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.

Obama’s Venezuelan Challenge

There is no shortage of foreign policy challenges for Barack Obama as he prepares to take office in a few short weeks.  And over the next few months, you’re likely to read hundreds of thousands of words analyzing a small handful of them, namely those challenges that involve Middle Eastern countries that start with the letter “I.”

But what you will not read much about are the other foreign policy challenges that are equally as important, but not quite as familiar.  So, in an effort to shed some light on the massive, worldwide foreign policy shadow cast by Iraq, Iran and Israel, this piece will be the first in a series of three highlighting the most important “other” foreign policy challenges. While all three of these scenarios will require great diplomatic skill, some are more difficult than others, and we’ll begin with the most manageable in Venezuela and work our way to the most challenging in Pakistan via Cuba.

The Challenge: Keep Venezuelan oil flowing in the short-term before the U.S. can eventually wean itself off of it in the long-term.  At the same time, peace must be kept between Venezuela and its neighbor to the west, Colombia, despite increasing tensions between the two.

The Obstacles: Bad blood has been brewing for the past eight years between George W. Bush and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.  President Chavez has accused the Bush Administration of being responsible for the coup that briefly ousted him from power in 2002 and of plotting another coup attempt in 2006.  If Chavez maintains the perception within Venezuela that the leaders in Washington are still out to destroy both Venezuela and his presidency, he has the ability to wreck havoc with the U.S. economy by shutting off approximately 1.5 million barrels of oil a day that Venezuela currently exports to the United States.

With regards to Colombia, it is no surprise that the left-wing Hugo Chavez and the right-wing president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe, do not get along.  What is a surprise is that the two men managed to maintain a cordial and somewhat productive relationship as long as they did.  For five years, from Uribe’s election in 2002 until 2007, the only major diplomatic dispute between the two nations was quickly resolved when Chavez and Uribe spoke to one another and agreed that they were both at fault for using the media rather than official diplomatic channels to air their grievances.

But then, in late 2007, the relationship between Venezuela and Colombia took an abrupt turn for the worse when negotiations between the Colombian government and its long-time enemy, FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia), broke down. Chavez, who many view as sympathetic to FARC’s cause, was involved in the negotiations, and Uribe felt as though its failure to produce any positive results was partially the Venezuelan president’s fault.  This led to a “freezing” of political relations between the two nations. Then, the situation was made much worse just a few months later, on March 1, 2008,  when Colombian forces went after and killed a FARC commander inside Ecuadorian territory.  Ecuador was not pleased with the Colombian invasion of its sovereignty and cut diplomatic ties with Colombia.  Venezuela immediately followed suit.

To make matters worse, the following day, Chavez condemned Colombia’s actions by saying that if Uribe took similar actions in Venezuela, it would provoke war:

“Don’t even think about doing something like this over here (Colombian) President Uribe, because that would be extremely serious….A military incursion on Venezuelan soil would be a cause for war.”

Of course, this comment served only to fuel the perception that Hugo Chavez was and is more interested in harboring the leftist rebels and furthering their cause than he is in actually bringing about peace in the region.  Conversely, Chavez accused both Uribe and the United States of not actually wanting the war to end.  What began as an effort to bring about a greater dialogue ended in complete lack of trust in this strategically important region.

While the probability of all out war between Colombia and Venezuela is slim, if the situation is allowed to continue to deteriorate, the results could be catastrophic.  Further, if such a string of events would occur, it would most likely occur with little or no warning.  Colombia, whose military is partially supported by billions of dollars from Washington and who is already mobilized militarily from their internal war against the FARC, is prepared for an attack from Venezuela at any time.  Recent history shows that the Colombian military has displayed very little qualms about invading another nation’s territory, and if a worthwhile target were to appear across the Orinoco River in Venezuela, Colombia may decide that such an incursion is worth the risk of retaliation. In Venezuela, President Chavez has aggressively been building up his military over the past decade.  In fact, the buildup has been so quick that some U.S. officials have openly discussed concerns that the rapidly expanding Venezuelan military could trigger an arms race in Latin America.  More than 80,000 Venezuelans serve in the country’s army, navy, air force and national guard, and many of them are eager to test out their new toys.

With as little trust as there is between the two neighbors at the moment, it wouldn’t take much to touch off this Amazonian powder keg.  The Americas have been relatively peaceful since WWII, and it is in everyone’s best interest to keep it that way.  President-elect Obama must find a way to rebuild the trust between not only Chavez and Uribe, but also between the peoples and militaries of Venezuela and Colombia.

The Solutions: If there is any hope for the Obama Administration to help rebuild the trust between Venezuela and its neighbor to the west, it must first work with Hugo Chavez to build a stable and more trusting relationship between the United States and Venezuela.

For his part, the Venezuelan President has already shown some signs that he may be willing to make this relationship work.  Since the November 4 election of Barack Obama, President Chavez has made some initial efforts to ease tensions with the United States.  In early November, when the Bush Administration made a slightly provocative move by “inviting” the Venezuelan consul in Houston to leave the country, Chavez, surprisingly, did not take the bait.  Instead, he accepted Washington’s decision and admitted that the Venezuelans had been in the wrong. Additionally, days before the U.S. Election, the Venezuelan President acknowledged that relations between the U.S. and Venezuela were at an all time low, but an Obama victory could go a long way to change that.  Further, Chavez has stated publically that he is willing to talk with the Obama Administration, something neither side has been willing to do during the Bush Administration.

While making a small concession and a non-binding promise to talk may not seem like much to work with for President-elect Obama, it is a move in the right direction and a far cry from the belligerent name-calling that has gone on between the two nations over the past eight years. The Bush Administration’s approach to Venezuela and Hugo Chavez has been to deem Chavez an evil dictator (not quite the axis of evil, but close) and to play off of the American public’s misperceptions about Chavez (which they helped create) in order to score cheap political points at home. This practice needs to come to an immediate end when Obama is sworn in.  One step in this direction would be for President-elect Obama to ensure that no one in his new administration, especially his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, publically refers to Chavez as a dictator, tyrant, or anything other than the President of Venezuela.

This, however, may be easier said than done.  Given the American public’s perception that Chavez is a dictator and enemy of the United States, it may be tempting for the Obama Administration to try to score some of the same political points that Bush did, particularly if some sort of diplomatic hitch arises. If and when Barack Obama and Hugo Chavez do sit down for a face-to-face talk, Obama should make it clear that his overarching philosophy of cooperation will be applied to everyone, not just to Americans, and despite the differences between Venezuela and the United States, he will sit down and figure out where there is common ground between the two countries.

Finding that common ground will be key to building a better, more trusting relationship with Chavez, and it will provide the U.S. with a slightly more secure source of oil, but more importantly, it will provide an opportunity to influence Colombian-Venezuelan relations. War may not be imminent between these two Latin American nations, but such a war would be a nightmare situation that U.S. must do everything to prevent.  Such a war would most likely draw U.S. troops and lead to the loss of its fourth largest supplier of oil in Venezuela.  As such, the incoming Obama Administration must work very hard to prevent such a worst-case scenario from developing.

The Bottom Line: In general, any solution regarding Venezuela is going to be tricky.  President-elect Obama and Secretary of State Clinton will have to walk a diplomatic tightrope, mending a broken relationship with a recent adversary in Venezuela while being careful not to offend long-time ally Colombia. The good news is that because of recent statements by Hugo Chavez, there appears to be a small window of opportunity for the United States and Obama and Clinton to successfully walk such a tightrope. However, faced with many competing international priorities right out of the gate, especially in the Middle East, the Obama administration may be tempted to devote most of their attention elsewhere. They would be wise not to ignore Latin America for long. If they do, the current window of opportunity in Venezuela may be slammed shut. The geopolitical consequences of this could be dire.

What’s to Be Done with the Burris Boy?

Roland Burris appears to be the one to fill Barack Obama’s sexy, well-toned shoes. Maybe. With Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich daring the Senate to do anything about it, what is the Senate to do?

The authors of Slate’s “Jurisprudence” column, Akhil Reed Amar and Josh Chafetz, believe that the Senate can stop Burris from taking office. For those of you following along at home, your relevant citations are Article I, § 5 and Amend. XVII. Oh, and don’t forget Powell v. McCormack, 395 U.S. 486 (1969). You’ll need that one later.

Prior to 1913, U.S. senators were chosen by state legislatures. Constitutionally, senators were seen as a liaison between the state government and the federal government; their election was too important to be left up to the people, who had their own representation in the House of Representatives, anyway. As might be expected, there was a lot of party wheeling and dealing that went on as potential senators exchanged favors in order to get the job. To sidestep the sleaze, many states enacted laws requiring their legislatures to appoint to the U.S. Senate the winner of a popular vote, effectively permitting direct election of senators.

The 17th Amendment finally permitted direct election of senators but with a twist: the “executive authority” of a state must call for a special election to fill a senator’s vacancy, but in the meantime, the state legislature must give that executive the power to name a temporary senator to the office in the meantime.

Amar and Chafetz argue that the use of the word “returns” in Art. I, § 5 is the key to this issue: “Each House shall be the Judge of the Elections, Returns and Qualifications of its own Members,” meaning each house of Congress can decide not to seat someone for one of those reasons. “Returns” in the 18th-century sense “involved a report of an appointment made by a sheriff or other official.” So, argue Amar and Chafetz, the Senate can just as readily exclude a member based on a corrupt appointment as it would based on a corrupt election.

Our friend Adam Clayton Powell, who had been duly elected to the House of Representatives in 1966, had been charged with misappropriating public funds. The House voted to deny him his seat based on these charges. Powell sued, alleging that the House couldn’t stop him from taking office, since he met all the “Qualifications” required of a House member (at least 25 years old, a U.S. citizen for seven years, and an inhabitant of the state he’s representing). The case is a little convoluted, since Powell was never seated in the 90th Congress to which he was elected. That Congress ended, but Powell was elected to the 91st Congress. The U.S. Supreme Court devoted about 90% of its ink to the question of whether or not it even had jurisdiction to adjudicate the issue. Lower courts concluded that they themselves did not have such jurisdiction, for a variety of reasons.

On the issue of whether or not the House had the power to exclude a duly-elected member, the court said it did not. It would be extremely dangerous, the Court said, to allow Congress to use the “Qualifications” clause to mean something other than merely raw qualifications, in this case a red herring to seat someone whom they felt was unseemly due to corruption charges. That would allow Congress to refuse to seat members who were chosen by the people. Appropriate relief, wrote Chief Justice Warren, would be for the House to initiate expulsion proceedings against Powell once the Congress convened.

The opinion, say Amar and Chafetz, emphasizes upholding the people’s choice, which doesn’t apply in the current Burris situation. But it does! Constitutionally, the governor acts in the people’s stead, for good or evil. What really should have happened is that the Illinois state legislature should have passed a bill stripping the governor of the authority to make the interim appointment. The legislature did not do that, however, partially due to Harry Reid and other Senate Democrats not wanting to risk losing the seat to a Republican in a special election. The U.S. Senate cannot make up for the lack of will of the Illinois legislature.

Certainly Senate Democrats are within their rights to refuse to let Burris caucus with them (although, Roland Burris can’t caucus with the Democrats because the person who appointed him initially demanded a bribe for the seat; Joe Lieberman can caucus with the Democrats, even though he actively campaigned against the Democratic presidential candidate to the point where he was stripped of his status as a Democratic superdelegate?). But I cannot see how excluding him from the Senate is possible. Sorry, Dems, you’ll just have to vote to expel him. You missed your opportunity.

Che and Evo: ¡Hasta La Victoria Siempre!

As the wide scale release date for Steven Soderbergh’s new film, Che, starring Benicio del Toro as Ernesto “Che” Guevara, draws near, the second half of the movie, Guerrilla, needs to be placed in a proper historical context.  The first half of the movie has a more accessible plot considering the general populace is more familiar with the Cuban Revolution. But what about Bolivia during Guevara’s involvement there?  What about Bolivia today?  The small South American nation seems to be left out of worldwide political discourse for the most part.  Soderbergh’s biopic about the radical ideologue will certainly increase awareness not only about Che and Marxism, but also his continuing struggle that is embodied by current Bolivian president, Evo Morales.

Che is concerned mainly with two pinnacles of its namesake’s existence.  The first half of the film, The Argentine, covers the Che’s involvement in the Cuban Revolution alongside Fidel Castro.  The latter half, Guerrilla, follows Guevara’s final revolutionary attempt in Bolivia.  His endeavor eventually fails, and he is executed for his subversion.

Guevara’s activities in Bolivia came during a time of quasi-military rule under President René Barrientos of the Revolutionary Nationalist Movement. The Barrientos administration attempted to maintain popular support within the peasantry while blatantly serving foreign interests, mainly the United States.  The president had initially come to power through an armed coup d’état in 1964 while he was serving as vice-president.  He would later be elected with help from the military.

After recovering in Prague from a failed revolutionary effort in the Congo, Che began to meet with Bolivian dissidents in late 1966 or early 1967.  With a band of Cuban soldiers and supplies from Havana, Guevara made his way to the Ñancahuazú region of Bolivia where a military training camp was set up.  There he began to recruit and train Marxist-sympathizing peasants.  The recruiting process was largely unsuccessful given that the Communist Party of Bolivia did not support his guerrilla movement.

In total, a ragged band of about 50 guerrilla warriors began an armed assault against the Bolivian army.  They won a few small victories throughout 1967, but the tide turned against them as Barrientos, with help from the CIA, took a strong stance against Guevara’s efforts.  Guevara’s small forces were quickly encircled by the Bolivian military and subdued in October of 1967.  Che himself was captured and placed in a schoolhouse where he was later executed. Reportedly, his last words were “shoot, coward, you are only about to kill a man.”  The execution had been ordered by President Barrientos himself.

Barrientos’ decisions surrounding the quelling of Guevara’s movement and his local supporters would eventually lead to his political demise.  During the onslaught against Che’s troops, a group of Bolivian miners came out in support of the insurgency.  Barrientos sent soldiers to extinguish this spreading sentiment.  This resulted in the soldiers massacring approximately 30 civilians of both sexes.  His authoritarian actions in both situations led to the loss of what popular support he still had.  In order to regain his popularity, the president took to traveling around the Bolivian countryside and explaining his actions.  While on this journey, Barrientos perished in a helicopter accident in 1969.  The country then plunged into decades of political and economic turmoil that lasted until the early 1990s. The political situation remains unstable even today.

Che’s gift to Bolivia would not be his dream of a violent revolution, but his socially progressive ideals.  He also encouraged anti-capitalist sentiments within the largely indigenous populace.  These concerns would later form the basis for the backlash to neoliberal globalization and neocolonialism imposed by the international community.

Evo Morales was elected to the presidency of Bolivia on December 4, 2005.  Since then he has carried on a legacy that began in his country with Che.  He is the first indigenous president of Bolivia and is seen by many as the first step to throwing off the shackles of Western imperialism.  He raised the minimum wage by fifty percent soon after his election.  In a landmark move, he partially nationalized Bolivia’s natural gas reserves, the second largest in Latin America after Venezuela.  In doing so, he has exponentially increased the amount of capital available to the national government.  This has allowed Bolivia to heavily invest in social welfare programs, which have been largely successful; as of December 21, 2008 Evo Morales has declared Bolivia an illiteracy-free region.

Despite Morales’ success and popularity, in early 2008 there was an autonomy movement in the Santa Cruz regions, the wealthy area of Bolivia, which was instigated by wealthy oligarchs.  This move led to rioting, which was reportably supported by the US ambassador to Bolivia.  The ambassador was promptly expelled from the country for his alleged subversive position. Venezuela’s president, Hugo Chavez, in a show of solidarity with Morales, also expelled the American ambassador to Venezuela.

The US “War on Drugs” has also been a point of contention for Bolivian policy as the coca leaf is a traditional herb used by the indigenous people there as a remedy for altitude sickness and as a mild stimulant.  Morales, a former coca farmer and union organizer, has allowed for more legal production of the plant.  In response to this action, the United States has placed Bolivia on its narcotics blacklist and has stopped all aid to the poorest nation in South America.

All of these events culminated in an unsuccessful attempted coup against the Morales government in 2008.  The coup may have been tacitly supported in my opinion, although not very vocally, by the government of the United States.  Unanimously, the leaders of every South American country came out in support of the Morales government, and Hugo Chavez pledged military support for his political ally.  The coup failed, but some of the regions were granted a level of autonomy as a result of the coup attempt.

The rejection of US authority when viewed with Guevara in mind can be seen as a continuation of his beloved revolution.  Although for now, mass bloodshed has not been necessary to attain progressive goals in Bolivia, the future is uncertain. Recent declines in worldwide commodity prices put many of Morales’ social programs in jeopardy. This has the potential to lead to tumultuous times not only in Bolivia, but also throughout Latin America. Time will tell whether a socialist democracy can survive such an economic shock. As such, history will either view Guevara and Morales as idealistic failures or heroic humanitarians.  As for me, I’ll hope for the latter.

Obama’s Progressive Street Cred

The selection of Rick Warren for the invocation at Barack Obama’s inauguration is troubling, to say the least. Many progressives are rightly outraged at the selection of a man who is virulently anti-choice and homophobic. Yet, this is only the latest in a series of Obama decisions that has left many progressives wondering who it was, exactly, they voted for. Apparently, “change” looks a lot like the Clinton administration. Rahm Emanuel is back. So is Eric Holder, formerly Deputy Attorney General. Most conspicuous of all, Hillary Clinton will be Secretary of State. A bevy of liberal-but-not-quite-progressive apologists have tried to explain away all of Obama’s decisions. Here is a list of some of their justifications:

• Obama is pursuing Abraham Lincoln’s “team of rivals” approach. Authors of this justification also cite Lyndon Johnson’s phrase: it’s better to keep one’s enemies “on the inside, pissing out” rather than “on the outside, pissing in.” By keeping his enemies in the White House, those enemies are not in Congress or on K Street trying to defeat his plans.
• Remember how we all said for six months that Obama’s qualifications don’t matter? Not so much. As such, he’s surrounding himself with a group of people who have experience working in a presidential administration, and the last Democratic presidency was Bill Clinton’s, so it only makes sense that he would choose people from there.
• Obama is sneakier than he seems (think I, Claudius, I suppose). He’s putting a lot of center-left (and, in some cases, center-right) Washington establishment politicians in key positions to pay lip service to that establishment. Don’t worry, it’s only a front. The real reforms are going to happen, but from behind a veil of mainstream non-reform. That’s the only way he can get things done down there.
• Obama does not want to continue the divisive politics of George W. Bush. Even though it might anger those on the hard left, Obama would rather heal and reconcile than punish.  Turn that cheek!

Some of these justifications are disturbing. The last one, that Obama should be conciliatory instead of punitive, is put forth by people who believe that the crimes of the George W. Bush administration should not be investigated. The country needs to heal, they say. It’s time to get on with the business of the United States, where “business” is defined so as to exclude investigations of the previous administration. Of course, this logic ignores the fact that the law has been broken. As Glenn Greenwald has observed, politicians are more than ready to throw the full force of the law at marijuana dealers, but when it comes to prosecuting their own, politicians are equally ready to be lenient, even though the marijuana dealer harmed no one and the politician may have, oh, I don’t know, been responsible for torture, extraordinary rendition, and warrantless wiretapping at the least. When crimes are committed, they should be investigated and prosecuted – not just for poor people, but for everyone, including politicians. For Barack Obama to suggest that Bush administration criminals should go free is to suggest that politicians live in a special class above the reach of the law. It also encourages more illegal activity in the future, once it is known that the government won’t prosecute those activities.

Furthermore, it’s not even up to Barack Obama to decide what is or is not investigated. The cult of personality surrounding him is great (in fact, it contributed to getting him elected), but even though we like him we must not forget that, as the president, he has constitutional limitations. It was irresponsible for the media to even ask what Barack Obama thought about Joe Lieberman being kicked out of the Democratic caucus. On November 5, Obama’s life as a senator ended, even though he didn’t officially resign the position until three weeks later. The president has absolutely no say – none! – in the operation of Congress. It would be different if Obama were acting in his capacity as a senator, but after winning the presidential election, especially in a nation eager for a new leader, any notion of Obama acting solely in his capacity as a senator would be extremely naïve. Obama must repudiate the unconstitutional powers that George W. Bush has claimed for himself, either through complete fabrication or malicious misreading of constitutional law.

Given his opinion of things like same-sex marriage (he tactfully says that same-sex couples should not be allowed to “marry” as such, but then says that they should have the same rights as heterosexual couples), NAFTA/CAFTA, and Israel, no one could confuse him for a true progressive. Obama’s apologists rationalize his decisions by pointing out that Obama never claimed to be a progressive at all!

Or could they? George W. Bush’s method of saying-without-saying is well-documented. While he never explicitly said that Saddam Hussein was behind the September 11 attacks, there is definitely a reason why, in 2001, virtually no Americans thought Saddam Hussein was responsible, but in 2003, one third of Americans thought Saddam Hussein was responsible.

Could it be that Barack Obama, whose campaign P.R. was spectacular, performed the same saying-but-not-saying function? Yes, it is entirely possible that Obama clothed himself in the cloak of progressivism while still wearing the mainstream Democrat’s clothes underneath. He has suggested massive new spending on entitlement programs, but he wants to increase the size of the military. He wants to let the Bush tax cuts expire, but he voted in favor of retroactive immunity for telecommunications companies that assisted the administration in warrantless wiretapping. His foreign policy goals consist of using real diplomacy instead of threats, but he voted in favor of NAFTA. He wants to provide government health care for people who have no health care, but he stops short of suggesting a universal-payer system like Canada’s or Great Britain’s. Obama’s positions are a wash: for every progressive-sounding idea, there is another conservative-sounding one to balance it out.

Or, on the other hand, it could be that Obama never suggested anything, but that he was forthcoming about his non-progressive credentials. It could be that we, the progressive Americans, were so thirsty for a change that we latched onto the only candidate (outside of Dennis Kucinich) who even brought up the issue of health care reform (at those early Republican primary debates, not a single candidate brought up the issue of health care), social reform, and getting out of Iraq (Hillary Clinton and John Edwards failed on at least one of these). We projected onto him the candidate we wanted him to be, ignoring the fact that he was not that candidate. Did we set ourselves up for disappointment? Yes, that is possible, too.

And then there’s the argument that all this complaining is pointless, that Obama isn’t even the president yet, and we should all just wait and see what happens on Jan. 20. Well, Rick Warren will happen Jan. 20, and that gives me even less optimism that, at noon on that day, Obama will suddenly throw aside his centrist mask and shout, “You fools! You thought I was just like Bill Clinton! But you were wrong! Free health care for everybody!” Agreeing to take part in Warren’s Saddleback (which sounds dangerously like “bareback”) debate with John McCain, Obama could conceivably have been seen as paying lip service to evangelical Protestantism, just like every president since Nixon has had to do. But putting Warren on the bill for Inauguration Day? Imagine if George W. Bush had hired Hillary Clinton to give a speech at his second inauguration. Yeah, it’s like.

Most troubling in my opinion, though, is Obama’s own insistence, ever since March of 2007, when he announced his candidacy, that he is not an ordinary politician. His grassroots, fifty-state strategy was unparalleled in its success. His speech about the Rev. Jeremiah Wright was intelligent and it treated the American people as though they, too, could understand long speeches that contained nuanced thoughts, as opposed to the Manichean sound bites of George W. Bush. His political maturity happened after the Vietnam War era, and, as Andrew Sullivan has suggested, the very core of his being is not instilled with a reflexive fear of Republicans and conservatism.

Conservatism demands the acknowledgment of a false dualism in every aspect of life, with the promise that conservatism will lead people to the correct side of this duality. Democrats buy into this framework and then try to argue the opposite side. The true progressive would never let the Republicans frame the debate and then proceed to work within their ill-conceived framework. To the progressive, there is no debate about whether or not health care should be free, or if there should be a premium for minimum services, or if the government should control it. The answer is: the current system of privatized health care doesn’t work and it should not be repaired, it must be rebuilt from the ground up. Obama appeared unafraid to work outside the existing framework and create a new framework that works in the interests of everyone. “Should it be a public solution or a private solution?” is not the correct question. “What solution is best for the country?” Now that’s the right question. It’s a question that Obama appeared to be asking during the campaign, but one that is being substituted by justifications for increasingly conservative behavior.

Lone Star Rumblings: So Goes the Party

Top to bottom, the GOP in Texas seems to be foundering in a sea of disillusionment and infighting. Not just nationally, but in the Lone Star State as well, the Republican flock that gave rise to the Bush dynasty seems to have lost its faith.

The State of the Electorate

If a recent poll from Hill Research Consultants, entitled “Beyond Bush: Texas Republicans in an Obama Era,” is to be believed, Texas voters suffer from “Bush fatigue,” believe that the GOP is “arrogant, racist, corrupt, and unwelcoming” when compared to its Democrat counterparts. A generic R vs. D gubernatorial ballot gives Democrats a clear advantage at both the state representative and gubernatorial levels.

Generic Ballot Preferences	Republicans	Democrats
Governor	31%	44%
State Representative	31%	45%

Other points of interest note that “multiple deceased Democrats handily beat still living Republican office-holders in favorability,” and “Republicans are also failing to connect with younger voters and the Hispanic community.” Considering the state of Texas is growing younger and more Hispanic by the day, the Texas GOP seems to be on the wrong side of demographic trends.

So goes the opinion of the electorate in Texas, once the bread and butter of the Republican Party. They seem disillusioned and wavering in their support of the GOP and its direction. Hill, et al., warn that what happened in Colorado, a decidedly red state in 2000 whose governor, both chambers of the legislature, and both U.S. senators are now all Democratic, could happen in Texas. “The time to ring the alarm bell, if necessary, is now,” declares Hill.

Finally, it must be noted that the poll referenced in detail above was taken November 15-17^th, right on the heels of the general election. It’s not unreasonable to speculate that the voters surveyed were encircled by the “Obama halo,” a feel-good sentiment that seemed to wash over much of the country, proud of itself for electing its first African-American president. In general, polls taken in the weeks immediately after an election are not as reliable. Many moderate voters often have a confirmation bias toward the winning candidate or party. However, with that said, the Texas GOP should ignore the results of this poll at their own peril.

Gubernatorial and Senatorial Implications

With the laity in such disarray, it’s no surprise that the Republican Party leadership is struggling to maintain order within its own ranks. Two key Texas Republicans are looking vulnerable, and not necessarily just from Democratic vectors.

Sitting Governor Rick Perry, who won reelection in 2006 with only 39.3% of the vote, announced in April his intention to run again in 2010. Texas does not place limits on reelecting its governor, but a third term would be unprecedented and apparently not necessarily welcomed by some of the Republican elite.

On December 4^th,Kay Bailey Hutchison, the senior U.S. Senator from Texas, filed paperwork with the Texas Ethics Commission to form an exploratory committee for the office of governor. The filing was not revelatory, as she’s been dodgy for months about directly answering the “would she or wouldn’t she run” question, and noises were even made about her running against Perry in 2006 and 2002. What was surprising was the speed with which the two camps traded barbs after her filing.

Hutchison initially remarked that there’s “too much bitterness, too much anger, too little trust, too little consensus and too much infighting” in Austin. Mark Miner, a Perry spokesman, replied “Kay Bailout has been talking about running for governor and passing legislation for years, and neither has ever happened.”

It will be an interesting gubernatorial primary in 2010, indeed.

Other Political Rumblings

Hutchison’s U.S. Senate seat does not come up for re-election until 2012. Should she vacate the Senate before then (she doesn’t have to in order to run for state office), the governor has the power to appoint a replacement. The word around the campfire is that sitting Lt. Governor,David Dewhurst, would be at the top of Perry’s short list.

Third behind the governor and lieutenant governor in power, the Speaker of the Texas House is elected at the beginning of each new congressional session, the next one beginning January 13, 2009. Rep. Tom Craddick, R-Midland, whose leadership style has been likened to that of Vlad the Impaler, has held the Speakership since 2003.

He has caused controversy and consternation among both Democrats and Republicans by his heavy-handed use, some would say abuse, of the powers given him as speaker by the Texas Constitution. Not only has he refused to recognize representatives motioning for house rules changes that may challenge his power, he has even refused to allow direct votes to remove him from power brought before the House by half a dozen of his fellow Republicans at the end of the last session. He thought it would set a bad precedent.  Those who have challenged him from his own party have found themselves being passed over for desirable positions that their seniority may have given them dibs on.

No less than eleven representatives, seven of which are from his own party, will challenge Craddick for the Speakership for the next legislative session. On Friday, December 12^th, Rep. Dan Gattis, R-Georgetown, filed a constitutional proposition that would allow the removal of a speaker in mid-session with the approval of 100 of the 150 representatives. Obviously, Craddick is not a popular guy, even among his own people.

Overall Lone Star Outlook

With a core constituency that no longer seems to trust its leadership or the direction the party is taking, the GOP in Texas is a rudderless mess. Its captains can’t decide who should be at the helm, and Texas Democrats are eagerly waiting in the wings to stage a mutiny the scale of which would be rivaled only by the 1994 “Republican Revolution.” In 2010, it looks like they’ll have their chance.

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.

Sometimes, Terrorism Doesn’t Happen to the United States

Joshua Micah Marshall made a good point yesterday: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that there may be some intelligence indicating that the Mumbai terrorists were plotting to kill “Americans and Britons.” But all the evidence points to the contrary. Mumbai was attacked due to its prominence, not the amount of westerners there. According to accounts of the violence, the terrorists appeared to be firing indiscriminately, not targeting particular people. Their purpose was to incite general terror with a “no one is safe” tone.

Is it American arrogance that makes Secretary Gates think that the purpose of the attack was to target Americans? Partially; American ubiquity demands it. Just like American clothing and pop culture is everywhere in the world, so too must American tragedies be recognized and venerated, and whenever a roughly analogous local tragedy happens, that tragedy must be understood through the lens of the American tragedy. In this case, since the local tragedy was terrorism, the American analogue is September 11.

President Bush (and now the rest of the country) seems to think that the Sept. 11 attacks were the first time any country has ever dealt with terrorist attacks on its own soil, and furthermore, that the United States, as a result of those attacks, is the only country that has experience dealing with terrorists. Prior to Bush’s tenure in office, the United States was not so cocky: of course we knew that Ireland has been dealing with terrorism since the 1920s, that Israel and Spain have been dealing with it since the 1960s, that India itself has been dealing with it from the Tamil Tigers, Kashmir separatists, and both Hindu and Muslim nationalists. Everyone seems to have forgotten, though, that the United States is not the world’s expert on dealing with terrorism.

So, no, it’s not likely that the attacks in Mumbai were designed to target Americans. But in order for the United States to lay claim to a War on Terrorism, it must lay claim to every instance of terrorism that occurs in the world in order to assert a leadership role in that war. The Bush administration has used the September 11 attacks as a throughway by which the United States may assert a “Me, too!” role in worldwide terrorism, even if the terrorism didn’t directly impact the United States.

It could be called the Cheney Doctrine after Vice President Cheney’s pronouncement earlier this year that the United States has a right to invade any country in the world, even if that country didn’t directly harm the United States, if the United States thinks that country has the capability or intent of harming the United States. Of course, the doctrine is nothing more than a unilateral pronouncement by Cheney and does not have the effect of law, but at least it shows us what he’s thinking. It’s the foreign policy equivalent of the “interstate commerce” clause, the section of the Constitution that has been interpreted so broadly as to allow Congress to control any aspect of business that could conceivably or theoretically impact interstate commerce (protecting endangered species in waterways that, through a series of even small creeks, eventually drain into interstate rivers, for example).

Diplomatic Implications

The United States would especially like to stick its nose into relations between Pakistan and India. Al-Qaeda is or was hiding in Pakistan on the Afghanistan border. Former president Pervez Musharraf didn’t send the military up there to investigate for fear of alienating those populations. The new Pakistani government will not be as America-friendly as the last one, since the United States supported the unpopular Musharraf. Without Musharraf, the United States has no reason or authority to be involved in India/Pakistan relations. Using the terrorism angle allows the United States to remain involved in that relationship.

We still think we are the gatekeepers to all the world’s diplomacy: no one anywhere in the world can have any bilateral talks without inviting the United States, as well. Every talk is necessarily multilateral because every relationship between any people anywhere in the world is relevant to the United States. It’s time for us to get over this attitude. When James Monroe asserted U.S. diplomatic hegemony in the Western hemisphere — essentially telling the rest of the world that, if you wanted to deal with Latin America, you had to go through the U.S. first — the arrogance was apparent, but at least it was confined to America’s sphere of influence in the world.

As the United States’ diplomatic clout has waned — particularly under the watchful eye of the Bush administration — its ability to assert leadership roles in negotiations in which it has no stake has similarly waned. Thankfully, there will always be the War on Terrorism there to insist that, by virtue of the United States being attacked on September 11, and its self-proclaimed doctrine of warfare against terrorism, the United States automatically has a stake in any negotiation that may even be tangentially related to terrorism.

It is a gross disservice to the people in Mumbai who were killed, wounded, and terrorized to narcissistically focus their tragedy in terms of our tragedy. Perhaps going through the same kind of event allows Americans to better understand what Indians are feeling right now, but we should no more shift the focus to our own attack any more than we would eulogize our own losses at someone else’s funeral.

Lessons in History: Saudi- Pashganistan

Spanish born philosopher and poet George Santayana is famous for saying, “He who ignores history is doomed to repeat it.” For politicians, military leaders, and many so-called experts, ignorance of the history of the Middle East and the subcontinent of India have created much of the chaos in those regions today.

Let’s start with Saudi Arabia, which with the aid of its vast oil wealth has spread religious hatred and intolerance around the world. Saudi Arabia was conquered by the “House of Saud” in the early years of the 20th century. Their success was only possible with the assistance of the Wahhabi tribe of the Bedouin. The Wahhabi adhered to a brand of Islam that originated in the 7th Century and was based on old desert tribal traditions. Unfortunately, in return for the support of the tribe, the House of Saud agreed to adhere to the Wahhabi’s fundamental version of Islam. This created few problems until the 70’s when the Royal Family made some attempts to modernize the Kingdom. In retaliation in 1979, the Wahabbi’s and other fundamentalists seized the City of Mecca. This was devastating to the Royal Family. Mecca is the ultimate city to Muslims. It is Jerusalem, Vatican City, and Varanasi all rolled into one. It is also a major source of revenue, as Muslim beliefs dictate that all believers should visit the City at least once in their lifetime. The Saudi Royal Family could not rely on the support of their military, as many seemed to side with the rebels. Thus, the Saudi Royal Family had to call in French Commandos to re-seize Mecca. Those Frenchmen were of course rapidly sworn in as Muslims, as no unbelievers are allowed in the Holy City.

Since that time, the House of Saud, which consists of over 40,000 individuals, has attempted a balancing act. Royal Family members ski in Switzerland, gamble in Mexico, have their yachts in the Mediterranean, and party and debauch around the world. In return, they have handed education, the courts, the mosques, much of the total revenues, and all religious enforcement to the Wahhabbi’s. Entertainment, music, and literature outside of the Koran are discouraged. Today 40% of all education in Saudi Arabia is according to the rules of Wahabbi Islam. They also fund the majority of all the world’s mosques, which now often preach the same hateful Islamic rhetoric, where the killing of an Apostate [unbeliever] is considered no sin. Life for women in Saudi Arabia is bleak. They cannot drive, they are stoned to death for adultery, and are often whipped for promiscuous behavior after being raped. Change of faith is punished by death. The Royal Family maintains its own small army to protect themselves from the population.

Afghanistan has always been a hard country to subjugate. The major and controlling tribe is the Pashtun or Pashto. They are divided into many clans, but all comprise the main tribe. Their tribal lands extend into Northwest Pakistan, and they do not recognize the border. Pakistan since its foundation in 1948 has always been a failed state. The Presidency has consisted only of corrupted officials or military dictatorships. They have never had control over the Pashtun lands. The Pashtun have always been renowned as fearful warriors in this very rugged area. This landscape is a guerrilla army’s dream. In 1842, the Pashtun totally destroyed a British Army of 60,000 with only one survivor. In 1978, the Russians invaded Afghanistan, with again their major opponents being the Pashtun. They too were forced to withdraw in 1989, after their casualties grew too great to bear. The Russians won every battle, but could not defeat a guerrilla army in such wild territory.

During the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, the US and Saudi Arabia started to supply arms and support to the Pashtun on a 50/50 basis. They were assisted by the Pakistan intelligence service known as the I.SS. This was in the short term successful, and antitank and anti-aircraft weapons undoubtedly aided the resistance. It was, however, the Saudi role that has led to most of the difficulties since. Prior to Saudi involvement, the Pashtun were Muslim, but not fanatics. Once the Saudis were established in Northwest Pakistan, from where the arms were taken over the border into Afghanistan, they set up Muslim Schools or Madrassas in this very poor region. These Madrassas taught only the fundamental Wahabbi version of Islam. Any literary skills picked up by the students were only as a by-product of the repetition of Koranic verses.

It is from these Madrassas that the Taliban were born. Their version of Islam is that of their Muslim brethren in Saudi Arabia–hateful, intolerant, with barbaric consequences to all whose views differ from theirs. Saudi Arabia continues to be a main funder of the Taliban, and the funding is generous. A Taliban fighter earns 3 times that of an Afghani soldier. Afghanistan is full of poppy fields, and many think this is the main source of the Taliban revenue. It should, however, be realized that the poppy fields have been there since the time of Alexander the Great, and I suspect that most of the revenues still go to the families who have always received them.

In order to be successful in this part of the world, the first step must be to cut out Saudi Arabia. That country supplies 20% of the world’s oil, and even more of the world’s terrorism. As alternate energy sources are developed, that tap must be closed. As we have seen recently, Pakistan and India have become violently destabilized by the poisonous fundamental Muslim rhetoric spreading out from this chaos. Both of these countries have atomic weapons and long-range delivery systems which are a threat to the stability of the entire world. The consequences are too high for the rest of the world to be ignorant to this complex ethnic, religious, and cultural history. We must strive to learn from this history and to not let it repeat itself.

[Note. The history of the area is very complex, and some generalizations have been made, i.e., not all Taliban are Pashtun, but the vast majority are. The Afghan President Mohammad Kharzi is himself a Pashtun.]

A Police Officer’s View on Drugs

For 28 years, I served as a member of the Vancouver Police Department, and spent most of that time at the street level, in and around Vancouver’s poorest area commonly known as “Skid Road.” This area is Canada’s poorest postal code zone. It is an area of cheap fleabag hotels, bars, and drugs. The only people who reside here are those whom society has cast aside because of disability, personality disorders, or sheer bad luck. It has been like this for at least 50 years. Only the faces and preferences of the addicts have changed.

Quite early in my career as a law enforcement officer, it became very obvious to me that the most dangerous drug was a legal drug. That drug is alcohol. Every riot, every disturbance, every assault, every serious late night motor vehicle accident, every homicide, and every sexual assault almost always involved alcohol.

Where were the horrific crimes caused by drug addicts? They were there, but generally speaking they were non-violent property crimes and prostitution. It has been estimated that somewhere between 75-80% of all property crimes are committed by addicts. This begets the question that most policemen in our major cities have asked themselves countless times: why not treat addicts for their addictions, not as criminals, and supply their drugs temporarily until they get help. Apparently, a significant reduction in property crime, reduced jail costs, and lower medical costs is not a sufficient answer.

The biggest question, which really changed my thinking toward the criminalization of drugs was, is why do we persist with laws that guarantee that serious criminals will become immensely rich, powerful, and violent toward any other criminals who stand in their way. If drugs were legally available, there would be no profits for the gangsters. U.S. history teaches us of a parallel situation that occurred during alcohol prohibition in the early twenty century, when gangsters became rich and powerful supplying bootleg alcohol. Al Capone’s South Side Gang and similar gangs murdered whoever stood in their way. The crime rate shot up 200%. Finally, when alcohol prohibition was canceled, most of the gangs disappeared as the profits were gone, the murder rate returned to what it was before prohibition, AND everyone didn’t become an alcoholic overnight!

Let’s ask ourselves a question. If heroin and cocaine were legal, would you use them? Virtually everyone says no, which is really no surprise if you think about it. We also know that up until the 1920s these substances were legal. Laudanum, a mixture of opium and alcohol was the drug of choice to the Victorians. Today the percentage of drug addicts, by which I mean those unable to function in society due to their addictions, remains the same as before there were any drug laws. Hardly a round of applause for the billions of dollars spent on enforcement over the past 80 years. Indeed if drug prohibition were a business that received payment for its results, it would not have lasted a year.

Everyone fears change, and one of the big fears of the general public is the fear of drugs becoming more readily available to our children. Today most of our children can in fact more easily obtain drugs than they can obtain liquor. The gangsters make sure this is the case by ensuring that dealers are present outside most of our schools. These dealers pay no heed to our children’s health, and they often have little knowledge of the substances cut with the drugs or even strength of their products. Drug prohibition causes this situation to persist.

If we look at the history of tobacco, we know education works. Tobacco eventually kills 50% of all regular smokers. Tobacco is legal. Yet through common sense and education, tobacco smoking is down by two thirds from thirty years ago. Education works, but only if honestly given. This spring I was approached by a grandmother whose granddaughter had phoned her in real distress. The Royal Canadian Mounted Police had been running the D.A.R.E. program in her school, and she was convinced that her parents’ occasional use of Marijuana would cause their deaths. If any of the information given is flawed, kids will reject all information given to them about drugs from parents and other authority figures.

I am a member of LEAP, which is an organization of retired policemen, judges, prison guards, others involved in law enforcement ,and many others. It was founded by a former highly commended U.S. drug enforcement officer, Jack Cole. Today it is worldwide. We all believe that drugs are not good, but it is “the War on Drugs” that is causing most of our problems. This war costs 2.5 billion dollars a year in Canada and 10 times that amount in the United States. WHY?