The Truman Project Posted by Michael Signer

So, all last weekend I was at the annual meeting in D.C.  of the Truman National Security Project (website here) -- an extraordinary new group of young people who want the Democratic Party to reclaim strength on national security and foreign policy as a basic progressive value.  (I recently became a Principal of the  Truman Project, along with Truman Fellows Suzanne, Lorelei, and Derek, an affiliation which led indirectly to my place here at Democracy Arsenal.) 

The meeting was off the record, and I wouldn't want in any event to try and represent the opinions of this diverse and intellectually vibrant group.  But I can present some of the general conclusions of the group. 

The combined group of about 35 came from all walks of the foreign policy world -- from academics working on the Middle East to lawyers at prominent law firms to former White House speechwriters.   You can see some of their bios here.

The Project was co-founded by Rachel Kleinfeld and Matt Spence, two off-the-chart impressive foreign policy thinkers, who were both Truman Scholars (though there is no affiliation between the Scholarship program and the Truman Project -- rather, they chose the name because President Truman transformed his battle against the threat of communism into a broad strategy to secure our country, while building international structures like NATO on American values of rights and freedom.  You can read more about the reasoning behind the name here.)

Given the current Administration, and the general ass-kicking progressives have suffered over the last 25 years, you might think this would have been a grumpy bitch'n'moan session, full of piss and bile about Vietnam and the neoconservatives.

It wasn't.

What both Kleinfeld and Spence shared, along with the group they had assembled,  was instead a buoyant, infectious  sense of optimism.

The meeting was dominated by a collective feeling that if progressives are to become, again, bearers of the public trust on national security, it will only happen through affirmative rather than negative ideas -- by talking about what we want, where America should be, why Americans should be comfortable and enthusiastic supporting a foreign policy channeled through progressives, rather than conservatives (or neoconservatives).

It was perhaps no coincidence that a lot of our discussion focused on superheroes as metaphors for the U.S.  -- whether Spiderman (we got a little punchy reciting Uncle Ben's  "with great power comes great responsibility") or Superman (we're a leader for the world, but we're still vulnerable -- Cheney as Kryptonite?  something like that).

I took away from the meeting a set of concepts that, for me, clarified enormously how progressives can take back security, if they scroll back time to Vietnam, and imagine taking another path -- one more like Truman and Kennedy would have taken, toward strength, wisdom, and confidence in America's role as leader for the world.

At least six values grounded our discussion, and showed how Truman Democrats improve on both the left and the right.  Our first three values share some similarity to principles currently claimed by neoconservatives:

1)  American exceptionalism:  Like the neoconservatives, we believe that America is the greatest country the world has known.  We are historically, morally, and intellectually unique.  Unlike the necons, however, we believe we must constantly earn our exceptionalism through our moral conduct.  Our uniqueness stems from our values, and so we bear a unique responsibility for living up to those values in shaping and influencing the world.

2)  The use of force:  Like the neocons, we're comfortable with the use of force for morally good ends.  Unlike the neocons, as a general matter, we believe force shouldn't be the default choice for achieving our ends.  We're neither reflexive doves nor pacifists; rather, we're pragmatists on the use of force.

3)  American hegemony:  Like the neocons, we want America to retain its supremacy as the military, political , and economic leader of the world in order that we can maintain our own security, help strengthen the world's safety and stability,  and accomplish morally right goals.  We are and should be a unipolar power.  Unlike the neocons, however, we believe we must constantly earn and affirm the right to exercise that power. 

But Truman Democrats also add three new principles of their own:

1)  The world community.  The traditionally conservative (rather than neocon, but still threaded through the current Administration's foreign policy) viewpoint borrows heavily from libertarian principles.  As a matter of right and obligation, conservatives often believe people are and should be fundamentally selfish and individualistic, and that collective action is wrong.  Truman Democrats believe, on the other hand, that the world is a community.  America can lead that community -- but, to paraphrase John Donne, we are not an island, and any death diminishes us, because we are involved in mankind.   To switch to a more prosaic metaphor, America is like a quarterback for the world.  Although he's the most critical member of the team, the quarterback can't win alone;  he needs the confidence and loyalty of his teammates, which he earns through leadership.

2)  Liberal-mindedness:  Neoconservatives believe that the discovery of ideas is basically finished.  That's why they constantly return to the ancient theorists and ancient values in search of some lost nobility and greatness.  Truman Democrats believe instead that knowledge is constantly expanding, and that to conclude that we have finished knowing, or that ideas are presumptively wrong because of where they come from, is both arrogant and dangerous.  We believe in a resilient, flexible national mind, avoiding the calcification of ideology.  We believe in learning from events and fitting our thinking to facts, not the other way around.  This is why democracy (which encourages the growth of knowledge) is our political system of choice.

3)  Helping the least well-off:  Conservatives and realpolitikers have generally believed that wealth and power should be the key determinants to foreign policy decisions regarding other countries.  Following philosophers like John Rawls, Truman Democrats believe we should instead help the least well-off before we help the most well-off.  So building up the economies in many developing nations, or addressing the AIDS crisis, is not only a matter of stability -- it's a matter of moral right.   Moreover, helping the least well-off also helps us.  Being the only wealthy house in a poor neighborhood makes us the target.  Helping the whole neighborhood become richer makes us a leader.

These six principles combine into the single center of gravity for Truman Democrats:  we believe in leadership, in inspiring the world community to follow us through our generosity, our values, and our accomplishments. 

The philosophy of leadership squares with the value placed by conservatives on American might and American wisdom.  But it departs from (and radically improves upon) the neoconservative vision by centering America in the world community. 

America must involve itself in the world, and, like an older sibling (OK, the metaphors did get a little out of control), take responsibility for lessons our brothers and sisters learn from us.

The meeting concluded on Sunday amid broad smiles and generous laughter from the members.  Strong friendships were created, in part because of the general enthusiasm about the seriousness of the task at hand.  We were in agreement:  we really could make a difference, by parting ways with the post-Vietnam left in America, in a way that could ultimately convince progressives, and America, to follow. 

The left, after all, liberated the world from Communism, created the Marshall Plan, negotiated our way out of the Cuban Missile Crisis, and invented NATO. 

America's greatest successes abroad are ours. 

We need to return to our roots -- and we can.

DeJa Vu on UN Dues Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Yesterday the House International Relations Committee approved Rep. Henry Hyde's UN Reform Act of 2005.

Many of the proposals contained in the legislation are sound.   A good number repeat or amplify ideas that Kofi Annan has already been pushing.    The bill mandates stronger oversight, streamlining of programs, improvements in Israel's status at the UN and better support for UN initiatives in areas like human rights and peacekeeping.  The underlying idea of active U.S. leadership to make the UN more effective is one I fully agree with.

The problem with the newly approved legislation is that it requires withholding of 50% of U.S. assessed dues to the UN unless the requested reforms are implemented.  But the breadth and depth of the reforms are such that its almost impossible to imagine that all will be quickly or completely agreed.  The result is that after a four year truce with the UN over finances, the U.S. will once again start accumulating substantial new arrears.

This is a bad mistake, and one that the Bush Administration rightly insists must be corrected.   The U.S. can be effective in negotiating reform without holding the UN to ransom.  John Bolton proved that when he got the organization to rescind its Zionism is Racism resolution in 1991.  He prides himself on having accomplished this through aggressive diplomacy, not by withholding U.S. dues.  The implementation of the 2000 Brahimi recommendations involving far-reaching reforms to UN peacekeeping was likewise accomplished without the threat of withholding U.S. dues.

This is an issue I know first-hand from my time at U.S.-UN in 1999-01 working to settle the U.S.'s arrears to the world body(for more details on my take on reform, read here, here and especially here).  From what I have heard, one of the reasons the Congress is inclined to condition U.S. dues payments on reforms is that Ambassador Richard Holbrooke used that leverage successfully to push through a historic package of financial reforms at the UN, including a cut in U.S. dues.

Don't get me wrong, leverage matters.  It was particularly essential in 2000 in that the centerpiece of the reforms we were mandateed to push was not an augmentation of UN capabilities, but rather a reapportionment of UN dues payments which would require other countries to pay more so that the U.S. could pay less.   We folded that goal into a broader reform agenda (because that was the only way to make it saleable to the membership), but the conditions attached to the dues cut only.

Regardless of the reform agenda, to negotiate effectively at the UN requires having enough flexibility to achieve consensus (virtually all organizational and managerial issues at the UN are decided by consensus, not by vote).

This kind of flexibility proved essential in two respects to the settlement of our dues in 2000 (sorry to get into the weeds here, but I think this needs to be understood).

First, we wound up getting a private donation from Ted Turner to help make up a dues short-fall, something unheard of in UN history before or since.  Details are here.  The then-applicable Helms-Biden legislation mandating that the back-dues could be paid only if we achieved a rate cut in U.S. dues going forward did not contemplate such stop-gap measures.  But Holbrooke saw that a private donation could help fill the funding hole, and sold the idea to both the UN and the Congress.

Even with the Turner donation, we could not achieve 100% of what Helms-Biden required:  namely specified reductions in U.S. dues for both the UN's regular and its peacekeeping budgets.  Rather than throwing up our hands, we cut a deal with the UN's 189 members that achieved the target on the regular budget, and came within striking distance on peacekeeping.

While some State Department officials viewed this as inadequate and thought we ought to flat-out reject anything less than exactly what Congress had mandated, Holbrooke knew better.   He realized that the spirit of the law had been fulfilled to an extent greater than most thought possible, and convinced Congress to amend Helms-Biden and allow for the full arrears payment the law originally authorized.

It was only because Holbrooke knew the players and issues so well that he found the flexibility he needed.  Without his confidence, creativity and, well, chutzpah, there's no way a deal would have been reached.  We ought not write into law a precedent based on those very unique circumstances.

If the final UN Reform Act forces the U.S. to withhold funds until reforms are achieved, the rest of the UN membership will view the measure as blackmail.  They will dismiss the U.S. reform agenda as self-serving, and will argue against the steps we propose simply because they are profferred under the threat of bankrupting the organization.

We will then start down a destructive cycle of accumulating arrears to the UN and then, eventually, embark on an equally tortured path toward getting those monies repaid.  When I first arrived at the UN in 1999, the U.S. delegation could not sit in a debate without being told to pay its dues "on time, in full and without conditions." The issue was a distraction, an irritant, and an obstacle that stood in the way of getting our viewpoint across on a host of important issues.

This is not a smart way to go.  Rather than enforcing rigid conditions for UN dues payments, reform legislation should mandate the State Department to use everything within its power to advocate and build support for the reforms we care about. The UN membership doesn't need conditioning legislation to realize that withholding dues is an option of last resort.  Because of its dependence on the U.S., the membership realizes it cannot afford to drive us into that corner.

We should engage and convince the rest of the UN membership, rather than assuming they are beyond reason and will respond only to threats.   There's considerable backing behind Annan's proposed reforms (many of which dovetail with U.S. interests).

Much of what we're arguing for now - an audit function, a peacebuilding commission, a terrorism convention - is inherently more appealing and sensible to the UN membership than the U.S. rate cut we proposed 5 years ago.  The U.S.'s should strive to build on the momentum already behind these ideas, rather than potentially sapping it by repositioning the reform agenda as a made-in-the-USA platform being rammed down the organization's throat.

If we expect the worst of the UN membership, and prejudge them to be indifferent to reform, they are bound to live up to our worst fears.  On the other hand, if we treat our fellow members as colleagues, treat them respectfully, listen to their ideas and work to persuade them to our point of view, history suggests that - while it won't be easy - we can succeed.

Hitting the Wall on Defense Posted by Lorelei Kelly

I've spent two days this week sitting in the jury waiting room of the DC federal court. It is a study in information contrasts. All there is to do for hour after hour is read newspapers or watch TV. Like a premonition to today's evening Senate approval vote on conservative activist judge Janice Brown -- all eight sets were set to Fox news.(This is the visual equivalent of water torture in a deep blue city like DC) I got an eight hour dose of terrorists in Northern California and long embarassing viagra ads.... the GWOT and erectile dysfunction. A disturbing and inauspicious twist on sex and violence.  And none of the sparkly blather on Fox included two noteworthy print stories on a topic of vital national security -- an issue that will determine America's ability to defend itself against post 9/11 threats: defense spending that is both unaccountable and completely inappropriate.  Thank goodness for hard copy.
   
As Suzanne and Derek posted earlier, The New York Times front page covered a Government Accountability Office report which gives the DoD a near failing grade on how it cares for taxpayer dollars.  Today's Washington Post continued coverage of the bilk-a-thon between Boeing and Defense Department officials on the now notorious "tanker deal."

Suzanne asks what is the progressive take on this? Outrage, of course, but that has been true for decades and hasn't gotten us a guns versus guns debate.(Remember, Democrats were authorizing body armor and uparmored tanks until 1994--when the newly conservative Congress eliminated all traces of peacekeeping) But rational defense spending suffers from the malady of so many public services that become jobs programs. It is somewhat understandable. Who wants to eat spinach when there is a honey baked ham on the table? (the free-range kind, of course ; ) The long-term objective is lost in the tempting and easy rewards of the Cold War status quo. This amounts to pork gluttony that continues on today. I suppose we're going to have to smack our heads on the wall before we see the writing on it. The Iraq war is that wall.  Maybe a combination of problems will help us get serious about reappraising what we really need--the falling recruitment numbers reported by the Army and Marines is a part of that script-- despite what the air power floozies on Fox say--we've got a major problem on our hands. 

Why are progressive ideas at such a disadvantage today? one significant failure of the left over the past fifteen years has been its inability to articulate a compelling alternative to "the arms race won the Cold War" chant on the right. It wasn't for lack of trying.  One of the best Grand Strategy books of the early 1990's was Janne Nolan's "Global Engagement"--a series of articles that defined security expansively and made international working relationships the cornerstone  of US engagement. Seeking an alternative to the power/dominance worldview, this book gave operational policy instructions for how to make the use of force a last resort.  Lacking an echo chamber (it was too sophisticated at the time for the freeze movement activists and there was no organized stable of progressive defense intellectuals or citizen advocates to rally) The result was that important and timely guidance didn't have the impact it should have.

Thinking back on my work on Capitol Hill, let me give one example of how this works on a day to day basis of funding priorities.  When I worked on defense issues for a Member of Congress, I received a three foot high stack of mail every week. From the World Peace Alliance types, I would get books and long testimonial documents, lists of signatures and sometimes even an origami peace crane.  From the submarine industry, I would receive a comprehensive district by district graphic breakdown of every single widget, dollar and job which was then indexed to every single district in the state (They did this for all 50 states) Plus its relation to the larger national defense strategy.

It was user-friendly and simple and, unlike the origami, required no assembly. So when it came time to vote on the defense bill, all the legislative assistant had to do was take a quick look at the district graphic to see if the Member--even a liberal Dem-- could risk a no vote to make an anti-pork point. As you can see from voting records, not many did.

This sort of tactical information has often been what progressives lack.  Fortunately, we are getting much better at it. For three examples, check out the  National Priorities Project and an excellent new report called Integrated Power by Robert Boorstin and Larry Korb at the Center for American Progress. And I promise its the last time I'll shill for it, but the Unified Security Budget for the United States put out by Foreign Policy in Focus and the Center for Defense Information is one of the best guns versus guns documents I've seen come out of the progressive camp in years.  Now we just need to figure out how to get this stuff into the Quadrennial Defense Review.

Any ideas?

A Recruiting Crisis Posted by Derek Chollet

I too was worried about today’s news concerning the endemic waste, fraud and abuse in DoD’s procurement programs, but for my money (pun intended), the most deeply disturbing defense news of the day was that for the 4th straight month, the U.S. Army has missed its recruiting goal – and even worse, that comes after it lowered its target!  According to the Army Times, Pentagon officials quietly reduced their goal for May from 8,000 troops to 6,700, yet in fact it only shipped out around 5,000.  Some argue that the Army is on the way to missing its annual recruiting goals for the first time in six years.  And this is for the active duty component -- the Guard and Reserves are having an even harder time.

According to this report:

"The Army also missed its monthly targets in April, March and February -- each month worse than the one before. In February it fell 27 percent short; in March the gap was 31 percent, and in April it was 42 percent.

'It's like having a persistent drought,' said Daniel Goure, a military analyst at the private Lexington Institute. "At some point when you have drought conditions you have to institute water rationing, and that's what you potentially face in the military if it goes on long enough. You would get to a stage where you don't have enough people to staff your organizations.'"

This has huge implications for the future of our military, the current operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the viability of our all-volunteer force.  Truth be told, these recruiting problems also make troubles for proposals – argued here at DA and elsewhere – that to avoid breaking the force, we need to add as many as 100,000 new troops.  It’s hard to think seriously about adding more troops when we’re having problems recruiting for the force we’ve got. 

So far, the White House and Pentagon (including many of the top military brass) have handled this issue by denying that there is one – claiming that the problem is being overstated or that they are working on it.  Military experts have told me that this recruiting trouble is a trend they have seen developing over the past few years, not months, and worry that it will only get worse, especially if the situation in Iraq does not improve.  The U.S. Army is about people, and right now, it’s not attracting enough. 

Revenge of the $500 toilet Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Devastating piece today in the NYT on the state of Pentagon procurement.  Some highlights:

The Pentagon has more than 80 major new weapons systems under development, which is "a lot more programs than we can afford," a senior Air Force official, Blaise J. Durante, said. Their combined cost, already $300 billion over budget, is $1.47 trillion and climbing.

The Pentagon has more than 80 major new weapons systems under development, which is "a lot more programs than we can afford," a senior Air Force official, Blaise J. Durante, said. Their combined cost, already $300 billion over budget, is $1.47 trillion and climbing.

Military officials routinely understate the anticipated costs of weapons, said Winslow T. Wheeler, who analyzed armaments spending as a Senate staff member advising both Republicans and Democrats for 31 years.

When costs rise far beyond the promised ceilings, he said, almost no one takes responsibility.

Oversight is dwindling, Pentagon officials acknowledge. While the dollar value of weapons contracts doubled over the last decade, the Pentagon halved the size of the work force that polices their costs.

Finally, the costs of new weapons are sometimes concealed by secrecy and creative bookkeeping.

They now total nearly $148 billion a year, and almost one in five of those dollars is hidden from public view, in the classified "black budget."

The Pentagon dismissed its own auditors in the name of "acquisition reform," Mr. Wheeler said. "They thought they were copying private-enterprise practices by removing this monitoring bureaucracy."

When weapons finally move from the drawing board to the assembly line, the military services employ a practice Mr. Walker calls "plug and pray." "They plug how many they can buy with the amount of money they have," he said. "Then they pray that they'll get more money in order to be able to buy more."

But by then, he warned, many weapons of the future may prove too costly to bear.

"There's no way we're going to be able to afford them," Mr. Walker said. "We're going to have to rationalize what people want and reconcile it against what we really need, and what we can afford, and what we can sustain."

And this is in an era that we are being told that: 1) soldiers on the ground are being asked to make do without body armour; 2) military pay and perks aren't adequate to support the level of recruitment we need; 3) the disproportionate size of our military budget gets used to explain why we don't have the money to thoroughly secure our ports and nuclear facilities, never mind beef up funding for diplomacy, aid programs, etc.

As the Times describe them, the problems sound hard but not impossible to fix:  it appears that they need steps on the order of a new and robust auditing function (ironic that as private sector auditing has met its maker and been augmented substantially through Sarbox etc. Pentagon auditing has quietly gone out the window); some sort of objective civilian review of the requirements specification process; advance auditing of whether costs, timeframes and delivery promises from contractors are realistic (proof, not just promises); strict penalties for overruns that put the cost on the contractor, not the Defense Department' and - this is the toughest but probably key - some new contractors added to restore competition to the bidding mix.

I am curious what the progressive military outlook is on all this (Lorelei?).  My guess is they are outraged, and that there ought to be a chance of building a coalition to get spending rationalized and, at least potentially, have budget available for a whole lot of key things including supporting our men and women on the ground with ample equipment, and building (and adequately supporting) new capabilities tailored for post-conflict reconstruction.

Five Myths About Polling That Progressives Should Reconsider Posted by Heather Hurlburt

Last week’s commentary on the Zogby International/International Crisis Group Darfur poll between Kevin Drum and Suzanne and Derek -- and Nick Kristof's piece on the same begged for some broader commentary on what polls do and don’t tell us. I am aided and improved here by guest commentator Mark Lindeman, Assistant Professor of Political Studies at Bard and my personal unbiased (though progressive) polling expert.

Myth #1: Don’t know = don’t care.

Drum’s post gives us a good example of this one:

For starters, only 18% of the poll's respondents are even aware Darfur exists. The other 82% are either "slightly aware" of Darfur or not even that — and I'd bet my last nickel that "slightly" is just a face-saving version of "I couldn't tell you which continent Darfur is on if you paid me." So I'd take this whole poll with a large shaker of salt.

Now, what’s really interesting about this poll is that, though 82 percent start off saying they aren’t really aware of Darfur, 80 percent say they would favor establishing a no-fly zone. That’s pretty impressive for a crisis they’ve only just heard about. Tells you that maybe don’t know = gee, I was running the blender during that part of the news, or I thought it was a promo for that new LiveAid with the Spice Girls getting back together… but I know that mass killing and rape are bad, and I want to see it stopped… why don’t you tell me about it?

These kinds of numbers are an invitation to inform the public, not give up on them.

What Heather said. Right now, probably what most Americans know about Darfur or Sudan is that terrible things are happening and no one seems to know what to do about them. Most people don’t enjoy learning about terrible things they can do nothing about. (See myth #2 below.)

By the way, words matter. The poll designers asked respondents to describe their knowledge (sic) as “very aware,” “slightly aware,” “not very aware,” or “not at all aware.” It takes chops to consider oneself “very aware” of Darfur. (If this isn’t obvious, try reading my local paper for a while and see what you know.) So, Kevin Drum is probably wrong that so few people “are even aware Darfur exists.”

That said, I basically agree with Drum’s main point. (And I don’t know whether he intended to embrace Myth #1, although the myth is out there.) Sure, we can’t take literally the finding that “80% of Americans back a no-fly zone over Darfur” if many of them don’t know whether Darfur is a region of Sudan, an Iraqi city, or the villain in a possible Star Wars Episode Seven. The result doesn’t tell us what people think about this issue – they haven’t thought about this issue. But it gives us a clue about how people think, and what they might think once the issue is raised. Use that salt carefully!

Myth #2: Polls like this reflect a momentary frisson of horror, not a lasting concern.

Actually, Americans are pretty consistent:  they don’t favor willy-nilly introduction of US troops, but they do want to feel that the US is “doing its part” to solve huge disasters and problems. The quickest way to make this myth come true, by the way, is to keep emphasizing to the public how awful and hopeless a situation is; they will feel guilty, get overwhelmed, give up, and look away – same as most people do, foreign policy elite or not, when they see the same homeless folks outside the office day after day.

It’s true that Americans don’t have a “lasting concern” for (say) Darfur in particular. I think Heather sums it up nicely: Americans want the U.S. to do its part. The ICG survey dovetails with many other studies that show that Americans often enthusiastically support a wide range of international interventions, as long as they don’t feel that the U.S. is being left to “go it alone” as “the world’s policeman” or designated sugar daddy. (Check out the indispensable PIPA website, for specifics on this and other topics.)

Another take on “lasting concern” might be that Americans aren’t willing to “stay the course.” It depends on the course, of course (yecch). But the 2004 election suggests to many of us that the American public’s threshold of pain and frustration may be too high, not too low, if one has to choose. Yeah, Americans let their leaders get away with a lot.

Myth #3: Especially on international humanitarian issues, overwhelming majorities are needed to get anything done.

That is, 38 percent support for action in Darfur won’t cut it. Actually, all you need is a few hundred thousand, a few million tops, provided they’re the right million. Who has saved funding for AIDS in Africa several times when the White House wanted to cut it or roll back its promised increases? Not MoveOn’s millions… a few thousand activist evangelicals, and a few dozen of their leaders who were willing to hold the White House’s feet to the fire. If this poll were done on southern Sudan, I’m not confident the numbers would look very different. Yet the Administration put tremendous resources into getting a peace deal there. Why? Because some of their core voters cared a great deal. Ditto trafficking in persons. Heck, does anyone really think overwhelming majorities of the citizenry are in favor of CAFTA?

ICG commissioned this poll to help draw some attention to these issues. It’s the perennial line foreign-affairs advocates get on the Hill: “my constituents never mention foreign policy issues to me.” But they don’t actually need a mass national movement – though one would sure be nice. They need a targeted national movement. Suppose you commissioned a Sudan poll among evangelicals… or a CAFTA poll in swing states… might be interesting.

Yeah, I’m kind of bitter about this one. But I won’t belabor it, since Heather has covered it. Besides, this debate started in a different place, with Derek’s controversial claim that “doing the right thing is also wildly popular!” That seemed to evoke images of crowds marching in the streets and chanting, “Thank you, President Bush, for intervening in Darfur!” Maybe “wildly” wasn’t the best choice of words. But, dammit, Derek was on to something.

To elaborate on one of Heather’s examples: why did George W. Bush spend so much time in his 2003 State of the Union address trumpeting his commitment to spend billions fighting AIDS in Africa? Sure, it made part of his base happy, but it made lots of people happy. Because Americans are pleased to hear, in Bush’s words, that this “nation can lead the world in sparing innocent people from a plague of nature.” Who doesn’t want to live in a country that can do that, and better yet, actually does it?

Was Bush riding a groundswell of public concern about AIDS in Africa? Not hardly (never mind whether one can ride a groundswell). Did he find people begging to increase the foreign aid budget? No – typically most Americans think the foreign aid budget should be decreased, mostly because they think it is much larger than it actually is. So, was Bush exercising courageous leadership? Nope. He was in tune with the values that Americans consistently say they want the U.S. to stand for. Wouldn’t it have been nice if he had actually followed through on his promise without needing “help” from those evangelicals?

Myth #4: Looking at polls to make policy is something done by nasty, unprincipled politicians.  Real leaders with convictions don’t use or need polling.

Making decisions based on your conscience and intellect is principled. Refusing to use tools at your disposal to inform your intellect before making decisions is… not very bright.

I agree with that, but I will add something else. “Going against the polls” because you know something that most people don’t, or see consequences that they haven’t considered, is consistent with representative democracy. Going against fundamental American values is not. I think the normative importance of the polls is in helping to reveal those values, what Americans want the U.S. to be working toward, even if they don’t know how it should do the work. Those expressed values will be naïve, at times, but still worthy of attention. I won’t write about instrumental uses of the polls right now.

Myth #5: Besides, you can get polls to say anything you want anyway.

This one’s for you, Mark.

Let’s put this one in perspective. Public opinion polls are murky and ambiguous, like budget projections, or like satellite reconnaissance photographs. This is not an argument for ignoring them, it’s an argument for looking closely. Can you get a poll to say that the U.S. should attack Canada, or imprison all the millionaires, or rename Washington D.C. “Maoville”? Conceivably, if the question is sufficiently distorted, but it wouldn’t take a “polling expert” to spot the problem. Can President Bush get a poll to say that he has the right idea on Social Security “reform”? Heaven knows he has tried.

For around 70 years now, public opinion polls – not always, but sometimes – have served to rebut what “everyone knows” that just isn’t true about the American people. Lately, what everyone seems to know is that Americans don’t care about anyone or anything beyond the confines of their nation or perhaps their television. It just isn’t so. And if we use it as an excuse for silence on Darfur, then shame on us.

Darfur's day in court Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Today the International Criminal Court officially opened its investigation into war crimes in Darfur.   This was made possible by the U.S.'s historic decision to abstain in a UN vote referring the Darfur killings and abuses to the tribunal.  Now the question is whether the U.S. will cooperate with the ICC prosecutors in helping them build the case, or give succor to the Khartoum government which is trying to argue that the Court's involvement will undercut a "peace process" now underway.  The Sudanese government also claims to be assembling its own local tribunals, an effort to push the ICC to the sidelines.

The U.S.'s abstention on the ICC referral was the camel's nose under the tent of an admission that as the world's most powerful democracy and best champion for the rule of law, the U.S. cannot afford to stand outside an international criminal court that's gradually building credibility.  The court's not perfect, but ignoring it and hoping it will go away isn't the solution.  Working with its members to remedy U.S. concerns is.  Cooperation with the Darfur prosecution is a next step that the Administration can quietly take, consistent with its stance that what's happening in Darfur constitutes genocide.   Let's hope Bush keeps moving forward on this.

For measures short of sending in U.S. combat troops to help stop the killings in Darfur read here (no, I don't believe and ICC investigation will do much to halt the slaughter and abuses).

Democracy Bites Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Daily Kos asks the question in response to Hezbollah's triumph at the polls in southern Lebanon:

So what happens when extremists win free elections throughout the Middle East? Do the wingers still crow about "Democracy is on the march"?

It's a key question.  After all, Hezbollah is now claiming a democratic mandate to hold on to its weapons despite a UN resolution calling for disarmament, and to continue its attacks on Israel.

One argument is that  after the initial flash of success, extremist parties will often find their political fortunes withering under the hot lights of democratic accountability.  While people may vote for them out of religious or political fervor, as democracy takes hold they will be judged on their ability to maintain order and address problems, forcing them to modernize and temper their worst impulses or be run out of office.   

This is the case made by Egyptian human rights activist Saad Eddin Ibrahim, who maintains that Islamist groups ought to be invited to participate in democratic processes, provided they agree to adhere to certain minimum standards, including respect for the constitution, for minority parties, and for women.  But in a country with politics as corrupt as Lebanon's, its hard to be sure that the real concerns of ordinary citizens will prevail, even through an ostensibly democratic process.

Hezbollah's victory points to a key part of the GWOE (Global War on Extremism, which is gradually replacing the war on terror as the professed organizing principle of the Bush foreign policy) where Administration has proven woefully deficient:  going beyond the promotion of democracy to position the U.S. and its allies to win the war of ideas that will continue to be waged even in a liberalizing Middle East.

We are losing ground badly on this front.   The Administration seems to have given up on improving America's image in the region (still no sign of Karen Hughes).   Our detention officers, prison guards and interrogators are the de facto frontline of the U.S.'s public diplomacy effort, because we've failed to own up to their misdeeds and we've put forward little in the way of an alternative face for the U.S.

The Administration claims to be convinced that American-style democratic values and the rejection of terror will win out of their own merits.  Meanwhile, extremists are using everything about America's approach to the Arab world to delegitimize these concepts, while at the same time buttressing themselves with demonstrations of popular - and even electoral - support.

The Administration would argue that there's no way of putting a lid on all extremists at once (it was Paul Wolfowitz who called the Iraqi insurgents "a small number of bitter enders"  . . . in October of 2003).  That's true, and it might be comforting provided there was any sign that the U.S. is gaining ground in terms of popular opinion anywhere in the Arab world.

Hezbollah's victory is a powerful illustration of the idea that elections alone do not a true democracy make, and that a push to promote democracy must go far beyond simply holding votes.   The Administration's failure to figure to convincingly implement a much broader strategy for seeding democracy is yet another reason why progressives need to reclaim and redefine democratization as a foreign policy goal.

Divest from Sudan Posted by Derek Chollet

Suzanne has provided a fairly exhaustive list of what, short of military intervention, the United States can do -- and should do -- to end the slaughter in Darfur.  It’s right to avoid the either-or trap between massive military intervention or doing nothing.  With the demands our military faces right now in Afghanistan and Iraq, I don’t support a massive American military intervention.  And I also don’t believe that that’s what is needed (in fact, my impression is that the African countries don’t want one).  But there’s a lot we can do now to help the AU force – this would involve military assistance and some kind of intervention, preferably through NATO, but not a major troop commitment.

Thinking about what other tools are available, I’d like to draw attention to one more idea that we should all get behind.  Again, this comes from the good folks at the International Crisis Group:  Americans should demand that colleges and universities divest themselves from companies that are operating in Sudan.  Harvard did so earlier this year, and other major universities are being pressured to follow suit.  Last month, ICG’s John Prendergast and Harvard’s Samantha Power sent a letter to 100 university presidents urging them to examine their portfolios for links to Sudan and divest.  Student groups have sprouted up and have done good work (the group STAND -- Students Taking Action Now: Darfur – has 80 chapters nationwide), but with school out for the summer, progressives should work to pick up the slack.      

And a few weeks ago, the Illinois legislature took this one step further: it passed a law to make Illinois the first state to prohibit doing business with Sudan.  Illinois’ five pension systems have about $1 billion invested in 32 companies that work in Sudan, which this bill will put an end to.  It will also prohibit the state from investing in foreign government bonds of Sudan and investing in companies doing business in or with Sudan. 

Illinois might be the first, but it is not alone: A related measure has passed the New Jersey House but is bottled up in the Senate, California’s legislature has a version bouncing around, and just last week, legislation was offered in Ohio’s state Senate proposing something similar.   

I think this is an inspired idea, one that deserves greater attention (a place to start is here).  Imagine if more states followed Illinois’ lead?  For those of us who believe that we should be doing much more to end the genocide in Darfur, the divestment option is a two-fer: it puts meaningful pressure on the Sudanese government to stop its support of the janjaweed militia, and it keeps the political fires stoked here at home for the U.S. government to do more. 

Oh A S! Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Yet another sign of the U.S.'s waning influence in the OAS:  the body is set to reject a U.S. proposal for monitoring democracy in the hemisphere as a thinly veiled jab at Hugo Chavez in Venezuela.  The news report makes this proposal sound a little like a lite version of the Greater Middle East Initiative, a lofty program that was announced in early 2004 and summarily rejected by Arab governments that mistrusted the U.S.'s motives and had not be consulted on its content.  Like that idea, this one was made-in-the-USA and seemingly put forward with little or no consultation among others in the region.  Perhaps the Administration has concluded that, though it might initially raise hackles, given the steps forward in Lebanon and Egypt over the last year, a little high-handedness can go a long way.   

Its worrisome that the U.S. can come off as tone-deaf relative to its backyard of South America as it can in the Middle East.   The state of democracy in the hemisphere is a legitimate concern.  An American foreign policy focused on democracy promotion needs to address democracies that have stagnated or are sliding backwards as a result of economic and social pressures.  But when it comes to working with a group of democracies on how to fortify democracy within their own ranks, the U.S. may have to be a little more democratic in its own methods.

Top 10 Things To Do for Darfur Short of U.S. Military Intervention Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Kevin asks whether we ought to be prepared to send in armed troops to stop genocide. My answer is yes, provided we think we can get the job done and there isn’t an equivalent or better alternative to get the killing stopped. Given the weaknesses of the Sudanese government and the Janjaweed, I assume the operation would ordinarily be eminently doable.

But one of the worst things about our single-handed Iraq invasion is that for the first time in recent memory a legitimate question can be raised about whether the U.S. is over-extended to the point where we cannot assume new military obligations. As a political matter, Iraq has also made it tough to contemplate mounting another challenging military intervention. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it, but it does suggest that we won’t.  Progressives need to look beyond the a false dichotomy of either proposing a military intervention that is a political non-starter, or keeping a low profile on the Darfur tragedy out of an abashed sense that we don't know how to fully solve it.

If we right away did everything possible short of sending combat troops, we’d save a lot of lives, and make an eventual U.S. military role more feasible (and maybe even less necessary). I am no expert on Darfur, but those that are suggest that these are some places to start:

1. Put the heat on NATO to buttress the AU – The US, UN, EU and NATO have been passing the hot potato when it comes to taking action in Sudan. NATO has its limitations, but its better positioned than any other organization to become the focal point for partnering with the AU to try to make that mission effective. The U.S. should take the lead in pushing the alliance to prove its relevance by getting involved. NATO should take the lead in negotiating terms with the AU, instead of waiting until broader help is asked for. This month’s G-8 meeting in Scotland would be a good opportunity to make the case (though other G-8 members may turn the tables wanting support for their anti-poverty plans in Africa).

2. Put NATO troops on the ground – It will be impossible to turn around Darfur without putting substantial numbers of competent and equipped troops on the ground quickly. That’s an impossibility for the AU, so partnering effectively with them means sending in a portion of the 17,000 troops NATO supposedly has at the ready. All else under discussion – airlift, training, advisers – are half-measures. But in doing this, we need to realize that a NATO "bridge" until the AU is ready to take over may wind up lasting a long while.

3. Enforce a no-fly zone – The need for a no-fly zone to stop air raids on civilians has been discussed for upwards of a year.It was contained in the Darfur Accountability Act, which the Administration opposed.

4. Making it clear that preventing genocide trumps intelligence cooperation – The Sudanese government must love the fact that the U.S. is being reported to have toned down its outcry on Darfur so as not to interfere with Khartoum’s help in the fight against terrorism.The Administration has never disavowed this, and needs to if its other efforts to end the genocide are to be taken seriously and attract support.

5. Impose sanctions and an arms embargo – These are also parts of the moribund Darfur Accountability Act. Particularly if they targeted core sectors like the oil industry, sanctions would demonstrate that the U.S. means business, and would raise the cost of the Sudanese government’s indifference. In addition to full implementation of bilateral sanctions, the U.S. should push the UN Security Council to press ahead with its stalled sanctions effort. (Sudan’s defeat in today’s World Cup qualifier made me think sports sanctions should be considered too – they worked in South Africa).