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.

“Buy American” Policies: More Hurtful than Helpful?

Last week’s $787 billion dollar stimulus promised aid to education, infrastructure projects, jobless benefits, and a whole host of other programs designed to stimulate the economy. While the bill was pretty straight forward, there were a few provisions that stood out and inevitably were nixed (i.e.,  the clause specifying that no federal money was to go to former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich). However, one short, but very controversial clause on page 189 did make it to the final bill. There, section 1605 states: “None of the funds appropriated or otherwise made available by this Act may be used for a project for the construction, alteration, maintenance, or repair of a public building or public work unless all of the iron, steel, and manufactured goods used in the project is produced in the United States.”

There are some exceptions (for instance, if the cost of American raw materials will increase the overall cost of the project by 25 percent, the party purchasing the materials can apply for a waiver) but the real significance of this clause is that it sets a very negative and narrow tone on the global economic crisis. Even President Obama stated in an ABC interview that this stipulation was “a potential source of trade wars” and John Bruton, the EU ambassador to the US, cited it as a “dangerous precedent.” Although the provision does state that it “shall be applied in a manner consistent with United States obligations under international agreements” it still forces many companies, such as the struggling Caterpillar, to spend more of their fiscal resources on raw materials instead of preserving jobs or raising wages. Also, given the fact that 37 percent of all manufactured goods sold in America are not made here, this stipulation seems hard-lined and, at some level, woefully misguided.

Moreover, the other underlying and more significant impact of this “Buy American” policy is this: If American companies are forced to purchase domestic raw goods for the public works projects, then what is stopping other countries from enacting the same jingoistic economic policies? This economic crisis is a global one and if every country decides to enforce a “buy me first” approach, this crisis will get far worse before it gets better. Not long after Congress announced its plan, major international news outlets such as Japan Today, Canada’s CBC NEWS, and China’s Xinhua criticized the measure. The International Herald and Tribune also noted that the United State’s protectionist policy could incite a backlash in which other nations stipulate a Don’t-Buy-American policy on foreign goods.

Although I understand Congress’s desire to promote the construction of new roads and bridges, green technology, and car manufacturing while supporting what little domestic manufacturing industry we have left, the reality is that (a) we don’t produce enough of these materials to support the sweeping projects they want to see enacted, and (b) even if we did, we may be shooting ourselves in the foot, so to speak, if we don’t work to stimulate other nations’ struggling economies in the process of stimulating our own. Maybe this approach would be acceptable, or even relevant, if this were just an ordinary American recession. But we are in the midst of a global crisis, and our economy will not get better if everyone else’s is suffering.

I believe a smarter and more fitting approach would have been a “Make American” initiative. Not an ultimatum like the “Buy American” provision, but a tax-break incentive encouragement for either domestic companies to expand their production of vital goods or for foreign ones to locate some of their operations in the United States. In both scenarios, there would be job creation and more spending. Instead of forcing companies to purchase domestic raw materials, encourage them to make products that can be purchased here or abroad. In Louis Uchitelle’s article on this issue for the New York Times last week, he cited the example of mass transit—while the stimulus bill calls for the expansion of mass transit, there are no US companies that manufacture the train cars necessary for that expansion. Now these projects will have to rely on American steel, iron, and manufactured goods while they also negotiate their express need for a specific foreign good they cannot get domestically. Wouldn’t it be nice (and much cheaper for taxpayers) to let cities purchase some raw materials from China or India and let the United States encourage these more specialized industries to move some of their operations here since we will be purchasing such a high volume of these products?

Of course, America will never return to its manufacturing hey day, and I’m not suggesting that domestic production will solve all our economic woes. But by encouraging a responsible, inviting economic policy, we could perhaps not only pave the way for global economic recovery, but also mend some broken foreign policy fences we need to repair from the past administration. Yet, despite the demands of this myopic economic policy, I hope that the Obama administration can find other ways to encourage growth domestically and promote more foreign investment in America’s future without ostracizing our trade partners and fellow economically struggling nations.

Blowback: The Economy or the Military?

During the long years of the Cold War, not many dared to question the US military budget. Since then, however, the budget has continued to expand, often sending troops overseas to situations that were created by previous diplomatic blunders. Some of those blunders have directly created the morasses that we attempt to extricate ourselves from today. As such, let’s take a look at some of the history of what the CIA refers to as blowback for the U.S.

Brief Blowback History

In 1953, Iran, or Persia as it was then called, had a functioning democratic system. A successful coup by the CIA and British Intelligence overthrew the democratically elected government and replaced them with the hereditary Shah of Persia. His abuses and misrule led directly to the Islamic Revolution and the problems we have encountered with their Islamic government ever since. In the early 1980s, Iraq thus was encouraged to invade Iran, by the US in a fit of pique, and was supplied with arms in the resulting war. This assistance helped solidify Saddam Hussein’s military ambitions and indirectly encouraged his invasion of Kuwait in 1991, all of which led to the mess in Iraq today.

Meanwhile during the 1980s, the military assistance given to the tribes opposing the Russian occupation of Afghanistan led to the Taliban taking over the country. These people, who were responsible for 9/11 (despite what the Bush administration’s claims to the contrary), are whom we continue to fight today in Afghanistan. In addition, they also have brought the war on terror to the nuclear-power country of Pakistan.

Bill Clinton didn’t help matters, when he, in the midst of the Monica Lewinsky affair, launched Tomahawk missiles against suspected Al Qaeda munitions facilities at a site in Sudan and the Bora Bora site in Afghanistan where Osama Bin Laden was thought to be. This was in retaliation after US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania had been previously bombed. One of Tomahawks destroyed a human and veterinary manufacturing plant in Sudan, killing at least 20 Sudanese and putting many out of work. The Sudanese government immediately cut off all ties with the U.S. and released an important Al Qaeda suspect they had been about to hand over to the U.S. The Tomahawks in Afghanistan missed Bin Laden totally–he was in Kabul at the time. He in turn sold an unexploded Tomahawk to the Chinese for 10 million dollars. Worse, almost all of Africa, who had been outraged over the Embassy bombings by Al Qaeda, swung against the US policy after the bombings. Sound familiar?

In addition, it is clear to most of the world, though rarely reported in the US, that huge military assistance to Israel keeps them so dominant that they often disdain from entering into meaningful dialogue with the Palestinians or other nations in the region. Without meaningful legitimate political channels, arguably, that may have in turn indirectly led to the cult of the indefensible and grotesque suicide bomber.

Similar situations of blowback have occurred on all continents. It is alleged that the policy of supporting vain, immoral megalomaniacs as leaders in the more unstable areas of the world could be summed up as, “We don’t care if he’s a bastard so long as he’s our bastard”.

In too many situations today, previous meddling in the internal affairs or politics of other countries has led directly or indirectly to these messes that we may now face. If intervention leads to revolution or serious instability in the country involved, it is often inevitable that the beneficiaries of the situation will be the worst possible choices. It takes many generations for the situation to settle down and for the voices of reason make headway over the radicals who are always the initial power base. The French Revolution, The Russian Revolution, and the Persian [Iranian] Revolution are all cases in point

To return to the end of the Cold War, there was at that time, along with a feeling of relief that we were all suddenly safe, a hope that the troops could come home, and be discharged. That of course never happened. Why not?

The Military Industrial Complex

Today the US spends 46% of the total world’s military budget. The next 4 nations, the UK, France, Japan and China spend between 4-5% each. The US military budget has risen from 250 billion dollars in 2001 to over 700 billion in 2008. Thus, the sensible solution to help our failing economy would logically have to be to cut the military budget and bring everyone home. Wouldn’t that give us iron clad security at home? Maybe we could even make our inner cities safe and bring down the horrendous murder rate from the 17,000 yearly victims it is today.

Of course that is about as realistic as overall world peace. But why?

The answer to why that apparently sensible solution is currently a pipe dream was first given by President Eisenhower in 1961. Eisenhower was the first President, as a former General, to recognize the power of the Military Industrial Complex.

That term refers to an over friendly relationship between the government, the military, munitions manufacturers, and defense contractors. All in this relationship benefit financially, and unfortunately peace can get in the way. Eisenhower as a military man saw what could occur when future Presidents without military experience tried to go up against this Complex. They would be easily maneuvered by the military to react where no reaction was necessary, and to keep the US military equipped with constantly updated equipment and every new technology. Today, there is a defense contractor in every State of the Union. If there are cutbacks, you can be sure these workers will be out in force rallying senators and representatives at every level. The President will be lambasted across the nation and the Republicans will make hay. Any President to take on this issue will be lauded by history, but unlikely to win a second term.

Will Barack Obama be able to break this endless cycle to prevent the never ending cycle of blowback? If recent history is a good predictor, it certainly won’t be easy. For the sake of the rest of the world, let’s hope for the best.

Epoch’s End

I should start by stating that I am a novice in the fields of economics and finance. My career was as a law enforcement officer. I do, however, believe that I have a firm grasp of world history, human nature, and a sense of how much the human spirit can endure until endless mass frustration leads to a chain of events that explodes into actions which can result in regime change and major shifts in worldwide belief systems.

After the First World War, communism and socialism emerged to duke it out with Hitler’s fascism and other conservative regimes for the balance of power in Europe. After the Second World War, unfettered missionary capitalism emerged in the US, bolstered by evangelic Christianity. Liberalism and socialism tended to dominate in old Europe where the relative place of religion diminished, and today is virtually non-existent in many such secular states. Into this mix, multinational corporations emerged, with no allegiance to anyone except their shareholders. Their power enabled them to shape government policies, and their financial weight enabled them to implicitly blackmail governments into giving them sweetheart deals, which were often to no ones benefit except theirs and the richly rewarded politicians who supported them. From this standpoint, I do suspect that the shock waves radiating around the world from the stock market meltdown were not entirely created by a few bad apples running amok in Wall Street, but were rather a symptom of the basic dishonesty that seems ensconced in most stock markets around the world.

Events of the past decade and the past year in particular have convinced me that we are at Epoch’s End and that the current worldwide geopolitical and economic system is so broken that it can never be completely fixed. What will emerge I cannot venture to guess, but it will likely take many years to reach this yet unknown new global equilibrium. In this new equilibrium, the standard of living that many in the western world have taken for granted in recent generations may not be seen again.

Certainly many have been expecting Epoch’s End, through global warming, plagues or famines, but its tipping point appears to have occurred not through those venues, but through economic breakdown. As life has proceeded happily upward for us in the developed world since the Second World War, we have long forgotten that this uninterrupted growth was unprecedented in recent world history. World history suggests that the past fifty or sixty years are more likely to be seen as an outlier rather than as a permanent new paradigm. In the past, plagues have wiped out the working forces, old industries closed down and new ones developed, and populations followed the jobs. Crop failures caused those who wanted to survive to move on to new areas or even to new continents. Growth has been followed by stagnation. Fifty or sixty years may seem like a long time in the scope of a human lifetime. However, it is all but a footnote in world history.

Over the last 50 or 60 years we have come to expect that things will always improve–we will have better cars, holidays, and medical care, and our incomes will continue to provide more of these things. Many companies have based their development on a policy of increasing their revenues as much as 10% a year. Most of these companies have psychologists study shoppers brain waves to use exactly the right words in their sales promotions and to find the best place to put certain items in the store to trigger the buying impulse. We have all happily shopped and shopped for more and more things we don’t need. Products we really need require no advertising. How many television commercials do you see for bread and milk? If the whole world were to enjoy the standard of living that we currently enjoy in North America, we would need three worlds just to keep up. Perhaps most selfish of all, most people now expect to live longer without giving any thought to the potential consequences of this like increasing the world’s population, all the problems of pollution, global warming, polluted water ways, etc. With the world’s population approaching 8 billion plus people, it is close to cardiac arrest. We can’t expect to live forever and have growth forever; death and cyclical stagnation of populations and civilizations are a part of the natural balance of our planet.

As you probably expected, I am nothing of an expert in the ways of the multinational corporation. However, what I do know is that there are many Chinese workers, working at monotonous, dangerous jobs for $5 a day or less, with unpaid overtime expected. They produce cheap quality goods for us that we really don’t need. Who then is the net gainer? At least in the short run, it is a few wealthy shareholders. In order for this situation to flourish, our wage levels must remain 20 times higher, for the same or less effort, than a Chinese worker. The whole approach is broke.

As I write, more and more western governments are announcing huge spending plans to stimulate the economy, using vast amounts of borrowed money. That money is all coming from the sale of our bonds to China. If it works, perhaps we can put off Epoch’s End for a few years, as we attempt to pay the huge debts. Certainly our wages will take a huge hit, and lifestyles will need to readjust. But what if it doesn’t work, what if our spending doesn’t pick up enough to reopen the factories in China? What if China were to ever demand repayment of those bonds to assist their own citizens? We will be bankrupt, there will be no wages for any civil servants, no military wages, no police wages, and no pensions or benefits of any kind will be paid.

Further, as a people, many of us have become lethargic and ignorant. How is it possible to consider people for the highest offices in the land without demanding that they have the knowledge, stability, and honesty to do the job? When you visit your doctor you know that his or her certificate represents years of study, tested time and again by exams and practicum. Yet we are prepared to accept persons for the highest offices because they look good, string a fine line of BS and are just like you and me. Well I have news for you, I don’t want a person like me running a country.

In Canada from where I write, we had a recent Federal Election. The Liberal leader Stephan Dion was put down continually because he didn’t speak perfectly in his second language of English. He didn’t look good in front of the cameras, and he was often filmed from the wrong angles. The saddest thing was that nobody seemed to have the slightest interest in hearing the substance of what he actually was saying. We could save enormous amounts of money and time if we simply gave the job to the best actor and provided a good speech writer. Perhaps getting precisely that for many years has resulted in all our difficulties today. Franklin D. Roosevelt would probably never have been elected today, wheelchair bound as he was. Winston Churchill, similarly, was drunk too often to be electable today. At that time we paid attention to what was said, not the carefully buffed images we see presented today.

In the last U.S. election, most were too polite to state publicly that the election of Sarah Palin as vice president could potentially place every citizen of the US one 72-year old heart beat away from danger. Yes, thankfully Ms. Palin did not become vice president. However, for one of the two major parties of the world’s leading nuclear superpower to even nominate her for vice president should be scary enough. In the case of Mr. Obama and Mr. Dion, being an intellectual was seen as a negative by many. We call this civilization? Thankfully, after eight years of George W. Bush, the America people took a chance on an intellectual. New Canadian Liberal leader and respected Harvard intellectual, Michael Ignatieff, may get a chance in the next few years as well.

If we are indeed at Epoch’s End, we will have all caused this through greed, but most of all because we have failed to keep our eyes on what has really been going on, failed to keep people honest, and preferred to switch on the football game rather than take a glimpse at the foreign-affairs columns or use our computers to access the mass of information which is availably so readily today, yet ignored by most. If we are at an Epoch’s End, it is indeed our own damn fault.

Mumbai Misperceptions: War is Not Imminent

Following the November 26 terrorist attacks in Mumbai, we repeatedly heard two messages. One, these attacks were India’s 9/11, and two, war between India and Pakistan was just around the corner.

Writer Amitav Ghosh divined a crucial connection between the two messages. “When commentators repeat the metaphor of 9/11, they are in effect pushing the Indian government to mount a comparable response.” Indeed, India’s opposition Hindu nationalist BJP has blustered, “Our response must be close to what the American response was.” Fearful of imminent war, the media has indulged in frantic hand wringing about Indian and Pakistani nuclear arsenals and renewed fears about the Indian subcontinent being “the most dangerous place on earth.”

As an observer of the subcontinent for over a decade, I am optimistic that war will not be the end result of this event. As horrifying as the Mumbai attacks were, they are not likely to drive India and Pakistan into an armed international conflict. The media frenzy over an imminent nuclear war seems the result of the media being superficially knowledgeable about the history of Indian-Pakistani relations, of feeling compelled to follow the most sensationalistic story, and being recently brainwashed into thinking that the only way to respond to a major terrorist attack was the American way – a war.

Here are four reasons why the Mumbai attacks will not result in a war:

1. For both countries, a war would be a disaster. India has been successfully building stronger relations with the rest of the world over the last decade. It has occasionally engaged in military muscle-flexing (abetted by a Bush administration eager to promote India as a counterweight to China and Pakistan), but it has much more aggressively promoted itself as an emerging economic powerhouse and a moral, democratic alternative to less savory authoritarian regimes. Attacking a fledgling democratic Pakistan would not improve India’s reputation in anybody’s eyes.

The restraint Manmohan Singh’s government has exercised following the attacks indicates a desire to avoid rash and potentially regrettable actions. It is also perhaps a recognition that military attacks will never end terrorism. Pakistan, on the other hand, couldn’t possibly win a war against India, and Pakistan’s military defeat would surely lead to the downfall of the new democratic government. The military would regain control, and Islamic militants would surely make a grab for power – an outcome neither India nor Pakistan want. Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari has shown that this is not the path he wants his country to go down. He has forcefully spoken out against terrorist groups operating in Pakistan and has ordered military attacks against LeT camps. Key members of LeT and other terrorist groups have been arrested. One can hope that this is only the beginning, despite the unenviable military and political difficulties in doing so.

2. Since the last major India-Pakistan clash in 1999, both countries have made concrete efforts to create people-to-people connections and to improve economic relations. Bus and train services between the countries have resumed for the first time in decades along with an easing of the issuing of visas to cross the border. India-Pakistan cricket matches have resumed, and India has granted Pakistan “most favored nation” trading status. The Mumbai attacks will undoubtedly strain relations, yet it is hard to believe that both sides would throw away this recent progress. With the removal of Pervez Musharraf and the election of a democratic government (though a shaky, relatively weak one), both the Indian government and the Pakistani government have political motivations to ease tensions and to proceed with efforts to improve relations. There are also growing efforts to recognize and build upon the many cultural ties between the populations of India and Pakistan and a decreasing sense of animosity between the countries.

3. Both countries also face difficult internal problems that present more of a threat to their stability and security than does the opposite country. If they are wise, the governments of both countries will work more towards addressing these internal threats than the less dangerous external ones. The most significant problems facing Pakistan today do not revolve around the unresolved situation in Kashmir or a military threat posed by India. The more significant threat to Pakistan comes from within. While LeT has focused its firepower on India instead of the Pakistani state, other militant Islamic outfits have not.

Groups based in the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan have orchestrated frequent deadly suicide bombings and clashes with the Pakistani military, including the attack that killed ex-Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in 2007. The battle that the Pakistani government faces now is not against its traditional enemy India, but against militants bent on destroying the Pakistani state and creating a Taliban-style regime in Pakistan. In order to deal with this threat, it must strengthen the structures of a democratic, inclusive political system that can also address domestic problems and inequalities. On the other hand, the threat of Pakistani based terrorists to India is significant. However, suicide bombings and attacks are also carried out by Indian Islamic militants, and vast swaths of rural India are under the de facto control of the Maoist guerrillas known as the Naxalites. Hindu fundamentalists pose a serious threat to the safety of many Muslim and Christian Indians and to the idea of India as a diverse, secular, democratic society. Separatist insurgencies in Kashmir and in parts of the northeast have dragged on for years. And like Pakistan, India faces significant challenges in addressing sharp social and economic inequalities. Additionally, Indian political parties, especially the ruling Congress Party and others that rely on the support of India’s massive Muslim population to win elections, are certainly wary about inflaming public opinion against Pakistan (and Muslims). This fear could lead the investigation into the Mumbai attacks to fizzle out with no resolution, as many other such inquiries have.

4. The international attention to this attack – somewhat difficult to explain in my opinion given the general complacency and utter apathy in much of the western world about previous terrorist attacks in places like India, Pakistan, and Indonesia – is a final obstacle to an armed conflict. Not only does it put both countries under a microscope in terms of how they respond to the terrible events, it also means that they will feel international pressure to resolve the situation without resorting to war. India and Pakistan have been warned by the US, Russia, and others not to let the situation end in war. India has been actively recruiting Pakistan’s closest allies – China and Saudi Arabia – to pressure Pakistan to act against militants, and the US has been in the forefront of pressing Pakistan for action. Iran too has expressed solidarity with India in the face of the attacks and is using its regional influence to bring more diplomatic pressure on Pakistan.

Still, however unlikely, it must be said that an unforeseen constellation of unfortunate events and colossally stupid decisions could result in war. Just before Christmas, Pakistan began moving military forces from the west where they had been engaging the Taliban to its eastern border with India as tensions between the two countries rose, despite recent conciliatory gestures on both sides.  However, because of the reasons outlined above, one can hope that both India and Pakistan will continue to aggressively engage in diplomacy, intelligence sharing, and military cooperation to cripple the types of organizations that have carried out the heinous attacks in Mumbai, and who threaten both countries.  If these efforts are fruitful, peace is indeed possible. War is not imminent.

Arab Fiats: Islamicism is the New Communism

While many in the Western world cower in fear of radical Islamic terrorists and the Arab World in general, many of our fears are completely baseless. The truth is that in radical Islamists do not govern any Arab country with a significant population. That’s right, while many people see the entire Arab World as fanatical Islamists, the fact is they control nowhere.

It is clear that the true holders of power have often encouraged the fanatics in order to provide a distraction from the poverty and lack of development in many of their nations. This is in fact a strategy we also see used very effectively in non-Muslim countries. China continues to fan the people’s disgust for the massacres and tortures carried out by the Japanese during World War II in order that the people do not focus on leaders such as Mao Tse Tung, who was largely responsible for the starvation and genocide of his people. President Mugabe in Zimbabwe inflames the people by blaming the British for the cholera epidemic and malnutrition of the population.

In this light, historical lessons of the past century give us some interesting parallels to current realities. In the Arab world of 50 years ago, many countries were embracing communism, not fanatical Islamicism. After World War I, as anyone who has seen Lawrence of Arabia will know, the Ottoman Turks lost their Empire in the Arab World.  Much of it was divided between the British and the French, which caused huge resentment as Lawrence had promised they would have domain in their own nations as payback for their assistance in defeating the Ottomans. The British and the French set up puppet leaders and Monarchs, who assumed full authority when the bombed out European powers deserted most of their empires after World War II. When the European powers left, there was a wide power vacuum in much of the Arab world. The Soviet Union, which had just won the World War II on the eastern front, tried to help fill this vacuum. General Nasser took power in Egypt where Communism was fully embraced for a number of years. The Soviets gave considerable military aid to the Egyptians and built the High Dam in Aswan to control the flooding of the Nile and generate electricity. Communism was embraced by most of North Africa and became very pervasive in Yemen. In Saudi Arabia, communism was only put down violently by the House of Saud when they began to see it as a threat to their power. Socialism was established in Syria and Iraq under the ruling Baath Party. The Baath Party in Iraq had made many improvements for the status of women, education, and medicine before Saddam Hussein became a paranoid tyrant and took up the faith again to try to regain some credibility with his people. Some of these Communists Parties survive in limited forms to this day.

Over the past 50 years, many sons and grandsons of atheist communists have become fanatical Islamists, yet little has really changed in their day to day lives. Their financial situation has not improved, health services have improved minimally, and education has improved little. At the same time, their leaders and monarchs, as they did several generations ago, continue to live lives of uninterrupted luxury, hiding much of their wealth in Swiss bank accounts. They know very well that if they deceive their people to be engaged in rage against the West, whether it be by the Bible of communism or the Koran of Islam, they will maintain their status indefinitely. “The Great Satan of the West has caused their problems, and when he is banished it will be Heaven on Earth for them.”

In this light, it is unfortunate to have political leaders in the Western world who do not see this whole picture. The terrorists can never be beaten by firepower. They are only made martyrs, and like the Hydra, each head that is cut off results only in replication by many more. If we are to win over their minds and souls, tanks and warplanes can never succeed. For the trillions of dollars spent on weapons, how many hospitals could be built, how many wells dug, how many schools built, how many miles of sewers, aquifers, roads. How many farmers’ crops and lifestyles immeasurably improved? How many minds changed in favor of benevolent, trustworthy individuals bringing honest Western help, without questioning the beliefs of the recipients? Mind sets may not change in one generation, but they will in two. If such a fanatical movement can be built in this amount of time, with the power of good will, it can likewise be destroyed.

Complementary to this good will, the Western World must also cut off the leaders of these corrupt nations and city states, banish them from the club until a little more of their wealth, personal enterprise, and interest trickles down to assist their own people. Of course, as long as the Western world relies on their oil for their continued economic growth, this is unlikely. Such is the curse of economic inequality that often accompanies vast national resources in the developing world. Dubai, with relatively few natural resources, has been forced to make that the jump for the good of their people. As other illegitimate Arab monarchs and dictators freeze their Swiss bank accounts and overseas assets, don’t let them ski at our resorts and moor their yachts anywhere in the Mediterranean. Make them unwelcome in our lands. Let them feel the weight of their perfidy to their people. Let’s deal with the illness, not the symptoms.

Circuit Court Strikes Down National Security Letters

One of the more controversial components of 2001’s USA PATRIOT Act is the expanded use of national security letters (NSLs). These are letters given by the FBI to people who have information the FBI wants. The letters, which do not require approval by a judge, amount to a combination search warrant/gag order. The letter requires the recipient to produce information about a third party, whom the FBI is investigating. The recipient is forbidden from discussing, with anyone, the nature of the information requested — but it doesn’t stop there! NSLs also forbid the recipients from even disclosing the fact that they received such an inquiry.

In 2006, an internal audit found that the FBI’s use of national security letters had increased dramatically from 2003 to 2005, and many of those letters were authorized by people who were not in a position to authorize them. In 2008, another audit revealed that the FBI was still improperly issuing NSLs, and what’s more, 60% of the letters targeted American citizens.

Well, in 2007, the ACLU decided it had had enough. It filed suit against the government on behalf of several John Does named in NSLs, alleging that the letters violated the First, Fourth, and Fifth Amendments of the Constitution, since the letters’ gag orders improperly curtailed freedom of speech without “due process of law” (that’s a Fifth Amendment guarantee that means a person cannot be deprived of “life, liberty, or property” without a trial), and the letters themselves were not issued with proper judicial authority. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York agreed, rendering unconstitutional the NSL provision of the USA PATRIOT Act.

The government appealed. On Monday, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the District Court’s decision in part. It agreed that the gag order provision violates the First Amendment because it is not “narrowly tailored” as is required by the strict scrutiny standard. It also agreed that the government, not the recipient of a NSL, has the burden of defending the validity of a gag order (under the statute, it was the recipient who had the burden of proving the gag order was not valid). The USA PATRIOT Act assumed that the government’s arguments in favor of a gag order were always correct.

With regard to the First Amendment, the Circuit Court found that the statute was overbroad specifically because the gag order does not have a temporal limitation. The government analogized the NSLs’ secrecy requirement to a jury’s secrecy requirement; however, the court disagreed, since a jury may talk about the case once it’s over, but the recipient of a NSL could conceivably be silenced forever, even long after the FBI’s investigation is over.

The court was troubled by the degree of deference to the Justice Department the USA PATRIOT Act requested of judges. I’ll let the Circuit Court speak for itself:

Assessing the Government’s showing of a good reason to believe that an enumerated harm may result will present a district court with a delicate task. While the court will normally defer to the Government’s considered assessment of why disclosure in a particular case may result in an enumerated harm related to such grave matters as international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities, it cannot, consistent with strict scrutiny standards, uphold a nondisclosure requirement on a conclusory assurance that such a likelihood exists. In this case, the director of the FBI certified that “the disclosure of the NSL itself or its contents may endanger the national security of the United States.” To accept that conclusion without requiring some elaboration would “cast Article III judges in the role of petty functionaries, persons required to enter as a court judgment an executive officer’s decision, but stripped of capacity to evaluate independently whether the executive’s decision is correct.” Gutierrez de Martinez v. Lamagno, 515 U.S. 417, 426 (1995).

Of course, that was the whole point of the USA PATRIOT Act: to strip from the law the requirement that a judge authorize a warrant. NSLs are designed to permit the executive, with the barest minimum of oversight (if any at all), to gather any amount of information, at any time, from any person, without the authorization of an independent third party. The Bush administration has shown that it would love nothing more than to turn judges into “petty functionaries” who are, at once, required to sign off on a warrant, giving it the appearance of third-party review (and thus legitimacy), while at the same time preventing those judges from conducting any actual, meaningful review. Bush’s Justice Department has argued that the September 11, 2001 attacks were so horrifying that the shock waves rippled through the Constitution itself, ostensibly amending it to create a parallel Constitution for “a post-9/11 world” in which the executive must have unquestionable power to arrest, detain, try, convict, and torture anyone it feels may possibly present a threat to national security. To follow the rule of law that has operated the United States for 219 years would only aid terrorists and put everyone at risk of another attack. These arguments have been refuted time and time again by courts, which — despite attempts at legislation to the contrary — still retain the authority “to say what the law is.” As it turns out, even an event as traumatic as the September 11 attacks cannot spawn into being a parallel, Bizzaro constitution that contains nearly-unlimited executive powers. There is no constitutional equivalent of a virgin birth.

Still at issue is whether or not the government is acting in good faith. Why is this secrecy necessary? Does it stem from an actual belief that disclosure of NSLs will endanger the country? Is it paranoia? Or is it something more sinister, a primitive desire for power and control? Vice President Cheney articulated “the one percent doctrine,” the idea that a 1% chance of a terrorist attack should be treated as a 100% chance of a terrorist attack. On its face, this belief is ludicrous: to be implemented properly, this policy would require a police state of the type seen only in China or the old Soviet Union. Cheney is no dummy, and must therefore understand that The One Percent Doctrine, from both a statistical, policy, and security standpoint, is foolish. Is it, then, a facile attempt to increase surveillance power?

These questions may end up never being answered; Cheney will take them with him to the grave. President Bush has no mind for complexity and thus cannot answer these questions, either. Bush is concerned about his legacy, not unlike Richard Nixon. But Bush’s mind is Cheney’s mind, and while Cheney may be as smart as Nixon was, Cheney does not have the same hang-ups about his reputation. Our only insight into the nation’s operation for eight years will be investigations upon investigations into what our government has been doing and why our government has been doing it.

Israel: Nuclear Implications of Corruption?

The proliferation of nuclear weapons and the increasing risk of global catastrophe have been on the minds of all western nations since the end of the Cold War. Nuclear weapons were falsely used as justification for the invasion of Iraq, and they are currently used as justification for harsher sanctions against Iran. Two of the U.S allies in the Sub-Continent of India possess nuclear weapons along with sophisticated delivery systems, and China and North Korea are also members of the nuclear club. All of these countries developed them, despite being party to agreements not to do so. However, why do most of the western world seem to ignore the nation with the largest number of unofficial nukes, all illegal by international convention?

Israel started to develop nuclear technology in the 1950s and had a bomb by 1968. The Wisconsin Project which monitors nuclear weapons around the world has for many years placed that arsenal as between 100 and 200 warheads. Israel itself maintains a policy of refusing to confirm or deny its stockpile of nuclear weapons and the capacity to deliver them anywhere in the Middle East or Europe.

One of the reasons to ignore Israel’s alleged breach of non-nuclear proliferation agreements may have been our assumption that society in Israel is somehow more stable and less corrupt than other nations. However, a quick look under the surface shows that is not necessarily the case.  Because of a lack of transparency, we can not assume that the finger on Israel’s nuclear button will necessarily be rational or that Israel has the proper protocols for nuclear detonation.

Israel’s parliamentary leaders have faced much recent controversy. Three recent premiers, Ehud Olmert, Benjamin Netanyahu, and Ariel Sharon have all been subjected to allegations of fraud. It was the recent resignation over fraud allegations of Ehud Olmert that has resulted in a stalemate in government. Tzipi Livni, his successor, has been unable to form a successful coalition with the other parties, and it is unlikely that the situation will be resolved before spring. The President was also being investigated for allegations of rape and sexual assault and has resigned. This is only at the top–some other ministers and MPs have been also been subjected to allegations of fraud and/or resigned.  In 2008, Israel placed 33^rd in the World Corruption Index, tied with the West Indies and the Commonwealth of Dominica. This ranking was the lowest of any developed nation. Israel scored especially low on the transparency sub index. According to recent public polling in Israel, 72% of Israelis rate the corruption as high to very high, and nearly 50% of all young people would like to leave Israel if they could. The main reason given is government corruption followed by poor educational availability and fears over security. Seven thousand more people left Israel permanently in 2007 than entered.

Given such an epidemic of alleged corruption among Israeli leaders, the real question then is, “Whose finger is on the nuclear button, or may be on that button, and what controls are there on that person’s unilateral ability to press such a button”? In most of the world, there are many strict controls placed on a President or Prime Minister before the option to use nuclear weapons would even be considered. If that stage is ever reached, there are codes to be entered keys, held by separate officials and a multitude of complex procedures before they can be mobilized. For example, India and Pakistan  have their own systems of multiple protocols as a condition of acceptance into the nuclear club. The leaders of these two countries have put in hotlines with direct access to each other and have established other protocols in the event of a crisis that could lead to nuclear confrontation.  Given that Israel does not even admit to having nuclear weapons, we have no idea if such protocols exist. There are many national security reasons that could explain why Israel is less than fully transparent about their nuclear program. However, considering the recent alleged corruption of its leaders, the time is ripe for more transparency.

China Bails Out Its People

Faced with declining exports due lower demand from many western countries entering recession, China’s central command has announced an economic stimulus plan of 586 billion dollars. Unlike the United States and many European countries, China will not be bailing out its banks, but rather investing in much needed infrastructure and social programs. Having 2 trillion dollars in reserves and owning much of the western world’s debt, this is definitely something China can afford to do.

This spending, which includes much needed rural infrastructure, disaster relief, and environmental cleanup funds, is long overdue. Nowhere, with the possible exception of India, are the disparities between urban and rural areas higher. In addition, the government was horrible in its response to the Sichuan earthquake this past May, which killed 700,000 people. However delayed and sterile the response, it made the U.S. response to Hurricane Katrina look superb.

For too long, China has had no accountability and has been corrupted by incompetent local fiefdoms. This has led to virtual ignorance on the part of the central command toward regional and local governments until something goes wrong. Then, when something goes wrong, it usually goes horribly wrong, as is the case with the recent tainted milk scandal. What happens when something goes wrong? Horrible overreaction on the part of the central government of course. Does any of the above sound familiar? Perhaps it reminds you of the laissez-faire governance, ensuing disaster, and resulting overreaction seen in the recent financial crisis in the United States?

Virtual laissez-faire governance and capitalism in communist China? Dear God, where have all the global stereotypes gone? Next thing we know, people will be accusing George W. Bush of being a communist. Oh wait, never mind. Well, at least China is investing in its people rather than bailing out its banks.

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