself rather than the obstructive member states within it that prevent the UN from adequately responding. Certainly the UN has its own troubles, including corruption at high levels, but the lion’s share of the responsibility for UN failures in responding quickly and substantially to unfolding crises requiring military responses rests with member states looking out for their own interests.
As we evaluate the UN, we must remember that at its essence, the United Nations is a building. It is a forum for the nations of the world to gather and discuss the problems of the day. It is a place for diplomacy and smoky room dealmaking. In this way, it is an alternative to war and it has been somewhat successful in putting global diplomacy on at least equal footing with military confrontation as a means of solving problems.
Given its actual role and mandate, the UN is very good at limited tasks – negotiating peace agreements, coordinating and delivering humanitarian aid around the world, observing elections and assisting in rebuilding infrastructure in war-ravaged countries, keeping human rights on the global radar, providing international business and legal guidelines as national borders disappear in those areas, and gathering statistics for reports that reveal trends in the world. Conspicuously absent from this list is anything related to military endeavors. Yet it is on the military front, in Lebanon today and somewhere else tomorrow, that the world seems to expect the most from the UN only to consistently be disappointed.
Paul Kennedy argues that “the U.N.’s performance can only be measured against its existing capacities and authority, not against some mythical, nonexistent strengths.” It is unfair to condemn the UN for being unable to accomplish tasks it is fundamentally unqualified to accomplish, especially when the UN remains unqualified in part because of the member states’ unwillingness to give the organization broader power. The criticism is unfair perhaps, but politically useful and not likely to end any time soon.
However, because of the very structure and authority of the organization, the UN’s true power, will, and perhaps above all, clear-mindedness, fall far short of the hopes placed on it, leaving the UN open to consistent criticism when things go badly.
The UN as it actually exists is by definition limited, constrained, handcuffed, paralyzed. Despite lofty rhetoric, it is not a world government with world peace as its agenda, but a collection of national governments with national interest as their agendas. Without the consent of the member states, the United Nations cannot even issue staplers to its employees, much less compel the deployment of troops sufficient to quell violence in Lebanon, Darfur, or anywhere else.
Yet it is the UN that is the convenient answer to all the world’s ills and the convenient scapegoat when all the world’s ills go unsolved. Yale historian Paul Kennedy, author of “The Parliament of Man: The Past, Present and Future of the United Nations,” notes that if the UN fails to bring a lasting peace to Lebanon, the consolation for the world will be that “we will all be able to blame the United Nations for being ineffectual, weak-toothed, anti-Israel or anti-Arab, and thus of no good to the world community.”
Such proclamations have become standard accompaniment to global conflicts, as though it is the UN that is the source of the world’s discord rather than the bad-behaving individual nations – or as though it is the UN itself rather than the obstructive member states within it that prevent the UN from adequately responding. Certainly the UN has its own troubles, including corruption at high levels, but the lion’s share of the responsibility for UN failures in responding quickly and substantially to unfolding crises requiring military responses rests with member states looking out for their own interests.
As we evaluate the UN, we must remember that at its essence, the United Nations is a building. It is a forum for the nations of the world to gather and discuss the problems of the day. It is a place for diplomacy and smoky room dealmaking. In this way, it is an alternative to war and it has been somewhat successful in putting global diplomacy on at least equal footing with military confrontation as a means of solving problems.
Given its actual role and mandate, the UN is very good at limited tasks – negotiating peace agreements, coordinating and delivering humanitarian aid around the world, observing elections and assisting in rebuilding infrastructure in war-ravaged countries, keeping human rights on the global radar, providing international business and legal guidelines as national borders disappear in those areas, and gathering statistics for reports that reveal trends in the world. Conspicuously absent from this list is anything related to military endeavors. Yet it is on the military front, in Lebanon today and somewhere else tomorrow, that the world seems to expect the most from the UN only to consistently be disappointed.
Paul Kennedy argues that “the U.N.’s performance can only be measured against its existing capacities and authority, not against some mythical, nonexistent strengths.” It is unfair to condemn the UN for being unable to accomplish tasks it is fundamentally unqualified to accomplish, especially when the UN remains unqualified in part because of the member states’ unwillingness to give the organization broader power. The criticism is unfair perhaps, but politically useful and not likely to end any time soon.
August 04, 2006
New New World Order
When the Berlin Wall came down, there was much discussion about how the world would reorganize itself in the post-Cold War world. During the 1990s, the United States established itself as the world’s lone superpower, leading the globe through a decade of relative prosperity. With unprecedented superiority in economic and military prowess – the two measures central to the Cold War – American dominance on the global stage seemed to have no end in sight.
Yet with the arrival of the 21st century, it became increasingly apparent that the metrics used to measure power during the Cold War no longer captured the whole story. Sometime between 1989 and 2001, a shift in how to measure global power occurred. And with this shift came the realization that though still the world’s only superpower, the United States no longer wielded the amount of power it once had. That Bush Administration has come face to face with that realization, albeit reluctantly, as it has sought to assert America’s will on the world with varying degrees of success.
As Harvard’s Samantha Power puts it, in thinking about power today, we’d be better served thinking in terms of influence. In other words, power in the 21st century depends not only on the strength of a nation’s economy and military, but on the extent to which it can affect the way the rest of the world behaves. Part of the reason American influence is on the wane, Power argues, is that influence stems from two variables that American leaders think too little about: (1) other nations’ trust that the United States will use its power legitimately, and (2) other nations’ faith that the United States is capable of achieving what it puts its mind to. American policies have dealt severe blows to each of these variables and the consequences are being felt all over the globe.
As a result of the Cold War battle for hearts and minds being waged all over the world, it was in the United States’ interest to act – or at least appear to act – in a legitimate way with respect to other countries. With the alternative being Soviet authoritarianism, the global sense was that the United States could be counted on to do the right thing. With its rich and progressive culture, the U.S. was the global good guy. With the contrast of the Soviet superpower removed, the United States is now held to a different standard. Every decision is analyzed with increasing scrutiny all over the world, analysis that is made all the easier by the instant information allowed by the internet. Considered under this microscope, there is an increasing sense that American power is not being used legitimately. With the ascendancy of the Bush administration, skeptical of international opinion and unilateral by nature, that sense has been exacerbated.
The Bush administration has also unwittingly diminished American influence by undermining the global faith that the United States can accomplish what it sets out to achieve. Although perhaps no less effective than the administrations that preceded it, the Bush administration’s failures have been particularly visible – the inability to capture Osama bin Laden, the inability to rescue American citizens after Hurricane Katrina, and, most damaging, the inability to secure Iraq.
It is, of course, Iraq that has had the most severe impact on American influence. The buildup the war occurred amid the perception that war was a foregone conclusion, a perception fed by the fact that the rationale for the war has shifted constantly. The execution of the war, meanwhile, has exposed weaknesses in the decision-making process governing the American military. The current momentum for withdrawal confirms a lack of public will often cited by the most zealous anti-Americans.
When President Bush says that leaving Iraq would send the wrong message to the world, he is correct. However, the wrong message has already been sent. As a result of American policies and the limitations those policies have exposed, we are on the brink of what was not conceivable as recently as a decade ago – a world where American dominance is no longer assumed and where stateless leaders of insurgent groups who capture the hearts and minds of their constituencies can stop the world’s superpower from having its way.
Yet with the arrival of the 21st century, it became increasingly apparent that the metrics used to measure power during the Cold War no longer captured the whole story. Sometime between 1989 and 2001, a shift in how to measure global power occurred. And with this shift came the realization that though still the world’s only superpower, the United States no longer wielded the amount of power it once had. That Bush Administration has come face to face with that realization, albeit reluctantly, as it has sought to assert America’s will on the world with varying degrees of success.
As Harvard’s Samantha Power puts it, in thinking about power today, we’d be better served thinking in terms of influence. In other words, power in the 21st century depends not only on the strength of a nation’s economy and military, but on the extent to which it can affect the way the rest of the world behaves. Part of the reason American influence is on the wane, Power argues, is that influence stems from two variables that American leaders think too little about: (1) other nations’ trust that the United States will use its power legitimately, and (2) other nations’ faith that the United States is capable of achieving what it puts its mind to. American policies have dealt severe blows to each of these variables and the consequences are being felt all over the globe.
As a result of the Cold War battle for hearts and minds being waged all over the world, it was in the United States’ interest to act – or at least appear to act – in a legitimate way with respect to other countries. With the alternative being Soviet authoritarianism, the global sense was that the United States could be counted on to do the right thing. With its rich and progressive culture, the U.S. was the global good guy. With the contrast of the Soviet superpower removed, the United States is now held to a different standard. Every decision is analyzed with increasing scrutiny all over the world, analysis that is made all the easier by the instant information allowed by the internet. Considered under this microscope, there is an increasing sense that American power is not being used legitimately. With the ascendancy of the Bush administration, skeptical of international opinion and unilateral by nature, that sense has been exacerbated.
The Bush administration has also unwittingly diminished American influence by undermining the global faith that the United States can accomplish what it sets out to achieve. Although perhaps no less effective than the administrations that preceded it, the Bush administration’s failures have been particularly visible – the inability to capture Osama bin Laden, the inability to rescue American citizens after Hurricane Katrina, and, most damaging, the inability to secure Iraq.
It is, of course, Iraq that has had the most severe impact on American influence. The buildup the war occurred amid the perception that war was a foregone conclusion, a perception fed by the fact that the rationale for the war has shifted constantly. The execution of the war, meanwhile, has exposed weaknesses in the decision-making process governing the American military. The current momentum for withdrawal confirms a lack of public will often cited by the most zealous anti-Americans.
When President Bush says that leaving Iraq would send the wrong message to the world, he is correct. However, the wrong message has already been sent. As a result of American policies and the limitations those policies have exposed, we are on the brink of what was not conceivable as recently as a decade ago – a world where American dominance is no longer assumed and where stateless leaders of insurgent groups who capture the hearts and minds of their constituencies can stop the world’s superpower from having its way.
July 21, 2006
A Genocide By Any Other Name
During the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, officials in the Clinton administration went to great lengths to avoid calling the unfolding tragedy “genocide.” Rather, they chose the term “acts of genocide” apparently in order to avoid any legal obligation under the 1948 Genocide Convention to take action to stop any activity deemed “genocide.” When asked how many acts of genocide it takes to make genocide, a State Department spokeswoman answered meekly, “I’m just not in a position to answer that question.” The semantic effort was largely successful as the Clinton administration did virtually nothing to stop the murder of 800,000 Rwandans.
Human rights scholars took from this experience the lesson that language mattered – because the Clinton administration was so intent on not saying “genocide,” the scholars concluded that had the word been uttered, action would have followed.
The wisdom of that lesson has been put to the test as another tragedy unfolds in Africa, this time in Sudan. Applying the Rwanda lesson, activists pushed strenuously for the Bush administration to classify as genocide the killing and looting of African tribes in Darfur by government-backed militias. On July 22, 2004, the U.S. Congress declared that genocide was occurring in Darfur. Two months later, the Bush administration agreed, as Secretary of State Colin Powell declared “genocide has been committed….and genocide may still be occurring.” The human rights community celebrated these declarations with the hopes that significant action would follow.
Two years have now passed since the congressional declaration and although the Bush administration has taken action, far more action than did Clinton in Rwanda, dreadful and dangerous conditions persist in Darfur.
The top United Nations enjoy to Darfur, Jan Pronck, recently observed that two months after a May 5 peace agreement among many of the parties involved, the situation is bad as it had been two months before the agreement. The UN has had to halt humanitarian assistance in some parts of Darfur because aid workers have been killed, and the violence is spilling into neighboring Chad. The implementation of the peace agreement has been generally nonexistent and the African Union force deployed in the region is set to run out of funding this fall, leaving a several month gap before UN forces take over no earlier than January 2007.
In short, the experience of Darfur has proven the limitations of the lesson of Rwanda that language matters. (Apparently, the UN did not get this memo as they have resisted declaring Darfur a “genocide,” instead asserting in Clinton-esque fashion “in some instances individuals may commit acts with genocidal intent.” This statement, of course, begs the question – how many acts with genocidal intent make genocide?) Further, the failure of states to take action to stop what has been labeled “genocide” reinforces the fundamental weakness of all voluntary international agreements, such as the Genocide Convention – enforcement. Unless there are consequences for failing to abide by a legal obligation to act under the Genocide Convention, tempered action like that taken in Darfur is the likely outcome.
Not that the Bush administration’s declaration of “genocide” didn’t matter. To be sure, it represented a turning point in American engagement on the issue and put the U.S. at the forefront of the effort to rein in the killing. However, it was far from the trigger to prompt action sufficient to stop the genocide, as the Clinton administration feared.
It seems that each time a new genocide unfolds, the lessons of genocides past are rendered obsolete. The world apparently has no shortage of ways to avoid effective intervention. What then are the lessons of Darfur?
The most important lesson is that publicity and an active mobilization of a constituency against genocide can happen and can move lawmakers to act. Heroic work by human rights activist turned Darfur into a somewhat mainstream topic and paved the way for the action that has been taken. Second, Darfur has shown an enormous variety of ways that non-government actors can act. The lesson that governments cannot be relied upon to act in genocidal situations has been internalized as a large group of aid organizations and volunteers have pushed the Darfur agenda further than any government would be willing to. Finally, the world has learned that semantics that arguably create legal obligations do not stop genocides. It is action that stops “genocide,” “acts of genocide,” “acts with genocidal intent,” and all things in between.
Human rights scholars took from this experience the lesson that language mattered – because the Clinton administration was so intent on not saying “genocide,” the scholars concluded that had the word been uttered, action would have followed.
The wisdom of that lesson has been put to the test as another tragedy unfolds in Africa, this time in Sudan. Applying the Rwanda lesson, activists pushed strenuously for the Bush administration to classify as genocide the killing and looting of African tribes in Darfur by government-backed militias. On July 22, 2004, the U.S. Congress declared that genocide was occurring in Darfur. Two months later, the Bush administration agreed, as Secretary of State Colin Powell declared “genocide has been committed….and genocide may still be occurring.” The human rights community celebrated these declarations with the hopes that significant action would follow.
Two years have now passed since the congressional declaration and although the Bush administration has taken action, far more action than did Clinton in Rwanda, dreadful and dangerous conditions persist in Darfur.
The top United Nations enjoy to Darfur, Jan Pronck, recently observed that two months after a May 5 peace agreement among many of the parties involved, the situation is bad as it had been two months before the agreement. The UN has had to halt humanitarian assistance in some parts of Darfur because aid workers have been killed, and the violence is spilling into neighboring Chad. The implementation of the peace agreement has been generally nonexistent and the African Union force deployed in the region is set to run out of funding this fall, leaving a several month gap before UN forces take over no earlier than January 2007.
In short, the experience of Darfur has proven the limitations of the lesson of Rwanda that language matters. (Apparently, the UN did not get this memo as they have resisted declaring Darfur a “genocide,” instead asserting in Clinton-esque fashion “in some instances individuals may commit acts with genocidal intent.” This statement, of course, begs the question – how many acts with genocidal intent make genocide?) Further, the failure of states to take action to stop what has been labeled “genocide” reinforces the fundamental weakness of all voluntary international agreements, such as the Genocide Convention – enforcement. Unless there are consequences for failing to abide by a legal obligation to act under the Genocide Convention, tempered action like that taken in Darfur is the likely outcome.
Not that the Bush administration’s declaration of “genocide” didn’t matter. To be sure, it represented a turning point in American engagement on the issue and put the U.S. at the forefront of the effort to rein in the killing. However, it was far from the trigger to prompt action sufficient to stop the genocide, as the Clinton administration feared.
It seems that each time a new genocide unfolds, the lessons of genocides past are rendered obsolete. The world apparently has no shortage of ways to avoid effective intervention. What then are the lessons of Darfur?
The most important lesson is that publicity and an active mobilization of a constituency against genocide can happen and can move lawmakers to act. Heroic work by human rights activist turned Darfur into a somewhat mainstream topic and paved the way for the action that has been taken. Second, Darfur has shown an enormous variety of ways that non-government actors can act. The lesson that governments cannot be relied upon to act in genocidal situations has been internalized as a large group of aid organizations and volunteers have pushed the Darfur agenda further than any government would be willing to. Finally, the world has learned that semantics that arguably create legal obligations do not stop genocides. It is action that stops “genocide,” “acts of genocide,” “acts with genocidal intent,” and all things in between.
July 14, 2006
Lessons Unlearned
As the Supreme Court concluded its term, it issued a sweeping rebuke of the Bush administration's approach to the treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The decision, Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, invalidated the military tribunals the Administration had employed to try Guantanamo detainees -- tribunals that had severely limited the legal rights of detainees, including the right to be charged in a timely manner, the right to a lawyer, and the right to see the evidence against them prior to trial.
In response to the decision, the Bush Administration seemed to reverse several years of policy and accept that the protections of the Geneva Conventions must apply to detainees held in the war on terror. This apparent reversal was celebrated as a long-awaited awakening to reality for the Bush administration, who has sought extensive executive authority in prosecuting the war on terror, including the use of controversial interrogation techniques, wiretapping and surveillance plans, and detainee procedures.
The long-awaited awakening, however, was short-lived.
This week, the White House put increasing pressure on members of Congress to recreate the lawlessness at Guantanamo by passing legislation that would limit the rights granted to detainees. Administration lawyers told Congress that the most desirable solution would be for Congress to pass a law approving the very tribunals that the Supreme Court had said the President could not establish on his own.
Now that's the Administration we know and love.
Meanwhile, continuing its attempts to fill the courts with those who agree with its broad interpretation of executive power, the Administration is still backing the stalled nomination of William Haynes, to fill a vacancy on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. As general counsel for the Defense Department, Mr. Haynes oversaw a policy memo that secretly authorized harsh treatment, even torture, for detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The Administration has since disavowed the memo and Mr. Haynes himself says he's "glad it's no longer on the books," but his participation in drafting and implementing such a controversial policy was enough for 20 retired military officers to send a letter to the Judiciary Committee expressing deep concerns over his nomination.
The letter speaks for itself: "What compels us to take this unusual step is our profound concern about the role Mr. Haynes played in establishing over the objections of uniformed military lawyers detention and interrogation policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo which led not only to the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody but to a dangerous abrogation of the militarys long-standing commitment to the rule of law."
Rather than recognizing the danger of a policy Mr. Haynes helped establish policies the Administration has since disavowed the Administration continues to press for Mr. Haynes to be given a lifetime judicial appointment on a very important court where he can presumably sign off on all executive attempts to operate without regard to the law.
This is, of course, perfectly consistent with the Administration's stubborn refusal to admit mistakes or compromise on matters of executive authority and detainee treatment. Only with incredible reluctance has the Administration taken even the smallest steps back from its assertion that in the war on terror, the President can do as he pleases without concern for the rule of law.
However, as Justice Stevens wrote in the recent Guantanamo case, "The executive is bound to comply with the rule of law that prevails in this jurisdiction." We're still waiting on the current executive's acceptance of this reality.
In response to the decision, the Bush Administration seemed to reverse several years of policy and accept that the protections of the Geneva Conventions must apply to detainees held in the war on terror. This apparent reversal was celebrated as a long-awaited awakening to reality for the Bush administration, who has sought extensive executive authority in prosecuting the war on terror, including the use of controversial interrogation techniques, wiretapping and surveillance plans, and detainee procedures.
The long-awaited awakening, however, was short-lived.
This week, the White House put increasing pressure on members of Congress to recreate the lawlessness at Guantanamo by passing legislation that would limit the rights granted to detainees. Administration lawyers told Congress that the most desirable solution would be for Congress to pass a law approving the very tribunals that the Supreme Court had said the President could not establish on his own.
Now that's the Administration we know and love.
Meanwhile, continuing its attempts to fill the courts with those who agree with its broad interpretation of executive power, the Administration is still backing the stalled nomination of William Haynes, to fill a vacancy on the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals. As general counsel for the Defense Department, Mr. Haynes oversaw a policy memo that secretly authorized harsh treatment, even torture, for detainees at Guantanamo Bay. The Administration has since disavowed the memo and Mr. Haynes himself says he's "glad it's no longer on the books," but his participation in drafting and implementing such a controversial policy was enough for 20 retired military officers to send a letter to the Judiciary Committee expressing deep concerns over his nomination.
The letter speaks for itself: "What compels us to take this unusual step is our profound concern about the role Mr. Haynes played in establishing over the objections of uniformed military lawyers detention and interrogation policies in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo which led not only to the abuse of detainees in U.S. custody but to a dangerous abrogation of the militarys long-standing commitment to the rule of law."
Rather than recognizing the danger of a policy Mr. Haynes helped establish policies the Administration has since disavowed the Administration continues to press for Mr. Haynes to be given a lifetime judicial appointment on a very important court where he can presumably sign off on all executive attempts to operate without regard to the law.
This is, of course, perfectly consistent with the Administration's stubborn refusal to admit mistakes or compromise on matters of executive authority and detainee treatment. Only with incredible reluctance has the Administration taken even the smallest steps back from its assertion that in the war on terror, the President can do as he pleases without concern for the rule of law.
However, as Justice Stevens wrote in the recent Guantanamo case, "The executive is bound to comply with the rule of law that prevails in this jurisdiction." We're still waiting on the current executive's acceptance of this reality.
June 23, 2006
Iraq and a Hard Place
Improbably, Iraq is once again emerging as a winner issue for Republicans for the fall elections.
Despite the fact that the majority of the American public believes it was a mistake to enter Iraq and despite the bungling by the Bush administration of nearly every aspect of the war, from the prewar intelligence on WMDs to the dismissal of estimates of required troop levels much higher than those actually deployed to the inadequate equipment for our soldiers to the infamously premature “Mission Accomplished” announcement to the similarly premature declaration that the insurgency was in its “last throes” and on and on and on…. Despite all of this evidence that Republicans have failed miserably in both rushing into a war and in executing it once there, Democrats continue to flounder and flail when attempting to present an alternative course for Iraq.
Some, like Senator John Kerry, are pressing for definite timetables to bring the troops home. While the wisdom of such a policy may be debatable, it is at least a coherent plan: The war is wrong. Bring the troops home.
Others are searching for a more compromised position, one that acknowledges both the perils of setting a fixed timetable and the need to begin transitioning American soldiers out of Iraq to grant the Iraqi government greater autonomy and responsibility. This policy better reflects the difficulties on the ground, but it is logically inconsistent. It requires a kind of doublethink – the war is wrong; don’t end the war – that does not easily capture many supporters.
Ever since many Senate Democrats supported the authorization to use force in Iraq, the party has been stuck trying to criticize a war it is at least partly responsible for getting us into. The results, unsurprisingly, have been less than stellar.
Meanwhile, Republicans happily step in and fill the vacuum with denunciations of plans like Mr. Kerry’s as “defeatism,” “surrender,” or “retreat.” Senator John McCain presents the options as a simple choice: “Withdraw and fail, or commit and succeed.” Of course, this “choice” ignores that we have been committed for over three years and success remains elusive (unless of course one judges success by Republican electoral victories). No Republican policy more definite than “stay the course” has been proposed to give hope that continued commitment will ultimately bring more success than our previous commitment has.
Still, it is the Democrats who are on the defensive regarding the war, reacting to Swift Boat-ish questions of their patriotism and dismissive characterizations of their policies as “cutting and running.”
What is needed for Iraq is not partisan jockeying where “leaders” search for the policy that will get members of their party elected rather than the right policy. What is needed is a coherent, agreeable vision of what we would like to leave Iraq looking like and a realistic assessment of the national sacrifices in manpower and resources required to get there. If we are not willing to make those necessary sacrifices, the troops must be brought home quickly.
To this point, the Democrats appear to be reacting to the national mood – voting for authorization of the war in 2003, criticizing those, like Howard Dean and Russ Feingold, who called for troop withdrawals long ago, but now pushing for an end to the operation – rather than promoting an independent policy on Iraq. So long as they are reacting rather than leading, the Republicans will be able to successfully portray Democrats as wavering and without a workable plan.
The Democrats hoped to stick the Republicans with the Iraq albatross come November, but despite repeated and continued Republican failures on the war, for now at least, it is the Democrats who remain stuck.
Despite the fact that the majority of the American public believes it was a mistake to enter Iraq and despite the bungling by the Bush administration of nearly every aspect of the war, from the prewar intelligence on WMDs to the dismissal of estimates of required troop levels much higher than those actually deployed to the inadequate equipment for our soldiers to the infamously premature “Mission Accomplished” announcement to the similarly premature declaration that the insurgency was in its “last throes” and on and on and on…. Despite all of this evidence that Republicans have failed miserably in both rushing into a war and in executing it once there, Democrats continue to flounder and flail when attempting to present an alternative course for Iraq.
Some, like Senator John Kerry, are pressing for definite timetables to bring the troops home. While the wisdom of such a policy may be debatable, it is at least a coherent plan: The war is wrong. Bring the troops home.
Others are searching for a more compromised position, one that acknowledges both the perils of setting a fixed timetable and the need to begin transitioning American soldiers out of Iraq to grant the Iraqi government greater autonomy and responsibility. This policy better reflects the difficulties on the ground, but it is logically inconsistent. It requires a kind of doublethink – the war is wrong; don’t end the war – that does not easily capture many supporters.
Ever since many Senate Democrats supported the authorization to use force in Iraq, the party has been stuck trying to criticize a war it is at least partly responsible for getting us into. The results, unsurprisingly, have been less than stellar.
Meanwhile, Republicans happily step in and fill the vacuum with denunciations of plans like Mr. Kerry’s as “defeatism,” “surrender,” or “retreat.” Senator John McCain presents the options as a simple choice: “Withdraw and fail, or commit and succeed.” Of course, this “choice” ignores that we have been committed for over three years and success remains elusive (unless of course one judges success by Republican electoral victories). No Republican policy more definite than “stay the course” has been proposed to give hope that continued commitment will ultimately bring more success than our previous commitment has.
Still, it is the Democrats who are on the defensive regarding the war, reacting to Swift Boat-ish questions of their patriotism and dismissive characterizations of their policies as “cutting and running.”
What is needed for Iraq is not partisan jockeying where “leaders” search for the policy that will get members of their party elected rather than the right policy. What is needed is a coherent, agreeable vision of what we would like to leave Iraq looking like and a realistic assessment of the national sacrifices in manpower and resources required to get there. If we are not willing to make those necessary sacrifices, the troops must be brought home quickly.
To this point, the Democrats appear to be reacting to the national mood – voting for authorization of the war in 2003, criticizing those, like Howard Dean and Russ Feingold, who called for troop withdrawals long ago, but now pushing for an end to the operation – rather than promoting an independent policy on Iraq. So long as they are reacting rather than leading, the Republicans will be able to successfully portray Democrats as wavering and without a workable plan.
The Democrats hoped to stick the Republicans with the Iraq albatross come November, but despite repeated and continued Republican failures on the war, for now at least, it is the Democrats who remain stuck.
April 28, 2006
Don't Just Remember. Act!
During the month of April, the world commemorated the victims of some of humanity's most heinous offenses. April 6 was Remembrance Day in Rwanda and just this week, April 25 marked Yom Hashoah, or Holocaust Remembrance Day. These remembrance days provide the opportunity to reflect on the tragedies of the past and mourn the millions of innocent human beings murdered in the last century.
Unfortunately, remembering is not enough. Even as we recall the horrific crimes of genocide that marred the twentieth century, the seeds for a future remembrance day are being cultivated. The current situation in the Darfur region of Sudan has already been labeled by President Bush and others as "genocide," making it the first genocide of this new century. However, the inaction of the world community that marked previous responses -- and is so condemned each remembrance day -- is sadly being repeated.
The campaign by the government-backed Arab militias, known as janjaweed, to wipe out villages and populations of African tribes in Darfur -- tribes, it should be noted that, like their attackers, are overwhelmingly Muslim -- is now over two years old. Hundreds of villages have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of villagers have been forced to flee into unprotected refugee camps in neighboring Chad, camps the janjaweed have begun to terrorize as well. The estimated number of dead ranges from 100,000 to 400,000 from attacks, starvation, and disease.
Action in response to what has consistently been characterized as the world's greatest humanitarian crisis has been cautious and ineffective. Foreign governments took the word of the Sudanese government that the militias would be reined in, echoing Munich. An African Union peacekeeping force, sent with two few soldiers and too limited a mandate, made little difference, echoing Rwanda. The lessons that ought to be reinforced by the multiple remembrance days are being ignored.
To be fair, the United States government has probably done more to confront this genocide than any previous genocide -- a bar that was pathetically easy to surpass -- but every incremental step has been hard fought by a dedicated group of individual activists, lawmakers, and human rights organizations. A small victory came this week when a US-sponsored sanctions directive was issued by the United Nations Security Council to be imposed on four Sudanese military officers. On Sunday, this month of remembrance will conclude with a (hopefully) giant march in Washington, DC, to urge further and more useful action.
But progress is slow and every delay costs thousands of innocent lives. These are lives that the world will somberly commemorate in the future with some version of a Darfur Remembrance Day. The inability to confront an unfolding genocide even as we commemorate genocides of the past proves that remembrance is only one step. The other step toward truly making genocide prevention a global priority is action. And it is up to both citizens and governments to act.
While governments have the diplomatic, economic, and even military tools to make a greater impact, there is much that can be done on an individual level, beginning with lobbying the government to take a more proactive approach in Darfur. In addition, one could donate to organizations providing direct aid to victims and anti-genocide advocacy, or one could become educated about the situation and inform friends, or one could write letters to local editors asking for more consistent media coverage, and one could invite others to take these steps as well. These actions may not make headlines, but they are the small actions that ignite the engine of change.
As April concludes and some of the genocide remembrance days are behind us for another twelve months, it is time to take the second step toward genocide prevention. It is time to act to stop the genocide in Darfur. Now.
To take action today, join the Million Voices for Darfur being represented at this weekend's march. Check http://www.savedarfur.org/home or http://www.genocideintervention.net/ for updated information and more ideas for action.
Unfortunately, remembering is not enough. Even as we recall the horrific crimes of genocide that marred the twentieth century, the seeds for a future remembrance day are being cultivated. The current situation in the Darfur region of Sudan has already been labeled by President Bush and others as "genocide," making it the first genocide of this new century. However, the inaction of the world community that marked previous responses -- and is so condemned each remembrance day -- is sadly being repeated.
The campaign by the government-backed Arab militias, known as janjaweed, to wipe out villages and populations of African tribes in Darfur -- tribes, it should be noted that, like their attackers, are overwhelmingly Muslim -- is now over two years old. Hundreds of villages have been destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of villagers have been forced to flee into unprotected refugee camps in neighboring Chad, camps the janjaweed have begun to terrorize as well. The estimated number of dead ranges from 100,000 to 400,000 from attacks, starvation, and disease.
Action in response to what has consistently been characterized as the world's greatest humanitarian crisis has been cautious and ineffective. Foreign governments took the word of the Sudanese government that the militias would be reined in, echoing Munich. An African Union peacekeeping force, sent with two few soldiers and too limited a mandate, made little difference, echoing Rwanda. The lessons that ought to be reinforced by the multiple remembrance days are being ignored.
To be fair, the United States government has probably done more to confront this genocide than any previous genocide -- a bar that was pathetically easy to surpass -- but every incremental step has been hard fought by a dedicated group of individual activists, lawmakers, and human rights organizations. A small victory came this week when a US-sponsored sanctions directive was issued by the United Nations Security Council to be imposed on four Sudanese military officers. On Sunday, this month of remembrance will conclude with a (hopefully) giant march in Washington, DC, to urge further and more useful action.
But progress is slow and every delay costs thousands of innocent lives. These are lives that the world will somberly commemorate in the future with some version of a Darfur Remembrance Day. The inability to confront an unfolding genocide even as we commemorate genocides of the past proves that remembrance is only one step. The other step toward truly making genocide prevention a global priority is action. And it is up to both citizens and governments to act.
While governments have the diplomatic, economic, and even military tools to make a greater impact, there is much that can be done on an individual level, beginning with lobbying the government to take a more proactive approach in Darfur. In addition, one could donate to organizations providing direct aid to victims and anti-genocide advocacy, or one could become educated about the situation and inform friends, or one could write letters to local editors asking for more consistent media coverage, and one could invite others to take these steps as well. These actions may not make headlines, but they are the small actions that ignite the engine of change.
As April concludes and some of the genocide remembrance days are behind us for another twelve months, it is time to take the second step toward genocide prevention. It is time to act to stop the genocide in Darfur. Now.
To take action today, join the Million Voices for Darfur being represented at this weekend's march. Check http://www.savedarfur.org/home or http://www.genocideintervention.net/ for updated information and more ideas for action.
March 24, 2006
Original Sin in Iraq
Three years ago, President Bush could have had me. I could have been convinced that going to war in Iraq was the right thing to do. I could have been told that Saddam Hussein, a genocidal menace, must be removed immediately before he could inflict any more harm on the Iraqi people or anyone else. I could have been told that human rights are human rights and they belong not only to Americans, but to Iraqis. I could have been told that as the world's superpower, the United States had the singular ability to protect human rights and had the responsibility to do so. Had I been told these things three years ago, I would have stood up and said, "Let's go protect those human rights in Iraq! And let's go to Sudan and protect those human rights, too!"
But, of course, I was told none of those things. Instead, I was fed an unending diet of overhyped intelligence about weapons of mass destruction. I was misled by constant intimations by the Vice-President that Saddam and Osama were in cahoots. I was told that invading Iraq was necessary to protect national security and I was told that winning in Iraq would be a breeze. I was given a menu of reasons to support the decision to go to war, but nothing on that menu was ever argued consistently or convincingly. Instead of a coherent "reality-based" argument, I was given a charade of decision-making about a decision made long before.
I didn't believe the things I was told three years ago and so I did not support the President's decision to invade Iraq. I did not think invading Iraq was automatically a bad idea. I thought invading Iraq as we did was a bad idea. I felt that the administration abused the vulnerable national mood that followed September 11, deliberately misled the nation about a national security threat in Iraq that did not exist, and squandered an opportunity to build an international coalition for an intervention based on the humanitarian threat that did exist. To me, this was the original sin of the Iraq war and we continue paying the price for it (literally and figuratively)
Because I hold the President responsible for the original sin in Iraq, I find it difficult to trust him on anything else related to Iraq. The fact that almost every aspect of the Iraq endeavor has been bungled -- troop levels at the outset, predictions of rosy greetings, prison abuse, an insurgency most certainly not in its "last throes" -- only reinforces my anger about that original sin. Three years ago, President Bush could have had me, but today, he most certainly cannot.
But all of this ought to be irrelevant. The reality is that we are in Iraq today whether I like how we got there or not. The reality is that it would not be in our best interest to disappear from Iraq immediately even though doing so would save American lives that I think should not have been put in harms way in the first place. The opportunity to hold the administration accountable for the decision to go to war came in November 2004, but the President survived. The "I told you so" argument does not help solve the problems we face today.
Yet it is impossible to separate the original sin from the current state of Iraq. It is impossible to discuss the current situation without tossing in a line about the tainted origins of the war. It is impossible because, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the administration continues to act as though the decision was well-informed, well-thought out, well-executed, and well-received. The President's recent flurry of Iraq speeches is not about humbly admitting a transgression and reaching out for help in finding solutions, but about re-criticizing all doubters and re-asserting that his judgment on Iraq should be trusted. Despite thousands of lives lost, billions (maybe trillions) of dollars spent, and a continuing sense of uncertainty about the future stability of Iraq, President Bush continues to act as he did in hyping the war -- blindly confident, dismissive of opposing viewpoints, and oblivious to realities on the ground . His critics, myself included, thus remain stuck on the President's original Iraq sins. These positions strangle useful debate and have prevented the reasoned and nuanced solutions required in Iraq to gain any momentum.
This is an international tragedy because we had an opportunity after September 11 to reshape the world for the better. That could have started in Iraq had the endeavor been undertaken with honesty or proper planning or preferably both. We could have demonstrated the power of American ideals and our willingness to protect human rights globally. We could have established a model in the Middle East without alienating much of the world. Three years ago, we could
But, of course, I was told none of those things. Instead, I was fed an unending diet of overhyped intelligence about weapons of mass destruction. I was misled by constant intimations by the Vice-President that Saddam and Osama were in cahoots. I was told that invading Iraq was necessary to protect national security and I was told that winning in Iraq would be a breeze. I was given a menu of reasons to support the decision to go to war, but nothing on that menu was ever argued consistently or convincingly. Instead of a coherent "reality-based" argument, I was given a charade of decision-making about a decision made long before.
I didn't believe the things I was told three years ago and so I did not support the President's decision to invade Iraq. I did not think invading Iraq was automatically a bad idea. I thought invading Iraq as we did was a bad idea. I felt that the administration abused the vulnerable national mood that followed September 11, deliberately misled the nation about a national security threat in Iraq that did not exist, and squandered an opportunity to build an international coalition for an intervention based on the humanitarian threat that did exist. To me, this was the original sin of the Iraq war and we continue paying the price for it (literally and figuratively)
Because I hold the President responsible for the original sin in Iraq, I find it difficult to trust him on anything else related to Iraq. The fact that almost every aspect of the Iraq endeavor has been bungled -- troop levels at the outset, predictions of rosy greetings, prison abuse, an insurgency most certainly not in its "last throes" -- only reinforces my anger about that original sin. Three years ago, President Bush could have had me, but today, he most certainly cannot.
But all of this ought to be irrelevant. The reality is that we are in Iraq today whether I like how we got there or not. The reality is that it would not be in our best interest to disappear from Iraq immediately even though doing so would save American lives that I think should not have been put in harms way in the first place. The opportunity to hold the administration accountable for the decision to go to war came in November 2004, but the President survived. The "I told you so" argument does not help solve the problems we face today.
Yet it is impossible to separate the original sin from the current state of Iraq. It is impossible to discuss the current situation without tossing in a line about the tainted origins of the war. It is impossible because, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the administration continues to act as though the decision was well-informed, well-thought out, well-executed, and well-received. The President's recent flurry of Iraq speeches is not about humbly admitting a transgression and reaching out for help in finding solutions, but about re-criticizing all doubters and re-asserting that his judgment on Iraq should be trusted. Despite thousands of lives lost, billions (maybe trillions) of dollars spent, and a continuing sense of uncertainty about the future stability of Iraq, President Bush continues to act as he did in hyping the war -- blindly confident, dismissive of opposing viewpoints, and oblivious to realities on the ground . His critics, myself included, thus remain stuck on the President's original Iraq sins. These positions strangle useful debate and have prevented the reasoned and nuanced solutions required in Iraq to gain any momentum.
This is an international tragedy because we had an opportunity after September 11 to reshape the world for the better. That could have started in Iraq had the endeavor been undertaken with honesty or proper planning or preferably both. We could have demonstrated the power of American ideals and our willingness to protect human rights globally. We could have established a model in the Middle East without alienating much of the world. Three years ago, we could
January 27, 2006
Internet with Borders
There are over 100 million internet users in China, the most in any country other than the United States. Chinese internet users are just like us – they like surfing and blogging and podcasting and shopping. It was once thought that the seamless communication across borders allowed by the internet would break down authoritarian information controls rampant in China and elsewhere. By providing access to global information and news sources, it was thought, the borderless internet could help democratize the globe.
January 2006 has not been a good month for that theory.
Just after the new year, Microsoft shut down the blog of a Chinese journalist at the request of the Chinese government. And this week, Google announced that it had created a new Chinese search engine that filters out controversial phrases like “democracy,” “human rights,” “Tibet,” and “Tiananmen Square” in order to comply with Chinese internet restrictions.
What these search engines have done is perfectly understandable from a business perspective. Through the lens of shareholder profit, forfeiting access to over 100 million potential users would be unwise bordering on financially irresponsible. Even considering the interests of ordinary Chinese people, the argument articulated by both Microsoft and Google – essentially, it is better for us to be there with limited service than to offer Chinese users no service at all – is compelling. If Chinese users truly are like us, the majority are using the internet more for online video games than for fermenting dissent anyway. No need to punish these users by denying them Google – how could we live without Google? – just because they happen to live in a repressive country.
But there is something unsettling about the willingness of these internet companies to bow to the whims of the Chinese government in the interest of market share. By acquiescing to the censorship and investigative demands of the Chinese, Microsoft and Google have become enforcers of what both would admit are unreasonable laws. Two years ago, Yahoo went even further, providing government officials the information necessary to capture and imprison another Chinese journalist. While this is particularly troublesome in repressive China, the real problem is that the underlying urge to comply with local law to gain access to more consumers is not limited to one country. As articulated by Rebecca MacKinnon at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, “Can we be sure they won’t do the same thing in response to potentially illegal demands by an overzealous government agency in our own country?”
This hypothetical seems less hypothetical in the wake of recent charges of warrantless government eavesdropping. To their credit, search engines have thus far consistently refused to turn over personally-identifiable information unless compelled by a valid and narrow warrant or subpoena. Still, AOL alone responds to over a thousand such warrants and subpoenas each month, often without the opportunity to notify users that their info has been divulged.
We are fortunate to live in a country that recognizes the rights to free speech and due process, so we need not worry ourselves as much when Google becomes an agent of the government. Still, the precedent set in China is not a good one. Both a privacy debate and a censorship debate are happening in China, and internet search companies are siding with the government there.
The internet, it appears, does have borders after all.
January 2006 has not been a good month for that theory.
Just after the new year, Microsoft shut down the blog of a Chinese journalist at the request of the Chinese government. And this week, Google announced that it had created a new Chinese search engine that filters out controversial phrases like “democracy,” “human rights,” “Tibet,” and “Tiananmen Square” in order to comply with Chinese internet restrictions.
What these search engines have done is perfectly understandable from a business perspective. Through the lens of shareholder profit, forfeiting access to over 100 million potential users would be unwise bordering on financially irresponsible. Even considering the interests of ordinary Chinese people, the argument articulated by both Microsoft and Google – essentially, it is better for us to be there with limited service than to offer Chinese users no service at all – is compelling. If Chinese users truly are like us, the majority are using the internet more for online video games than for fermenting dissent anyway. No need to punish these users by denying them Google – how could we live without Google? – just because they happen to live in a repressive country.
But there is something unsettling about the willingness of these internet companies to bow to the whims of the Chinese government in the interest of market share. By acquiescing to the censorship and investigative demands of the Chinese, Microsoft and Google have become enforcers of what both would admit are unreasonable laws. Two years ago, Yahoo went even further, providing government officials the information necessary to capture and imprison another Chinese journalist. While this is particularly troublesome in repressive China, the real problem is that the underlying urge to comply with local law to gain access to more consumers is not limited to one country. As articulated by Rebecca MacKinnon at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, “Can we be sure they won’t do the same thing in response to potentially illegal demands by an overzealous government agency in our own country?”
This hypothetical seems less hypothetical in the wake of recent charges of warrantless government eavesdropping. To their credit, search engines have thus far consistently refused to turn over personally-identifiable information unless compelled by a valid and narrow warrant or subpoena. Still, AOL alone responds to over a thousand such warrants and subpoenas each month, often without the opportunity to notify users that their info has been divulged.
We are fortunate to live in a country that recognizes the rights to free speech and due process, so we need not worry ourselves as much when Google becomes an agent of the government. Still, the precedent set in China is not a good one. Both a privacy debate and a censorship debate are happening in China, and internet search companies are siding with the government there.
The internet, it appears, does have borders after all.
December 02, 2005
'Tis the Season
For the past two and a half years, genocide has been unfolding on our watch. It is not being done with the devastating speed of Rwanda’s 100 days in 1994 or with the machine-like efficiency of the Holocaust, but it is genocide nonetheless. Innocent people are being targeted and killed because of who they are and where they live. Villages are being destroyed. Women are being raped. Children are being slaughtered.
This genocide is happening – and has been happening – in Darfur, a Texas-sized region in western Sudan. Darfur is made up of peasants of African descent and nomadic herders of Arabic descent. African rebels, fed up with the economic and political suppression from the national government in Khartoum, rose up several years ago. The government’s response has been criminal. Rather than engage the rebels – either militarily or in dialogue – the government enlisted the services of an Arab militia, the Janjaweed, to simply wipe out the African tribes in their entirety. Often with logistical support from the national military, the Janjaweed have obliterated hundreds of African villages and displaced millions of people. The displaced live in unsecured refugee camps under the constant threat of a return of the Janjaweed. Several hundred thousand have been murdered already. It is a desperate tragedy.
And we are allowing it to continue. By “we” I do not mean our government, but each of us individually. Certainly our government could do more. So could we.
We are all, of course, against genocide. The deliberate targeting of one segment of a population for destruction is loathsome to us all. Yet, few of us take action consistent with these near-universal humanitarian sentiments. When it comes to taking action, we are struck by a host of paralyzing feelings. We feel separated (Sudan is far and I know nothing about the victims) and confused (I don’t know who is truly at fault in this complex situation). We feel helpless (I cannot make much of a difference anyway) and overwhelmed (there are so many organizations already taking action and I do not know which is best). These emotions combine to freeze us into collective inaction. This is part of the reason genocide persists: the good people of the world do not act to stop it.
Samantha Power, author of A Problem from Hell, the definitive account of American responses to genocide in the 20th century, and the best professor I ever had, often talks about a toolbox of potential responses to genocide. She notes that the American government could use the military intervention tool or the economic sanctions tool or the diplomatic pressure tool. Too often, however, the government makes an all-or-nothing decision on the military intervention tool and takes all the other tools off the table. Since we cannot take military action that would really stop genocide, the government seems to be saying, we cannot take any action at all.
As private citizens, we face the same dilemma. Since we cannot stop the genocide on our own – and none of us can – we do not feel that we can do anything at all. Writing a letter or giving a small donation seems a paltry and wholly insignificant response to the brutal murder of thousands of human beings. But it is not. We each have our own toolbox containing a wide spectrum of possible action. From one end of that spectrum, we could volunteer for an aid organization and actually go to Sudan to take action, but that is a highly unrealistic option for most of us. Alternatively, we could simply support financially the organizations who are doing good work in Darfur. Still, most of us do not have unlimited budgets to give endlessly. But we can all visit the websites of these organizations or sign up for their monthly newsletters. This allows the organizations to show leaders that there is a constituency of concerned citizens they are lobbying on behalf of.
We have political tools. We can write letters to our government representatives alerting them to our outrage that our government has not put more pressure on the Sudanese government to end the massacres or on the international community to take more forceful action, such as sanctions. We can vote those who do not act out of office. We have economic tools. We can support efforts to divest money away from companies doing business with the Sudanese government, sending the signal that if they will work with murderers, we will no longer work with them. We have social tools. We can write letters to our local newspapers expressing surprise that the genocide is not being adequately covered. We can learn more ourselves and inform our friends about this quiet genocide. Education and publicity are so important to keeping the pressure on our leaders to act.
In Ohio, Ginghamsburg Church created its own tool. Last year, the church began a remarkable campaign to spend less of Christmas presents and donate the savings to aid for Darfur. They raised $327,000 and are continuing the effort this year. In that spirit, I am donating a full night of Chanukah to Darfur advocacy. I have selected two organizations I will donate to and I will write to my representatives and the President voicing my outrage. As a Jewish person, I am particularly sensitive to the threat of genocide and I feel a special responsibility to ensure that this happens never again. During the Holocaust, it was the acts of individuals – not of slow-footed governments – that saved lives. We must follow in the tradition of those courageous citizens who provided hiding places or overlooked false passports to help fellow human beings survive. Taking a stand against the decimation of any group is important to us all. So long as genocide can happen to anybody, it can happen to anybody.
I am happy to provide resources or sample letters to anyone who would like to join in this effort this holiday season.
This genocide is happening – and has been happening – in Darfur, a Texas-sized region in western Sudan. Darfur is made up of peasants of African descent and nomadic herders of Arabic descent. African rebels, fed up with the economic and political suppression from the national government in Khartoum, rose up several years ago. The government’s response has been criminal. Rather than engage the rebels – either militarily or in dialogue – the government enlisted the services of an Arab militia, the Janjaweed, to simply wipe out the African tribes in their entirety. Often with logistical support from the national military, the Janjaweed have obliterated hundreds of African villages and displaced millions of people. The displaced live in unsecured refugee camps under the constant threat of a return of the Janjaweed. Several hundred thousand have been murdered already. It is a desperate tragedy.
And we are allowing it to continue. By “we” I do not mean our government, but each of us individually. Certainly our government could do more. So could we.
We are all, of course, against genocide. The deliberate targeting of one segment of a population for destruction is loathsome to us all. Yet, few of us take action consistent with these near-universal humanitarian sentiments. When it comes to taking action, we are struck by a host of paralyzing feelings. We feel separated (Sudan is far and I know nothing about the victims) and confused (I don’t know who is truly at fault in this complex situation). We feel helpless (I cannot make much of a difference anyway) and overwhelmed (there are so many organizations already taking action and I do not know which is best). These emotions combine to freeze us into collective inaction. This is part of the reason genocide persists: the good people of the world do not act to stop it.
Samantha Power, author of A Problem from Hell, the definitive account of American responses to genocide in the 20th century, and the best professor I ever had, often talks about a toolbox of potential responses to genocide. She notes that the American government could use the military intervention tool or the economic sanctions tool or the diplomatic pressure tool. Too often, however, the government makes an all-or-nothing decision on the military intervention tool and takes all the other tools off the table. Since we cannot take military action that would really stop genocide, the government seems to be saying, we cannot take any action at all.
As private citizens, we face the same dilemma. Since we cannot stop the genocide on our own – and none of us can – we do not feel that we can do anything at all. Writing a letter or giving a small donation seems a paltry and wholly insignificant response to the brutal murder of thousands of human beings. But it is not. We each have our own toolbox containing a wide spectrum of possible action. From one end of that spectrum, we could volunteer for an aid organization and actually go to Sudan to take action, but that is a highly unrealistic option for most of us. Alternatively, we could simply support financially the organizations who are doing good work in Darfur. Still, most of us do not have unlimited budgets to give endlessly. But we can all visit the websites of these organizations or sign up for their monthly newsletters. This allows the organizations to show leaders that there is a constituency of concerned citizens they are lobbying on behalf of.
We have political tools. We can write letters to our government representatives alerting them to our outrage that our government has not put more pressure on the Sudanese government to end the massacres or on the international community to take more forceful action, such as sanctions. We can vote those who do not act out of office. We have economic tools. We can support efforts to divest money away from companies doing business with the Sudanese government, sending the signal that if they will work with murderers, we will no longer work with them. We have social tools. We can write letters to our local newspapers expressing surprise that the genocide is not being adequately covered. We can learn more ourselves and inform our friends about this quiet genocide. Education and publicity are so important to keeping the pressure on our leaders to act.
In Ohio, Ginghamsburg Church created its own tool. Last year, the church began a remarkable campaign to spend less of Christmas presents and donate the savings to aid for Darfur. They raised $327,000 and are continuing the effort this year. In that spirit, I am donating a full night of Chanukah to Darfur advocacy. I have selected two organizations I will donate to and I will write to my representatives and the President voicing my outrage. As a Jewish person, I am particularly sensitive to the threat of genocide and I feel a special responsibility to ensure that this happens never again. During the Holocaust, it was the acts of individuals – not of slow-footed governments – that saved lives. We must follow in the tradition of those courageous citizens who provided hiding places or overlooked false passports to help fellow human beings survive. Taking a stand against the decimation of any group is important to us all. So long as genocide can happen to anybody, it can happen to anybody.
I am happy to provide resources or sample letters to anyone who would like to join in this effort this holiday season.
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