GOP Demands to see Nobel Committee’s Birth Certificate

When the news broke earlier that sitting American (or is it Kenyan or Indonesian?) President Barack Obama was bequeathed with the Nobel Peace Prize, I naturally assumed that the Rush Limbaugh’s head would explode and the Republican Party would be stuck with a gargantuan body instead of a party head. Moreover, I instinctively knew that the blogosphere would be buzzing with more Republican and Conservative invective than Democrat or Liberal encomium.

Am I really that prescient or do Republicans really hate Barack Obama that much that many would put breathing oxygen in abeyance in order to vituperatively criticize President Obama?

“This fully exposes the illusion that is Barack Obama,” said conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh. Rush continued: “And with this ‘award’ the elites of the world are urging Obama, THE MAN OF PEACE, to not do the surge in Afghanistan, not (sic) take action against Iran and its nuclear program and to basically continue his intentions to emasculate the United States…. They love a weakened, neutered U.S and this is their way of promoting that concept. I think God has a great sense of humor, too.”

Oh Rush, did you run out of Oxycontin refills again? While we rational Americans have grown accustomed to the bile invective spewed daily from Mr. Limbaugh more effortlessly than potato chip crumbs, some Republicans decided that Rush Limbaugh is just too understanding and flirted with invective of their own.

Eric Erickson of the ever-so enlightening Red State.com had these encouraging words to say:

I did not realize the Nobel Peace Prize had an affirmative action quota.

Knee-jerk vitriol and racist commentary notwithstanding, the award is baffling some on the left as well.

Michael Moore, for example, offered his congratulations but boldly declared action as well.

Congratulations President Obama on the Nobel Peace Prize–Now earn it! Freedom can not be delivered from the front seat of someone else’s Humvee. You have to end our involvement in Afghanistan now. If you don’t, you’ll have no choice but to return the prize to Oslo.

Indeed, Obama may have made such lofty pronouncements such as closing Guantanamo, bringing the troops home from Iraq, wanting a nuclear weapon-free world, admitting to the Iranians that we overthrew their democratically-elected president in 1953, etc. But he has yet to follow through any of his pronouncements with concrete action and, worse yet, is risking escalating a lost cause in Afghanistan by extending our outstretched and vitiated troops in a purposeless battle.

Don’t believe me, just click here to read about the growing numbers of troops suffering from PTSD.

I realize that President Obama is looking to make up for the fact that Afghanistan and the “just war” was abandoned by the ruthless Bush Administration to pursue a petty vendetta in Iraq and make billions of dollars in no-bid contracts for their cronies. However, 6 years have passed since troops were shifted away from the Afghanistan conflict, and the situation has grown increasingly dire for our supposed mission. After all, the primary objective for going into Afghanistan was to kill and capture Osama bin Laden and his key associates, disrupt the vast Afghan terror network, and prevent Afghanistan from becoming another hotbed for terrorism.

Has blowback and the situation in Iraq taught us anything? The U.S. is  not in Afghanistan to police a nation beset by tribalism and internal conflicts. We cannot naively expect to train a miserably incompetent army at the aegis of a corrupt government,  an army that may ultimately joins the Taliban anyway.

Barack Obama winning the Noble peace prize–something that not even he expected–is certainly momentous and naturally is being lauded by the sane world. But it is imperative that we do not allow ourselves to get stuck in the warm and fuzzy clouds of this achievement as many did immediately following the election of Barack Obama. Intelligent critics must ensure that President Obama does in fact earn this prestigious prize.

Why Another Karzai Government May be Bad for Afghanistan

If you read the news (in the US anyway) it is common knowledge that what is most important in the current Afghan elections is not necessarily who wins, but that the elections be seen as legitimate and transparent by the Afghan public as well as the international community. Now, almost three weeks after election day, it is highly questionable whether the election process this time around will be, in the end, seen as legitimate by Afghans or the international community. There have been widespread allegations of voter fraud, including among supporters of sitting President Hamid Karzai. The sheer volume of complaints has pushed back the announcement of the election’s official results by at least two weeks.

With 90% of the vote counted, Karzai appears to have won 54% of the vote, with runner-up Dr. Abdullah Abdullah with 28%, and the remainder of the vote being split among 36 other presidential candidates. However, these results are not official, hundreds of thousands of votes have been thrown out, and there have been persistent allegations of massive voter fraud. It appears that there is substance to many of the allegations, raising the possibility that enough votes could be disqualified to drop Karzai’s tally to under the 50% that he needs to avoid a runoff with Abdullah. Investigations into voter fraud could last months, delaying any eventual runoff and threatening to plunge Afghanistan into more violence and perhaps a constitutional crisis as competing groups and candidates jockey for a position in whatever government eventually comes to power (or alternatively, strive to discredit and destabilize the government elect).

The reason for the strong opposition against Karzai has been his government’s extreme corruption and his political amorality in being willing to team up with unsavory former warlords like Abdul Rashid Dostum, accused of human right atrocities against Taliban captives under his control. The Afghan people also have seen Karzai largely as the candidate of the US and the international community which has generated distrust concerning the outcome of the vote, believing that his victory has been preordained without concern for Afghan opinion. If Karzai wins a majority in a flawed election process, his adminstration is sure to be dogged by accusations that it came to power illegitimately. Should he fail to win over 50%, his position would be confirmed as relatively weak while he would be subject to repeated opposition attacks (during and between election campaign) highlighting his corruption and poor administration. If Karzai were to win the runoff election, he would be returning to office with a poor record, a weak administration, and no mandate from Afghans. If on the other hand, Abdullah were to win the run off, there may be a public sense of hope for a new direction in Afghan politics, and a belief in the legitimacy of the electoral system. Nor would Abdullah have the amount of negative baggage that is holding Karzai back. While Abdullah’s backers are also likely to have engaged in vote fraud, the most serious allegations appear to be against the Karzai campaign. An Abdullah win would more likely be perceived as representative of a fair and legitimate electoral process.

The biggest difference between Karzai and Abdullah is that Karzai supports a government with power concentrated in the office of president, while Abdullah sees a parliamentary system as a more appropriate system for representing the diversity of Afghan beliefs and communities. An Abdullah win would mean a fundamental restructuring of the Afghan government with unpredictable results. In governing, Abdullah would probably need to rely on supporters as shady as Karzai’s, and his government would face the same difficult challenges to improving life in Afghanistan that Karzai’s would.

But it may just be time for a change. Karzai may have been the man for the job when the Taliban fell. He had an admirable history of brave opposition to the Taliban and al Qaeda. He challenged Presidents Bush and Musharraf on many aspects of his country’s rebuilding and advocated strongly for the Afghan people. He may have been the best chance to hold Afghanistan together after 2001, but now, his rule has become a liability for the Afghan state. A new leader is needed to bring legitimacy to the election process and to restore faith in the Afghan government itself. Bringing progress in Afghanistan will be a difficult task for anyone, but should Karzai win, it will be harder than need be.

This article is the third in a series about major elections taking place in Asia this year.  Part one and two covered the recent elections in India.

San Francisco Gets an Antiwar Congresswoman

The recent 226-202 House of Representatives approval of the supplemental budget was a particular disappointment to antiwar activists.  At one point they’d thought it might be possible to block the bill and its $79.9 billion Department of Defense appropriation earmarked largely for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, – at least temporarily.   Nonetheless, San Francisco antiwar voters might take some consolation in one thing anyhow – it appears that the city now has an antiwar Congresswoman.  And no, it’s not House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, but Jackie Speier, elected just last year to represent the less liberal western part of the city and several towns on the Peninsula to the south.

Not only was Speier one of but sixty votes (fifty-one of them Democrat) against the budget in its first trip through the House, but she also made a second, tougher vote against it.  When House Republicans took umbrage at the addition of a $5 billion International Monetary Fund loan guarantee, they announced they would switch sides and vote against the bill upon its return from the Senate, raising the possibility of its defeat should the antiwar Democrat votes hold firm.

Predictably, they did not.  This time even Pelosi herself – who did not vote the first time as is common practice for a Speaker – was recorded in favor, presumably to demonstrate how much the House leadership really wanted the votes.  And yet, despite a San Francisco Chronicle report that “the White House has threatened to pull support from Democratic freshmen who vote no,” Speier did just that, one of only six freshmen – among thirty-two total Democrats – to do so.  Arguably, Speier was doing nothing but what San Francisco voters had directed her to do last November when 59 percent of them supported Proposition U which stated that the city’s Congressional representatives “should vote against any further funding for the deployment of United States Armed Forces in Iraq.”

But realistically speaking, although the ballot question’s only exception concerned “funds specifically earmarked to provide for their [American troops in Iraq] safe and orderly withdrawal” and did not exempt funding requests from Democratic Presidents, the fact that George Bush had negotiated a troop withdrawal agreement before leaving office seems to have made most House Democrats feel they have a pass to fund that war right through 2011. And certainly Pelosi has never given any indication of paying the proposition any heed despite the fact that 61 percent of her district backed it.

On the contrary, she’s made it clear that she views it as a Democratic Speaker’s duty to ensure the funding of what a Democratic President has now taken on as his wars.  Her spokesman, Brendan Daly, told the Chronicle that Pelosi was telling members “we need to do this, this is President Obama’s plan for both Iraq and Afghanistan. He’s got a plan to end the war in Iraq.  He’s got a plan to refocus our efforts in Afghanistan, and we need to support the president in that, and this is the right way to go.”

And yet when Representative Jim McGovern (D-MA) proposed adding language calling for the Secretary of Defense to “submit to Congress a report outlining the United States exit strategy for United States military forces in Afghanistan” by December 31, 2009, it was no dice.  Pelosi’s view is apparently that the President shall give us his plan in his own good time. (McGovern has since filed his amendment as a free-standing bill with 84 co-sponsors.)

Her San Francisco colleague Speier, on the other hand, said she had “serious problems with the current wars” and didn’t believe that “escalating the conflicts make America or the world safer.”  Speier’s viewpoint is particularly welcome in that it differs so markedly from that of her predecessor, the late Tom Lantos, who voted for the first House resolution for the Iraq War (which Pelosi did not.)

Moreover, in her ascent to her new position, Speier had betrayed no particular maverick tendencies.  She gained it not through any kind of insurgent antiwar campaign but more of a vetting process of the area’s political establishment.  A former state legislator forced to leave office due to term limits, she had failed in a prior bid for the Democratic nomination for Lieutenant Governor. But when she announced her interest in the Lantos seat, it soon became clear that she would have the endorsements deemed to matter – and presumably the attendant campaign financing.  At this point, other potential candidates backed off and the insider consensus choice was presented to the voters for their ratification.  Speier then won 90 percent of the Democratic vote in a special primary after a campaign that seemed to involve less of telling people what she stood for than reminding them that they already knew her – and that her ultimate victory was inevitable.

So, at a point when the country’s antiwar movements are largely stalled, Bay Area antiwar voters can at least cheer the pleasant surprise of having a new Congresswoman willing to buck both the White House and the House leadership.

Pakistan: Caught in the Crossfire, Part 2

This is the second of my two part series dealing with Pakistan through the eyes of  Naveed, a lecturer at an Islamabad University. Please see Part 1 for more context.

After being enlightened about Pakistan’s history and foreign interference, I was desperate to find out his views about the insurgency in his native tribal areas. We were out in the open air, and Naveed was in a calm mood.

“So you asked me about the insurgency in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan?,” he uttered after taking a deep breath. As I nodded, he said: “To understand the present insurgency, you have to go back to the British Empire era when Pashtun tribal areas had their own tribal administrators called ‘Walis’.”

ISOLATION AND INDIFFERENCE

“The British did little to interfere in our lives and gave us the freedom to have our own code which we call the ‘jirga’ (assembly of tribal elders) that defines laws, regulations, and policies. Soon after the independence, we joined Pakistan on certain preconditions. One of them was to have our own jirga system,” Naveed said, adding that Pakistani courts and law enforcement have no jurisdiction over the tribal areas known as Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

FATA is an interesting region of Pakistan. It covers an area of 27,220 sq. km and has an estimated population of 3.5 million. Pashtuns comprise the overwhelming majority of the population with a few ethnic Hazaras, Sikhs, and Punjabis living alongside. The literacy rate is hardly 10%, well below the national average of 40%. It is an underdeveloped area with few metalled roads and limited gas and electricity supply. The locals do not pay tax to the state. With only seven percent of the land area cultivatable, people make a livelihood by smuggling custom-free goods from Afghanistan, operating car theft rackets, drug trafficking, and selling locally produced illegal small and heavy arms.

The Pakistani government seldom intervenes in the tribal affairs. A government appointed political agent called “Malik” represents the federation with few executive powers. FATA is however represented in the National Assembly in Islamabad. Unelected tribal elders represented the region until the system was changed in 1997 to introduce mandatory elections. However, little has changed as the elections are contested on tribal rather than on political lines. Therefore, although there are now elections, most individuals vote solely along tribal lines. This is in contrast to the rest of the country where political parties cut across tribal identities.

“This whole region is in a limbo. It is part of Pakistan, but at the same time it is not. Confused aren’t you?” a sarcastic Naveed remarked at my puzzled face. “Thanks to our tribal elders’ wishes, the government never incorporated us into mainstream Pakistan. There always remained a divide between the settled and tribal areas that local leaders as well as Islamabad exploited for their own gains. We are the Pakistani version of America’s Wild West,” he joked in his patent ironic tone.

The dynamics of this tribal society are now unraveling. Due to the fact that this region never became part of the mainstream Pakistani society, the allegiance of the people is toward their tribes or clans rather than to their country. The idea of a shared cultural identity has remained confined to the boundaries of the tribal regions spread across Pakistan and Afghanistan. Therefore, although they are counted as part of the Pakistani population and their areas are shown on the map as part of federal Pakistan, the state has failed to win the Pashtun hearts and minds in order to fully include them in the wider Pakistani cultural society.

“The people in the province, especially in the tribal areas, felt the isolation. Politicians, time and again, made promises to bring them into the mainstream and grant a comprehensive political and judicial system. From Bhutto to his daughter Benazir and from General Zia-ul-Haq to his stalwart Nawaz Sharif, everyone made promises. Empty promises. Things hardly changed on the ground,” Naveed remarked. “Does a promise remain a promise if unfulfilled?,” he argued while referring to an Urdu proverb with a similar connotation.

RETURNS OF THE HOLY ALLIANCE

The outbreak of a guerrilla war in Afghanistan is a turning point in the history of Pakistan. In 1980, Pakistani military dictator General Zia-ul-Haq setup an alliance with the United States to send fighters across the border to aid the Afghan resistance against the Soviet-backed government in Kabul. The joint Pakistani-US investment of arms and fighters radically altered the course of war in Afghanistan, drawing Soviet troops into a long, bloody conflict that ultimately left them defeated and contributed to the disintegration of the USSR.

But the Pakistan-US alliance also brought a host of problems to the region, especially Pakistan. The tribal areas, acting as a launching pad for anti-Soviet fighters known as the “mujahideen,” became a den of illegal arms, drugs, and smuggling. Millions of people from Afghanistan sought refuge in Pakistan, straining the already limited resources of their hosts. The impoverished refugees from Afghanistan, at times, clashed with more modern and well-off Pakistanis due to cultural, religious, and lifestyle differences. People still resent the military government of General Zia over his handling of the Afghan crisis.

The area that was touched most by the conflict was the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) of Pakistan. Naveed described the post-war situation. “The mujahideen returned to their homes. The government had no rehabilitation plan for them. Frustration rose tremendously and their warfare experience gave them the confidence to lift their arms and fight for their rights.” He added that veterans of the Afghan war returned to Pakistan along with their comrades from the Middle East, Central Asia, and North Africa.

“Most of the non-Afghan fighters were exiles from their home countries who could no longer return to their states. Many of their home governments feared a rebellion from their ranks and labeled them as unwanted elements. The only people who welcomed them were the Pashtuns as we have an ancient code of hospitality and generosity for someone who asks for protection and refuge,” Naveed explained, pride for his culture and traditions evident in his tone.

While the USSR left Afghanistan humiliated and defeated, the US reveled with joy. Afghanistan was abandoned, as the US interest was limited to the defeat of its nuclear rival rather than rebuilding of the nation. Former mujahideen turned their guns on each other and a full-scale civil war ensued. Thousands of people died during the conflict from 1992-1996. The only forces that stopped the civil war were the Taliban, who drove the warring former mujahideen factions from power and seized control of 90% of the country.

HOSTILITIES AT HOME

“The former mujahideen who returned from Afghanistan demanded a judicial system based on Islamic law and Pashtun culture and traditions. This was their own version of Shariah. It was a simple demand that was raised to deal with the complex law and order situation in their region,” the young academic described, adding that the local people were very enthusiastic about such demands. “Everybody including the former mujahideen wanted it. The government, instead of principally agreeing to their demand and holding a referendum to decide the issue, sent troops and tanks to the region. People did not get what they really wanted,” he remarked with bitterness replacing his usually soft tone.

In 1994, a bloody conflict erupted in the Malakand division of NWFP province. Veterans of the Afghan war formed a militia called “Tehrik Nifaz Shariat Muhammadi” (Movement for the Imposition of Muhammad’s Shariah law) and started an armed uprising in the region. Government buildings in the region were attacked and occupied in November 1994. The Islamabad government led by the late Benazir Bhutto, initially signing a peace agreement with the militants, backed off under international pressure and waged a military operation. The TNSM militants were flushed out to the hills, and calm was restored. However, the situation on the ground remained the same, and no general judicial system reforms were introduced to speed up the delivery of justice. The demand for a time saving and cost-effective judicial system in the national courts remained unheard, further infuriating the masses.

Hundreds of people lost their lives in the bloody conflict between the TNSM militants and Pakistani armed forces from November 1994 until early 1996. Thousands of people also left their homes in the region due to the conflict.

“The government’s short-sighted and half-baked measures exacerbated the situation. It waged an armed operation against the group but forged an alliance with the leadership. The head of TNSM, Maulana Sufi Muhammad, was captured by the army, but was released without any charges. I do not understand the logic of a military operation that ends up with the signing of a peace deal and distribution of sweets,” the 26 year-old said while mentioning the local practice of distributing sweets on the eve of a festive ceremony. “They sit side-by-side adorning each other with garlands while people mourn over their losses and bury their dead. Is this justice?”

According to a statement issued on May 3, 2001 by the then-NWFP provincial governor Owais Ghani, criminals and assorted illegal arms, timber, and drugs mafias provided financial support to the TNSM and flourished under their rule. TNSM strictly denies the allegations. The Shariah movement returned to the political scene in the region with a vengeance soon after the 9/11 attacks in the USA. While the then-US President George W. Bush was envisioning plans to invade Afghanistan and topple the Taliban government in Kabul, the former mujahideen in Pakistan were renewing their vows for a jihad and promising a new war against the USA along the same lines of struggle against the USSR.

Soon after the US forces invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, TNSM was the first pro-Taliban group to send its forces to fight alongside the Taliban. Thousands of fighters crossed into Afghanistan along with their leader Maulana Sufi Muhammad. The TNSM fighters returned to their bases after Taliban retreated from urban Afghanistan to their rural strongholds to initiate a guerrilla war against the occupying US and NATO forces. Leaders of TNSM were arrested by Islamabad after their return in 2002 and imprisoned on charges of incitement of violence and violation of state laws. President General Pervez Musharraf outlawed the organization in 2002.

Naveed stopped all of a sudden in the middle of the conversation. Something was clearly bugging him as his face turned red. “The cat and mouse game between TNSM and Pakistani military continued. The Pakistani government enjoyed the support of Washington while TNSM were bolstered by the inclusion of al-Qaeda elements in its ranks. The government signed a peace deal on one day and initiated an armed operation against the opposite side the very next day,” Naveed uttered angrily.

His outburst continued: “Nothing changed on the ground except that the situation got out of control and the militants got bolder with their tactics. Pakistani military attacked militant positions on the ground. They also hit their hideouts from the air with the help of Cobra gunship helicopters given by the US.”

“As if this was not enough to wreak havoc, the US drones unleashed hell from the skies, allegedly killing hundreds of innocent civilians. Thousands of people have been caught in the crossfire with no place to run and nowhere to hide. I’ve seen the carnage myself. Was this all for peace?”

Stocky-built Naveed came to an abrupt halt. His voice was shaky, and he didn’t want to continue anymore. Having lived for more than a year with him I never saw Naveed so silent before. He silenced himself. The aggression was in his hands, but he unclenched his fists and stood still. What else can he do?

As we were having this chat on a rainy spring evening, thousands of internally displaced refugees in Swat valley in northwest Pakistan were lying in the open without any shelter. There is an acute shortage of food in the refugee camps, I’m told. But one thing is very certain. There is no shortage of ammunition on either side.

The radical Islamists impose their style of governance in the name of religion and carry out their harsh sentences against poor and powerless people. In the opinion of many in Pakistan, the Islamabad government with the aid of the US government bombs and maims its own people by using tanks and fighter planes. The poor and powerless people, suppressed by the militants and oppressed by the government, run to save their lives. Where is the democratic promise of liberty, fraternity, and equality? Why don’t I see the Islamic spirit of forgiveness, compassion, and justice? Perhaps, both the sides are interested in furthering their agenda and exploiting their subjects in the name of their ideologies.

Pakistan: Caught in the Crossfire, Part 1

“Yes, Pakistan may be a failed state. So what?” said Naveed.  “I don’t care if my country is a failed state or not, but I do care who is behind its failures. They’re the ones I blame for failing my country.”

It’s been more than a year since I last saw my friend, Naveed, a 26-year-old marketing and finance graduate who is now a lecturer at an Islamabad University. He went back to his country soon after completing his Masters degree in Business Administration. When leaving for home, his mood was an eerie mixture of optimism and caution. “I’m confident that things will finally change in my country,” he said before boarding the flight. I remember his confident words but can’t forget the empty smile on his face.  It seems to require more than confident words and smiles to live in a country where optimism and pessimism on any given day are as predictable as the flip of a coin.

Pakistan is  a country where failure is rewarded. We like to live in a state of denial.  We often believe that we have never been wrong or can be wrong.  In the process we make many excuses to justify our actions.

LAMENTABLE HISTORY

“Moign, to understand my ‘lecture,’ as you put it, you have to understand the history of the country,” Naveed said jokingly. It seemed that he was once again enjoying the argumentative chats that we used to have in our free time while living together in student accommodation. Nothing seems to have changed since then.

Pakistan has a long history of foreign interference before there was any lawlessness, unemployment, corruption, civil mismanagement, or army intervention in the country. Soon after its birth in 1947 as a result of blood-strewn partition carried out by the imperial British, the infant state had to pick a master that would act as a caretaker of the country’s policies and safeguard its interests. The choices at that time were the USSR and the USA. The country’s first Prime Minister, Liaquat Ali Khan, embraced the latter. And the results of this “embrace,”  as promised, were magical.

During the 1950s and 1960s, the new Pakistani master taught its new satellite state to be wary of two things — communism and grass-roots democracy. As a result, the rulers of Pakistan always kept these two “viruses” in check. Thousands of workers suspected of communist sympathies were put behind the bars and a general election was ruled out in favor of a “sustained democracy” that was “compatible with the country’s Islamic and social values.” Both of these decisions had a devastating effect on the country’s democratic identity and politico-economic activities.

Washington, the “torch-bearer of democracy” and “leader of the free world,” never raised an eyebrow when a military coup in 1958 overthrew the civilian administration in the then Pakistani capital city of Karachi. Instead, new accords of friendship and military partnership were signed that gave the Americans access to the Soviet’s backyard for the first time. The US military soon stationed U2 bombers in the country to keep an eye on Soviet activities in Central Asia.  (One of these U2’s launched from Pakistan would of course be shot down by USSR surface-to-air missiles over Soviet skies on May 1, 1960.)

“This was the first time we pleased our masters and had bit of a misadventure,” a bitter Naveed remarked.

OBSESSION OF THE SOCIETY

“Islam, it seems to me, is a blanket term that defines our ambitions and justifies each and every deed performed in our political and social life. From politicians to common man, everyone has his or her own idea of Islam and chart their plans accordingly.”

Pakistan was created in the name of Islam with the founding leaders promising no room for ethnic partisanship and discrimination. But that’s not what really happened. The country witnessed its first bout of instability in 1952 when Bengal was stripped of its national language status despite the fact that it was spoken by more than half of the country’s population. The imposition of Urdu as the sole national language was seen as an imperial move that triggered riots across the eastern half of the newborn geographically disjointed state. This was the first time when the seeds of ethnic divide were sown in the newly cultivated fields of Pakistan.

The Pakistani army fought the Indian army in 1965 when its misadventures (which included covert military operations in Indian controlled Kashmir) backfired in occupied Jammu & Kashmir. New Delhi [India] then invaded our country to teach us a lesson. For the first time we raised the flag of Jihad against an occupying power and the then (military) rulers drummed up massive support – all in the name of Islam.

Naveed added that this is the official textbook version of Pakistani history, and not necessarily his.

From this time on, we have never looked back on the idea of our army as the vanguard of Islam, and we, as a nation, as the righteous people.

HEADS & TAILS

The situation got more interesting in 1970 after the first ever free and fair general elections for a parliament were held in both wings of Pakistan–East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) and West Pakistan (now Pakistan).

The Bengali separatist movement in 1971 complained that the majority Bengali ethnic group was being sidelined by the minority Punjabis that dominated the civil service and the military. They also accused West Pakistan of usurping the resources of East Pakistan and exploiting them. Statistically, they weren’t wrong as exporting jute produced in East Pakistan generated most of Pakistan’s revenues, while East Pakistanis suffered under grinding poverty.

“I think that was the first time we said: ‘Heads or tails, both flips of the coin are ours, hence we win the toss,” Naveed said while referring to an Urdu proverb that has a similar connotation.

A military operation was waged against Awami League, the party that was demanding more autonomy for the Bengali-dominated East Pakistan and a fair distribution of resources between both entities of  the Pakistani federation. Though winning a clear majority in 1970 elections, Awami League’s leader, Sheikh Mujib-ur-Rehman, was denied the transfer of power and was instead arrested and tried for treason.

Disgruntled East Pakistanis took up arms against the powerful Punjabi-dominated Pakistani Army. A bloody civil war broke out in the eastern wing of Pakistan that saw the army, along with its pro-Islamic paramilitary groups, attempting to crush the separatist movement. Bengali separatists, thanks to the active support from India, soon weakened the grip of the Pakistani army in the eastern territory. The nine month long bloody movement witnessed countless massacres of innocent people and wanton destruction of property and infrastructure. The people’s power superseded the military’s might, and the Pakistani army surrendered to Bengali insurgents and their principal backers – the Indian army.

This is how we learnt the lesson. Or shall I say, this is how we are taught at school. We are told: This all happened due to some miscreants that created mistrust between us (Pakistanis) and Bengalis (Bangladeshis). India wanted to extract revenge and dismember us. But thanks to our valiant Islamic army we did not let that happen. We succeeded in keeping our western flank intact while giving our Bengali brothers the right to freedom.

Naveed’s tone while quoting his history textbook didn’t seem convincing to me, but I let him continue rather than dispute the textbook version.

HAPPY MASTER

Pakistan’s chief ally, the United States of America, of course did not practically intervene in the conflict. However, Islamabad enjoyed its tacit approval throughout the conflict. The USS Enterprise was dispatched to the Bay of Bengal in 1971 to boost the morale of its ally in the region. The hue and cry raised by human rights groups over genocides committed by the Pakistani army were ignored, and a steady supply of military hardware and ammunition flowed from the US.

The public was in shock when they found that the Pakistani army has surrendered to the Indian army and the Bengali separatists. No one could believe their eyes. Their army, strengthened by the spirit of Jihad, was defeated by the Indian army and their “mercenaries.” At least this is what was fed to them during the 1971 conflict.

Naveed insisted that people for the first time became wary of the Pakistani army’s alliance with the US army and lost their faith in the military as an institution.

“The surrender of 94,000 Pakistani military and paramilitary personnel was not a joke,” he added while referring to the fall of Dhaka on December 16, 1971. “All the architects of this humiliation got away with their crimes and were never brought to justice. The public felt betrayed by their own guardians,” he said while referring to the fact that though a formal inquiry of the war was conducted, the main players of the debacle were never punished.

HOLY ALLIANCE

After a brief interval of civilian rule from 1972 to 1977, a military regime returned from the barracks to instigate a coup d’état. Under an alleged agreement with the US, Pakistani military chief General Zia-ul-Haq overthrew Pakistan’s first democratically elected civilian leader, Zulfiqar Bhutto. Bhutto was later hanged to death on charges of treason and murder.

While other murder cases drag on for years and years, Mr. Bhutto was executed within five months. Lawlessness, vigilantism, police heavy handedness, extra-judicial murders, and many other problems stem from the dilapidated justice system of Pakistan.

Afghanistan was invaded by the USSR in December 1979, soon after General Zia took the reigns of the government. The Soviet invasion not only rang bells in Islamabad, but it also stirred unease in Washington, DC. With the Vietnam War’s humiliation in mind, the Americans seized on the opportunity to drag the Soviets into a long, bloody war that would deplete their power and leave them economically and militarily drained and exhausted.

Bureaucrats under the command of the then US Secretary of State Zbigniew Brzezinski initiated a plan that started the training of Afghan insurgents by the CIA months before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan itself.

The US struck a holy alliance with the anti-Soviet insurgents who called themselves “mujahideen” – the ones waging Jihad in the name of God – to bleed the USSR army to death in Afghanistan and seek revenge for role in the Vietnam defeat. To me this was the height of hypocrisy demonstrated by both sides. While the capitalist Americans and Islamists in the Middle East and South Asia seldom saw eye to eye on any issue and often regarded one another as adversaries, they struck an alliance against communism. What a historic alliance it was!”

ARMY, INC.

While the world’s attention was set on the war in Afghanistan, General Zia-ul-Haq’s autocratic regime throttled the voices of reform and democracy in the country at the behest of his “Islamic agenda.”  During his 11 years in power, the country never had free and fair democratic elections and the army, in connivance with the so-called Islamist forces, ruled with an iron fist. At this time, all important civil institutions like the judiciary, election commission, press, bureaucracy, and foreign service came under direct military control, and the army’s role in the country’s day-to-day affairs changed from an institution to a corporation.

The army initiated schemes for banking, insurance, heavy industries, housing, aviation, education, security firms, farms, and food production and soon became the country’s biggest enterprise. This in turn weakened private businesses, which  stood no chance of competing with the military backed businesses due to their growing political and economic clout. Civil institutions also suffered a direct blow and languished due to deliberate neglect and apathy, partly due to political strife in the country.

General Zia-ul-Haq died in a mysterious plane crash along with many of his top generals and the US Ambassador on August 17, 1988. The country then returned to civilian rule after 11 years of military in power, but little changed on the ground. The army, instead of returning to the barracks, realigned itself and started interfering in politics by supporting its favorite candidates.

Naveed agrees with the view that Pakistan’s problems are not the result of a few years of mismanagement and chaos. “The crises have been brewing since the military eclipsed the civilian institutions and democracy was wound up in favor of a martial law in 1958,” the young Pakistani graduate said lamenting the fact that army’s role was only strengthened by the Americans. “We have never seen them (Americans) flaying military intervention in our politics. This is a mockery of democracy by any standards.”

“So what are the reasons behind the insurgency in the tribal regions of Pakistan including the latest bloodshed in Swat valley? What went so wrong that led the country to the brink of failure and to be labeled as a failed state?” I asked Naveed impromptu. Naveed, totally baffled by the complex nature of my questions, took me out for a walk. “Is it OK if I answer your questions in the open air? I need to breathe some fresh air,” he asked. I nodded and made a quick exit with him.

Why is the insurgency raging in many parts of Pakistan? Born in the tribal areas, whom will he blame for the deaths of innocent lives and suffering of millions of people? I kept on walking in the chilly evening wondering what he was going to say about the ground realities.

I will explore the answer to this and more in Part 2 of this two part series.

I’ve Seen This Movie Before

I had the most amazing dream last night. Thankfully, Jimmy Kimmel in a diaper wasn’t in this one. Instead, I saw Barack Obama giving a speech about government openness and accountability. He talked about the closure of the U.S. terrorist prison in Guantanamo Bay; he talked about ending extraordinary rendition of U.S. terrorism suspects to other countries where they would be tortured; he talked about ending the use of extra-legal means to spy on Americans under color of law, and he talked about an absolute ban on the use of torture.

Recent events have confirmed that this is only a dream. The candidate of alleged change has instead agreed with George W. Bush on almost every torture and secrecy issue. He ordered the closure of Guantanamo Bay. But, in a brilliant feat of misdirection, none of us ever saw that his Justice Department was working tirelessly to ensure that the same civil liberties that were held to apply to Guantanamo detainees would never apply to detainees held at, for example, Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

A Lawless Prison By Any Other Name

Sure, Boumediene v. Bush clearly established that, at a minimum, prisoners in the United States’ Guantanamo Bay facility are entitled to habeas corpus, the 793-year-old doctrine that if a person is to be held in jail, he must be charged with a crime. The Bush administration thought that it had sent 600-some detainees of the War on Terr’ into a “legal black hole” (the Justice Department’s words) where US law did not apply, and therefore, people could be kept there indefinitely without being charged with a crime, without the right to challenge their detention, and without the government having to prove that they were terrorists.

Then the Bush administration relented, wrote the Military Commissions Act, and decided that was good enough. The Act explicitly stripped detainees of their habeas rights and said that the government would create military commissions to evaluate whether or not each detainee should continue to be held. The Supreme Court didn’t like that, either, saying that the MCA process was fundamentally flawed, and furthermore, it was not within Congress’ power to take habeas rights away from anyone.

As soon as he came into office, Obama put a halt to the Military Commissions Act tribunals, recognizing that they were fundamentally flawed. He also said he would close the prison in Guantanamo Bay. While those are both laudable, his next action is, once again, right out of How to Suspend the Constitution Without Really Trying, David Addington’s best-selling Richard P. Cheney thriller. Detainees of the War on Terr’ would instead be moved to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. The argument is that, since Afghanistan is still an active war zone, it would be ludicrous to give prisoners there any habeas rights, since they would be prisoners of war. Then again, that was the rationale used to scoop up hundreds of people on the “battlefield” in Afghanistan in 2001 and send them to Cuba.

Wiretapping? What Wiretapping?

A few weeks ago, the Obama Justice Department moved to dismiss a case in federal court involving illegal wiretapping. In spite of his January memoranda committing the Executive Branch to transparency and accountability, Obama’s reasoning vis-a-vis wiretapping remains unchanged from the Bush years; that is, opacity in the extreme, no accountability (i.e., you can knowingly and maliciously break the law, but you won’t be prosecuted for it), and a firm commitment to using the state secrets privilege to cover up illegal government activity.

Earlier this month, the Obama administration filed a petition to have the entire warrantless wiretapping case dismissed under a never-before-seen doctrine of “sovereign immunity” that comes from the USA PATRIOT Act. It’s not the sovereign immunity itself that is at issue (sovereign immunity is a very old legal doctrine which holds that the sovereign — in this case, the government — is immune from criminal prosecution in some instances). It’s that sovereign immunity has never before been used a a defense in these wiretapping cases. To the Obama administration’s credit, it has interpreted into being a sovereign immunity claim based on the fact that Congress had not explicitly waived sovereign immunity when it came to these cases. Therefore, argues the Justice Department, the courts must err on the side of the sovereign. This is, of course, in addition to the standard-issue “state secrets” defense, which consists of, “In order for you to have a case, you need to prove you’ve been harmed. In order for you to prove you’ve been harmed, you need access to classified information. Because giving you that information would compromise national security, we’re not going to give it to you. Since you don’t have that evidence to prove your case, you have no case. So let’s dismiss the case.”

Let’s Talk Torture

Yesterday, after years of legal battles led by the American Civil Liberties Union, the Obama administration released four memoranda from the Bush years in which the Office of Legal Counsel — the legal-advice arm of the White House — declared that, yes, “enhanced interrogation techniques” like water-boarding were perfectly legal. In making these documents public, however, Obama added the caveat that CIA employees who engaged in these techniques, which are correctly and properly called torture, will not be prosecuted.

I am of two minds on this particular issue. On the one hand, we have the Nuremberg Defense, used by various strata of Nazi soldiers in the post-World War II Nuremberg trials. The defense amounted to, “I was just following orders,” the implication being that very low-level soldiers who did the actual dirty work of killing 6 million Jews (and millions of others of various non-Nazi-approved races, nationalities, ethnicities, and sexual orientations) were faced with the choice of either doing what they were told, despite their orders being obviously morally and legally wrong, or standing up to their superiors and facing court marshall or death themselves. The outcome of the trials was Nuremberg Principle IV, which states, “The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him.” This principle was incorporated into the Uniform Code of Military Justice, and now U.S. military personnel may refuse to follow an order that they believe violates the law, with the law including the U.S. Constitution and any treaties to which the U.S. may be a party (including the Geneva Conventions, which explicitly forbid the use of torture).

Then again, these CIA operatives were assured that what they were ordered to do was legal. They were assured by the president — who is their boss — that it was okay to do what they were doing. It’s not an issue of questionable legality; they were told — by lawyers, who are alleged to be experts in the field of law — that it was okay to water-board suspects, deprive them of sleep, and occasionally hit them. Must they then be faulted for their lack of follow-up? Are they expected to then second-guess White House lawyers? The issue is murky. Definitely the people at the top who were responsible for crafting these policies — Bush himself, Vice President Cheney, David Addington, John Yoo, and Alberto Gonzales — must be prosecuted. But what about the people in the field? As Glenn Greenwald observes, the law compels the Justice Department to prosecute everyone who took part in torture. There was a moral choice: CIA operatives could have made the choice not to engage in torture. And if it risked their careers, so be it. They were not themselves ever threatened with death or torture; the loss of one’s job is not morally equivalent to torturing another human being.

It’s certainly true that President Obama has done a number of laudable things in his four months in office. But he can still do better, and all of us need to push him away from the trope of “centrism” (which, in U.S. political discourse in 2009, means “being conservative”). And if he does have a legitimate national security concern, he should let us know. He doesn’t have to go into the gory details, but it would be nice to know why he’s suddenly changed his mind. After eight years of “Trust me, I know what I’m doing,” I voted for a government that doesn’t demand faith from its people.

Mr. President, We Do Have a Choice

In explaining his most recent escalation of American troop levels in Afghanistan, President Obama claimed that “the United States of America did not choose to fight a war in Afghanistan.” The underlying justification for the additional 4,000 “advisors” was the fact that “nearly 3,000 of our people were killed on Sept. 11, 2001, for doing nothing more than going about their daily lives.” His second statement is unquestionably true; the first is not. But even more important than the question of whether or not we had a choice in the matter of invading Afghanistan is the fact that we have one today, more than seven years later.

Normally we might say a country had no choice but to wage war if it found itself the target of ongoing sustained attacks from another country. Having been the victim of a highly coordinated and lethal terrorist attack, there was little question that the US – and much of the rest of the world – had to revamp a wide array of security measures, the results of which are evident in any airport. The decision to fight a war in Afghanistan, however, was quite another matter.

From the beginning, a central goal of this war, as announced by the White House, was bringing the apparent perpetrator of the September 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden, to justice. And a week into the war, the Taliban government then in power in Afghanistan made an offer to turn him over — with several substantial provisos. They would do so if provided evidence connecting him to the crimes; they would not give him to the US, but only to another Muslim country; and naturally it would happen only if they could locate him. The offer was rejected out of hand.

Looking back, the matter of evidence would presumably have proven no obstacle. And so far as the stumbling block of the refusal to deliver him directly to the US goes, it now seems highly relevant to note that the Bush Administration then in power would go on to organize an elaborate worldwide campaign to prevent Americans from ever being turned over to the International Criminal Court despite the fact that 108 other countries have opted to recognize its legitimacy. The White House certainly would never have honored a demand such as it made upon Afghanistan.

Finally, there’s the matter of whether the Taliban was acting in good faith or would do so in the future: Did they know where bin Laden was and would they have delivered him if they did? That’s all speculation, of course, but what is not speculation is that seven plus years of war have not produced him either. And as we consider whether this war is worth continuing today, let’s consider the crux of the President’s argument as to why we had no choice but to get into it – the “nearly 3,000 of our people” killed.

In contrast to the facts surrounding September 11, data concerning Afghan civilians killed by American military action is very hard to come by. In what is arguably the most thorough study that was ever done on the question, University of New Hampshire Professor Marc Herold concluded that there were already nearly 3,800 of them by December 7, 2001. His research report listed the number of casualties, location, type of weapon, and source of information, but Herold believed “the figure I came up with is a very, very conservative estimate. I think that a much more realistic figure would be around 5,000.” These Afghanis too were simply “doing nothing more than going about their daily lives.”

The actual number to this day? No one knows. Certainly the casualty rate abated after the war’s first few months, yet few would question that the number is greater than that of the Americans who died as a result of the hijackers’ activities. Which brings us to the current President’s statement. Do the Afghanis therefore now also have no choice but to fight a war with the US? “An eye for an eye and soon the whole world is blind,” as Gandhi put it?

Whatever one thinks of the logic of getting into this war in the first place, the logic of staying is quite another thing. And actually, it may be a stretch to call it logic. Consider, for instance, the March 28, 2009 New York Times editorial praising Obama for asserting “leadership over the war that matters most to America’s security — the one against Al Qaeda and the Taliban,” while simultaneously complementing “his plans to urge so-called moderate Taliban to abandon their hard-line leaders” and noting that “more than seven years into the fight, the leader of the American intelligence community acknowledged that it knows shockingly little about the Taliban command structure.”

And that’s the current strategy in a nutshell: send in more troops to fight the enemy at the same time you’re trying to negotiate with them and figure out who they actually are. Unfortunately, the level of intransigence of the last administration was such that this approach may strike a lot of people as reasonable by comparison. But even though American casualties may well remain small enough in number and Afghan casualties may seem too remote and obscure to provoke a crisis in confidence back home, the fact remains that these are real people’s lives that the White House is hanging its flimsy strategy on.

Seeking to prevent Al Qaeda from inflicting any further harm on the US is a worthy goal and probably a realistic one. Trying to eliminate everyone who doesn’t like us in Afghanistan – and increasingly in Pakistan as well – is surely a prescription for endless war. We do have a choice

Teaching English Overseas With Cool Hand Luke and Dirty Harry

This is a true story. My day job is teaching English as a foreign language (EFL) at universities and corporations overseas, on a worldwide basis. I’ve been doing it since 1986, living in 10 countries from West Africa to Japan. It’s a tough job but somebody’s got to do it, and other assorted clichés. But it really is a tough job.

Although we teach mainly at universities, we’re not professors; neither are we certified school teachers. We belong to some purgatory of nonentities where we can be exploited, dumped on and then spat out at will. (Overseas, we can be fired peremptorily at any time with no recourse.) Our managers are EFL people who wouldn’t know how to manage their luggage, let alone a group of professional people.

Both the ranks and the managerial levels area are dominated by petty-minded schoolmarms who own exclusive rights to the Correct Way to Teach and who are curriculum-obsessed. That is, we peons must create lesson plans for their own sake and they must fit the Master Plan of Schoolmarms.

In Equatorial Guinea, where I worked for a US oil company, teaching English to locals in the oil and gas industry, the supervisor of my rotation shift stepped off the airport shuttle bus and the first thing out of her mouth in that grating, gravelly voice was “Okay—WHERE’S THE CURRICULUM?”

I said, “Curriculum? We don’t need no stinking curriculum.”

“What?” she said.

“I teach via the Movie Lines Method. I believe every lesson and every word from my enlightened yap can come from famous movie lines to the exclusion of everything else.”

The Curriculum Queen looked like she’d been hit by one of those battered Land Rovers that chase rhinos in the bush, which is apropos considering she damn well looked like a rhinoceros. She went red and sputtered a bit and huffed and puffed and finally collected herself enough to say something. Then she snorted and I thought she was going to charge me and I jumped back an inch or two before collecting my wits.

Here, I’ll take a moment to describe CQ’s character. She was one of those eminent personages who steal your work and take credit for it, along with everything else that is positive that has ever contributed to the program. If something useful had been done, she did it. No matter who did it. She was an ogre who scolded you if you taught a lesson that wasn’t in the CURRICULUM that she had ordained (without authorization, I might add). CQ basically invented everything. When she took valuable time to be away from her critical and internationally recognized duties of creating the NEW CURRICULUM, it was only because she was busy attending the United Nations Conference on Cold Fusion in Geneva. She invented cold fusion.

Back to huffing and puffing and gravelly, grating voice, she said, “Movie lines? Oh, brother. All right, then, let me see your LESSON PLANS on my desk tomorrow!”

Revolutionary though I am, I actually like to pick up a paycheck now and then, so I submitted my LESSON PLANS. They went something like this:

Lesson One:

“Now ah can be a nice guy, and ah can be one reeeaal meeeaan sumbitch.”

Lesson Two:

“What we have here is a failure to communicate.”

Lesson Three:

“Ya got ta git yer MIND right!”

Lesson Four:

“I know what you’re thinking, punk–did I teach six classes, or was it only five? Well in the excitement and all, I sorta lost track myself. But seeing as how the Schoolmarm Curriculum is the most powerful curriculum in the world, and would blow your head clean off, you have to ask yourself one question: Do I feel lucky? Well, do you, punk?”

You get the drift.

Very rarely, justice prevails. The Curriculum Queen eventually got herself fired due to sheer arrogance and wound up teaching in Afghanistan. Let that be a lesson to you. If you teach for a living, don’t be arrogant, and don’t moan and cry about being transferred to Dearborn, Michigan. How’d you like to find yourself in a classroom in Taliban land?

“God is great!” Mullah Omar remarked when learning of this development, “for Queen of Curriculum will scare away the infidel American dogs in uniform! Praised be to Allah, for she shall bring peace to our lands because no girls will want to educate themselves when they know she has invented the Afghan National Curriculum!”

Springtime for the Taliban: Afghanistan Needs a New Model

Perhaps the biggest disappointment to come out of eight years of American intervention in Afghanistan is the apparent inability of the Afghans themselves to decide what they want to be when they grow up.  Sure, that sounds like an average dose of lip service in this climate unless you consider the UN definition of “a failed state.” Afghanistan currently ranks seventh on the Failed State Index (FSI), a sort of Unfortunate 500 for dysfunctional nations. Somalia and its happy band of pirates is number one. For the purpose of perspective – out of a total of 177 UN recognized countries.

Previous US administrations somehow came upon the idea that the American model of a democratically elected government in a highly secular and tribal chunk of real estate was just the thing “to bring peace and stability to the region.”  Where have we heard this wistful speech before?  Probably somewhere between “winning the hearts and minds,” and if all else fails we’ll carpet bomb the daylights out of them until they come to their senses.  How does a country with a little more than 250 years of civility conclude that one system fits all, that it is the right system, or if it is even that useful of a system?  More importantly, is it exportable?

The US has spent more time in Afghanistan than was invested in all of World War II and Korea combined. To date, the Afghan government has made little progress toward establishing anything close to a stable government.  The country continues along the same path of sectional violence, the US led coalition now morphed into the role of neighborhood cop.  A great unifying tactic if it wasn’t for the body count.  The State Department meanwhile pushes the importance of elections and parliamentary process, which totally ignores the traditional power structures of Afghan society; those that encompass family ties, community obligation, and whichever interpretation of Islam that gets practiced in the neighborhood.   All eyes are told to look to the West.  Perhaps a better answer lies much closer to home:

Today the Turkish nation is called to defend its capacity for civilization, its right to life and independence – its entire future.

–Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, 1920.

Kemal (Ataturk was added later – something like ‘Father of the Turks’) had just made a pretty remarkable set of announcements.  They included:

• The end of the Ottoman Empire.  Well, it was almost dead before World War I anyway.
• The abolishment of the Caliphate.  (Political authority under Islam.)
• The formation of the secular Republic of Turkey.
• The unacceptable state surrounding British occupation.

And the need for the Armenians in the east and the Greeks in the west to relocate elsewhere. There was no place for Orthodox Christianity in the new Republic.

About the Man

Mustafa Kemal was born in Salonika (now part of Greece) in 1881.  Most of his early history has been revised so often that most versions lack credibility. Raised in the Muslim faith, a product of military schools, he later served with great distinction as a Lt. Colonel and division commander at the battle of Gallipoli, orchestrating one of the greater defeats the allied forces suffered in the First World War.  A great fan of the West and particularly The Enlightenment (having been assigned to Paris and the Balkans at varying points), he also fully embraced the potential power of the media, using newspapers (often his own creations) extensively in his nationalist pursuits.  Above all, he believed that the only way to save Turkey from complete partition by the allied powers was to establish a modern, secular republic.  In his words, “Islam and civilization are a contradiction in terms.”

The Background

Things were going badly on the western front for the British and French in World War I.  Russia was taken out by both the Nationalist and Bolshevik revolutions.  Britain’s attack at Gallipoli, (Australian and New Zealand forces, ANZAC) was aimed at knocking the Ottoman Empire out of the war.  Instead it turned into a rout.  Britain then tried to turn the Arabs (with T.E. Lawrence’s deft assistance) against the Turks, promising them an Arab state for their trouble.  Naturally that was a lie, the one apparent constant in British colonial policy.  The Allies won the war, the Ottoman Empire was partitioned by the Treaty of Sevres creating what today are known as Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and of course, Iraq.  The Sultan was left in Istanbul as a British puppet and Kemal fled to Ankara with plans to turn Anatolia into his new republic. He was able to deceive the British and the Arab world just long enough to consolidate his forces in Anatolia, a process pushed along by his creation of opposing media outlets.  The Arab world believed he was fighting to preserve the Sultan and the Caliphate, the British assumed that his services were already on the colonial payroll.  By the time the British realized his intentions, they were already outgunned, out-manned and out maneuvered. In 1923, they signed the Treaty of Lausanne ending hostilities.  The Republic of Turkey was born.

Much of the internal struggle dividing Islam and adding fuel to sectarian violence seems to surround the Caliphate, which is best described as both a person and a thing. One of the chief splits in Islam, the chasm separating Sunni and Shi’a communities is based on the interpretation of Muhammad’s successor as sole authority on Islamic law. Each side accuses the other of being usurpers in a centuries long dispute over who has the right to read the mind of a dead prophet.  Many political and social issues in Islam today fail to achieve any real clarity while the two camps continue to hold on to conflicting interpretations of religious doctrine.  This is further complicated (or exasperated) by the very notion of Islamic Law, a shadowy domain where the words of the prophet Mohammad somehow hold credence with something as innocuous as the local traffic code. By all accounts it is an archaic system, one reminiscent of The Inquisition, but accepted in many quarters of the Muslim world.  Judging its validity is not the point, accepting its existence is, for the idea of belief is not validated by the structural framework of a society, though it is that very framework that accelerates the rift.  Kemal argued that Islamic Law was part of the “nomadic Bedouin custom,” totally unsuitable in the development of a complex, modern society.  That is difficult to argue against given the global interaction of nations today.  Countries like Egypt and Israel have both found it necessary to operate parallel courts to accommodate issues of marriage and personal conduct, but not civil law.  Religious law as the fundamental tenet of a nation is little more than locking the door and keeping the key.  All social, educational, and political exchange stops. No common ground is allowed to exist on this dogmatic, unilateral dead-end street.  America was founded on the premise of religious persecution elsewhere, that in turn, sanctioned by the state.  The road to modernity through democratic ideals couldn’t traverse the murky ground of theological interpretation. Noted historians, Will and Ariel Durant once stated that “the Bible is a great book, a great tale, but if you had to live by it, you’d go crazy.” Then again, modernity may be our point, not the point.

Constantinople (Istanbul) had been the official seat of the Caliphate since about 1514.  The last recognized Caliph was Abd al Majid II who with his family was exiled to Paris following the establishment of the Republic of Turkey.  Kemal found this action necessary in order to create an Islamic republic based on civil law, not theology.  This was naturally viewed as an extreme form of heresy, particularly in the Sunni Arab world, complicated further by the establishment of language laws that reverted Arabic to second class status in both government and religious proceedings, though some laws were moderated later. In itself, this was an offshoot of his policies on nationalization, but it also played into his desire to create a literate, inclusive society.  Again, in opposition to fundamentalism which he saw as “a way of promoting intellectual stagnation” by authorizing religion to define social progress, including the very function of government itself.  Oddly, the Caliphate seemed to end there.  Saudi Arabia did not attempt to re-establish it at Mecca, undoubtedly since it would threaten their position as an absolute monarchy, and it was only briefly claimed by the Taliban following the Soviet departure from Afghanistan.

Kemal was brilliant in many ways, but he was no saint.  His orchestration of the Armenian exodus was as brutal as any forced deportation.  He stacked the military with believers in his own cause and seemed more than willing to arbitrate disputes at the gallows.  Within Turkey he was seen as both savior and despot; in the fundamentalist world, a Doenmeh (a closet Jew), an alcoholic, a homosexual, a womanizer and a heretic – personal attacks that continue long after his death.  The real truth is as clouded as the newspapers Kemal himself used to create.  Yet today, Turkey remains a somewhat stable republic in the middle of one of the most volatile regions on earth.  Not perfect, but functional.

Lessons for Afghanistan

The opportunity for a more progressive society in Afghanistan was probably lost shortly after the Soviet withdrawal in 1989. In the vacuum that followed, the same Mujahedeen we once funded became the Taliban we now hunt.  Instead of rebuilding schools and infrastructure, promoting education and a sense of inclusion, we simply walked away, leaving the task largely to under-funded NGO’s and a lot of wishful thinking. The Taliban, falsely claiming the right to the Caliphate sought to force an Islamic state on the people of Afghanistan as an alternative to both communist autocracy and western indifference – two models of what they saw as a similar dysfunction.  The United States supplied much of the fodder for the Taliban position by reinforcing beliefs that Islam alone would see to the needs of the Afghan people, faith having been the sole unifying factor over ten years of Soviet occupation.  Education should have been the tool of choice to defeat a return to fundamentalism, not merely the establishment of a western leaning central government, manufactured primarily as a base for US influence in the region. No one seemed interested in the greater investment in literacy, the real slayer of despotism, secular or political, and the one indispensable ingredient in democracy. Afghanistan claims a 28% literacy rate among men, women an even more dismal 12%; Turkey, 87% overall.  The Taliban know this and they fear a literate populous far more than anything our armories can ever produce.  But we can’t export a system if nobody can understand the instructions.

Turkey’s example may be a harsh one by American standards, but it allowed the time necessary to go from a shooting war to the process of nation building in a realistic time frame. That element of time is probably what has always hampered American foreign policy, the impatience inherent in the very system we seek to sell.  Any parent will tell you that it takes twenty years or so to educate and develop a child into an adult.  Americans tire of foreign intrigue as quickly as they tire of presidents.  This lack of continuity is not only a result of the fickle nature of American politics in general, but the bad decisions orchestrated by a system in constant flux.  We don’t even bother to apologize since the person that set the policy is never around to finish it anyway.  When Kemal died in 1938 from chronic liver disease, he left behind a far more literate society than he inherited.  Right or wrong in his methodology, he did bequeath them the tools necessary for choice, the one thing the fundamentalist camp can never accept.

The question for Americans is whether we can endure a long-haul assignment, one that begins with security and ends with an informed society, one that just might decide that our model isn’t their model.  That’s the risk of intervention.  If US policy is confined to simply destroying the Taliban, then we’ve already lost this one.  If something else is on the table, this would be a pretty good time for a new President and a revamped State Department to explain just what that might be.

Hillary’s Trip to Asia: A Foreign Policy Reality Check

President Obama ran his election campaign on a slogan we all now know – “Change We Can Believe In.” However,  I have always been skeptical of Obama’s ability or commitment to bring fundamental change in US foreign policy. Obama’s Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s February trip to Asia, as well received and heavily covered as it was, has only confirmed my skepticism. Here’s why.

First, while Clinton’s words in Japan, Indonesia, South Korea, and China were a departure from Bush’s simplistic might-makes-right foreign policy, they weren’t too different from the foreign policy followed by her own husband, George H.W. Bush, Ronald Reagan (you get the idea). Obama’s foreign policy “change” appears to be a return to how the US has conducted foreign policy since World War II. That is, we work cooperatively within the UN, NATO, and other alliances; we engage other countries diplomatically; we don’t declare preemptive wars; we promote a certain type of economic model; we support nuclear non-proliferation; etc.  While this is undoubtedly better than George W. Bush’s foreign policy, it doesn’t look like a fundamental foreign policy shift. Nor does it bode well for those optimistic that President Obama will base his foreign policy on human rights, as many had hoped for during the campaign.

Admittedly, I did start out happy with how Clinton was conducting herself during this trip. She discussed relevant issues in the countries she visited and met with officials, students, and  activists. People seemed to be generally impressed with and charmed by her performance.  However, after following her trip for a while, I began to feel like it was just that–a performance. She was saying what she needed to say (and not saying what she needed to not say) depending on where she was, and her priority was selling the US, President Obama, and herself to officials and the public. This was sorely needed after eight years of George Bush, and while she showed her serious professional side as well as a softer personal side, Clinton is a seasoned, hard-nosed politician who surely understands the realities of being the only global superpower’s top diplomat. Realpolitik rules. Mushy sentimental support for human rights does not guide international relations or foreign policy. Clinton did after all vote against a Congressional bill to ban the use of cluster bombs in civilian areas because it would make her look weak on terrorism (her new boss supported the ban). 

The dissonance of her message was most jarring when comparing her speeches in Indonesia to those in China. She wooed and flattered her Indonesian hosts by talking up their democratic government, their thriving and diverse civil society, and the inclusive positive example they show to the Muslim world. China was another matter. Before she even arrived, Clinton emphasized that human rights concerns would not interfere with major issues like the economic crisis and global warming. She curbed her earlier harsh criticism of China’s human rights record in favor of other topics (which, to be fair, were not much easier to confront). While implying human rights are a marginal issue was not music to the ears of human rights advocates, it is consistent with US foreign policy historically. Human rights have had their place when they support US policy, but are always easily swept aside when they don’t. So far, the Obama administration doesn’t seem to offer a change from this realist worldview.

This is not to say that changes are not likely on the horizon. Obama is certainly charting a different course than George Bush did. His early choices about China, Russia, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria indicate a new tack, and he is making a concerted effort to clean up the US image in the world’s eyes. Human rights may be more important to President Obama than many previous US presidents, but Clinton’s stance in China makes it clear that they will not be the guiding principal of his foreign policy. The US participation as a mere observer at the recent UN Human Rights Commission and its boycott of the UN Conference on Racism also show that Obama’s administration is wary of treading new ground in the defense of human rights.

So then what is Obama’s guiding principle for his foreign policy? Not surprisingly, it appears to be essentially the same as every other US president–to protect and promote American interests abroad. This definition clearly leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Obama has pledged deeper and more sustained diplomatic engagement with allies as well as enemies–even Iran! Cuba! Venezuela!–in an effort to forge constructive relationships across the globe. As a caveat to this policy, Obama has explicitly said he will act in such a way only if it is in America’s self-interest.

Fair enough. This is the president’s job, and the reality is that US foreign policy probably will never be guided by any principle other than American self-interest. I understand this, and though it sounds amoral and opportunistic to my ears, I understand the necessity, and benefit, to advance a flexible foreign policy in an effort to engage with as many other countries as possible. And, in reality, should it be any other way? Maybe what Obama is offering is the best we can hope for when it comes to US foreign policy. George Bush’s presidency clearly demonstrated the pitfalls of having a foreign policy that stubbornly brooks no opposition to its moral certainty. Any moral justification can be abused by those in power–even a commitment to human rights or democracy or freedom. (Such a commitment to worldwide democracy is in fact one of the guiding principles of both idealist foreign policy, put in practice historically by those such as Woodrow Wilson, and modern neoconservatism under President Bush.) Promoting and protecting American interests abroad can be abused too, but at least it is an honest selfish justification for how our government behaves overseas. Protecting American interests is perhaps all the president should commit to, and if he (or one day she) is willing to keep as many channels of communication open with friend and foe, this may be the best long-term strategy. To expect anything more just may be naive, unrealistic, and unfair.

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