Small Signs that Reason Can Prevail Over Extremism Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Sari Nusseibeh has long been one of the most level-headed and forward leaning Palestinian leaders around.  Now, as President of the West Bank's al Quds University he has joined with Menachem Magidor, the President of Hebrew University in Jerusalem, to call for the British Association of University Teachers to end a boycott of Israeli Universities enacted at the behest of 60 Palestinian organizations.

Nusseibeh said this:

"The reason I don't believe the boycott is the way to go is that I believe peace must be built on the bridge between two civil societies," Professor Nusseibeh said.

While some people believed that one way to deal with Israelis was "to bash them on their heads," he said, "the other way is to reach to their hearts, and it's the reaching out that's important."

Speaking separately, Professor Magidor said: "Academic cooperation is extremely important for creating the infrastructure for, eventually, a peaceful Middle East. What people don't realize sometimes is that while you report a lot about the violence and confrontation, there is below the screen a lot of academic research and collaboration going on."

This is exactly right.  Reconciling divided societies depends heavily on wresting individuals away from the extremes by giving them a stake in the center, and building on the relationships that quietly develop between ordinary people who have something to gain from cooperation and even more to gain from peace and normalcy.  It shouldn't take a don understand that.

Now Who's Strong on Defense? Posted by Michael Signer

From the hard-working Tommy Ross at Byron Dorgan's Democratic Policy Committee, the following installment in our C'mon-You've-Got-To-Be-Kidding-Me Category: 

As the DPC's analysis of H.R. 1268, the Emergency Supplemental Act on Defense, the Global War on Terror, and Tsunami Relief, 2005 shows, progressives in Congress are doing more to protect our military than their "conservative" counterparts.

Let's do this in bullet form.

-  Senator Murray (D-WA) introduced an amendment to give an additional $1.98 billion in additional funding to the Department of Veterans Affairs, including over $600 million to help address a health care crisis in the VA system.  The measure was defeated by Republicans.

-  Senator Evan Bayh (D-IN) introduced an amendment to research the current need for heavily-armored Humvees, and to provide $213 million to procure more of them.  The amendment passed, despite the opposition of dozens of Republicans.

-  Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) passed an amendment to require the federal government to equalize the gap between civilian and active duty salaries for federal employees mobilized for duty.  The amendment passed the Senate -- then, guess what, Republicans removed the amendment in the final budget report.

-  Senator John Kerry (D-MA) introduced a successful Senate amendment to extend housing allowances for families of deceased service members, and another amendment to increase President Bush's paltry death gratuity of $12,000 to $100,000. 

OK -- those are the weenies.  Look at them, sniffling and wiping their noses with their sleeves.  Now, check out how the Daddy Party flexes its big muscles:

-  On the four amendments above, no fewer than 25 conservatives voted against each. 

-  And seventeen of them -- EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEM FROM A RED STATE -- voted against every single one of the four amendments above.

-  Who were they?  Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN), Majority Whip Mitch McConnell (R-KY), and Senators Wayne Allard(R-CO), Robert Bennett (R-UT), Kit Bond (R-MO), Jim Bunning (R-KY), Richard Burr (R-NC), Thad Cochran (R-MS), John Cornyn (R-TX), Jim DeMint (R-SC), Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Jim Inhofe (R-OK), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Richard Shelby (R-AL), Ted Stevens (R-AK), and George Voinovich (R-OH).

So what's going on here?  Most likely, a combination of blind partisanship -- anything to deny a Dem a win -- and chicken-hawkism -- only war sells, not taking care of the people who actually have to fight. 

The fact that these Senators are from red states shows they're taking their voters for granted -- coasting on cultural posturing and division.

A lantern like this should reveal a path out of the wilderness.  We've seen conservatives before retreating into nationalism and defeatism -- just think about the Republican Party in the 1930's and 1940's -- and turning away from the real Americans who defend our country.  We've also seen Democrats formulate strong, engaged policies that united our fighters and our foreign policy -- just think John F. Kennedy in the early 1960's.

They can only fool America for so long.  It's time the joke was over.

Afraid of Our Own Ideas Posted by Suzanne Nossel

I agree with Derek that Bush gave a good speech last night.  I really like his idea for an Active Response Corps.  It bears a fair resemblance to the Stabilization Corps that I recommended be created in this March, 2004 Foreign Affairs article and then again here on Democracy Arsenal.  As Derek points out, many others have been arguing along similar lines.

Here's the interesting thing.  Given the amount of attention to the need to beef up post-conflict capabilities within progressive circles, I am sure I wasn't the only one trying to convince top foreign policy advisers to the Kerry campaign that the candidate should get out in front with a bold proposal along these lines.  That kind of proposal would have been creative, timely, and the sort of bold initiative that could have gotten people excited. 

But the campaign never made an ambitious proposal along these lines.  Why? 

Progressives have been so caught up in trying to establish their bona fides as anti-terror, anti-WMD hawks that many shy away from any issue or idea that could come off as soft.  Talk of a stabilization corps is put aside in favor of emphasis on enlarging the military.  I fear the same effect is at play on Darfur, where now that its been revealed that the Sudanese are aiding in the war on terror, the demands for action to end the killings seem a bit more muted.   

There was plenty of this en route to Iraq.  Though some harbored doubts about the the evidence on Saddam's WMD and criticized Bush's attempt to steamroll the UN, there was fear that particularly if the war turned out to be relatively quick and bloodless, those who opposed it would look like wimps.

A lot of keystrokes have been devoted to the need for progressives to become better educated about and more comfortable with the use of force.   All of us here, and indeed most progressives - be they in the think tanks, the Congress, or the grass roots - believe that U.S. military intervention is an essential part of the foreign policy toolbox in a variety of situations.   We need to keep making that point, and refining our ideas about the fighting terror, containing WMD and improving U.S. military capabilities.

But this cannot be the sum total of progressive foreign policy.  If it is, we will find ourselves drawing relatively fine distinctions between our own ideas and Bush's, and trying to be convincing on a set of issues where you cannot be put to the test while you're on the sidelines. 

Progressives should not be afraid to put forward bold foreign policy positions because they don't relate to the narrow set of security issues that have helped keep conservatives in power.  The longer we do so, the more ground conservatives will gain in appropriating and refashioning agendas - like the promotion of freedom and democracy - that traditionally belonged to us.

To go back to the stabilization corps, there's room for progressives to go a lot further than Bush has.   His Active Response Corps is limited to foreign and civil service officers and volunteers, but should be expanded to include paid workers with far wider backgrounds and skill sets (engineers, builders, etc.).  Properly done, such a force could draw into government service whole populations that wouldn't consider joining the military, thus alleviating some of the burden on our armed forces.  The allocation of just $24 million to fund this effort is a warning sign that Bush doesn't really take the matter seriously. 

Progressives can refine and build on what Bush has proffered.  But next time we shouldn't be afraid to propose it first ourselves.

Good for Bush Posted by Derek Chollet

It isn’t often that we at DA heap praise on the President, but today he deserves some.  Last night at an event hosted by the International Republican Institute, he gave a pretty good speech on the importance of democracy and freedom.  But most interesting, he spoke at length about the importance of an issue that his administration once derided, nation-building, and how we have to build our civilian capacity to help war-torn states get back on their feet.  He described a new office the State Department created last summer to be the locus of forward planning and preparation for post-conflict situations (remember, the State Department was cut-out or largely ignored in the planning for Iraq), and described in detail an important new initiative: to create a new corps of civilian post-conflict “first responders,” called an Active Response Corps.

It is worth quoting in full:

“We must also improve the responsiveness of our government to help nations emerging from tyranny and war. Democratic change can arrive suddenly -- and that means our government must be able to move quickly to provide needed assistance. So last summer, my administration established a new Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization in the State Department, led by Ambassador Carlos Pascual. This new office is charged with coordinating our government's civilian efforts to meet an essential mission: helping the world's newest democracies make the transition to peace and freedom and a market economy.

You know, one of the lessons we learned from our experience in Iraq is that, while military personnel can be rapidly deployed anywhere in the world, the same is not true of U.S. government civilians. Many fine civilian workers from almost every department of our government volunteered to serve in Iraq. When they got there they did an amazing job under extremely difficult and dangerous circumstances -- and America appreciates their service and sacrifice. But the process of recruiting and staffing the Coalition Provisional Authority was lengthy and it was difficult. That's why one of the first projects of the new Office of Reconstruction and Stabilization is to create a new Active Response Corps, made up of foreign and civil service officers who can deploy quickly to crisis situations as civilian "first responders." This new Corps will be on call -- ready to get programs running on the ground in days and weeks, instead of months and years. The 2006 budget requests $24 million for this office, and $100 million for a new Conflict Response Fund. If a crisis emerges, and assistance is needed, the United States of America will be ready. (Applause.)

This office will also work to expand our use of civilian volunteers from outside our government, who have the right skills and are willing to serve in these missions. After the liberation of Iraq and Afghanistan, Americans from all walks of life stepped forward to help these newly liberated nations recover. Last summer a Lancaster, Ohio police officer named Brian Fisher volunteered to spend a year in Baghdad training Iraqi police. Brian says, "The Iraqi people have been under a dictatorship and now they are moving toward democracy, and I want to do something to help." What a fantastic spirit that Brian showed. But he's not alone. Last May, a Notre Dame Law School professor named Jimmy Gurul helped train 39 Iraqi judges, some of whom will conduct the trials of Saddam Hussein and other senior members of his regime. Because of efforts of people like him and Brian, these trials will be fair and transparent.

These are ordinary Americans who are making unbelievable contributions to freedom's cause. And the spirit of the citizenship of this country is remarkable, and we're going to put that spirit to work to advance the cause of liberty and to build a safer world. (Applause.)”

For years, many in the think-tank world as well as Democratic and Republican members of Congress have been talking about such ideas, and we can justifiably criticize the Administration for being slow on the uptake.  And remembering this Administration’s penchant for making bold promises and then letting them go unfulfilled (think global HIV/AIDS assistance), we need to ensure that actions match rhetoric.  But last night’s statement is an important start.

Boots and Pumps Posted by Suzanne Nossel

The problems being discussed here and here aren't going to get solved on their own.  The Generals in charge of the military operation in Iraq now report that a recent rise in the insurgency and delays training Iraqi troops and police mean the U.S. military won't be able to draw down below current troop levels of 138,000 anytime soon.

Close Encounters Posted by Suzanne Nossel

So Derek is writing about a bi-partisan Congressional group's call to add 100,000 troops to the U.S. army and Lorelei is arguing that we need to reallocate funds to beef up up other agencies to help shoulder pressing challenges now shouldered by the military.  Meanwhile the Pentagon is spending untold billions - and proposing to appropriate far more - on offensive and defensive weapons in space.  The NY Times reports:

The Air Force believes "we must establish and maintain space superiority," Gen. Lance Lord, who leads the Air Force Space Command, told Congress recently. "Simply put, it's the American way of fighting." Air Force doctrine defines space superiority as "freedom to attack as well as freedom from attack" in space.

Never mind that no one has ever attacked us from space, nor has or is building the means to do so.  Never mind that the $100 billion already spent on a "Star Wars" missile shield has failed to yield a functioning technology.  Never mind that, based on my confessedly limited knowledge of the Judeo-Christian tradition, space was supposed to be god's realm, not man's.

Some of the proposed programs to be developed include:

Another Air Force space program, nicknamed Rods From God, aims to hurl cylinders of tungsten, titanium or uranium from the edge of space to destroy targets on the ground, striking at speeds of about 7,200 miles an hour with the force of a small nuclear weapon.

A third program would bounce laser beams off mirrors hung from space satellites or huge high-altitude blimps, redirecting the lethal rays down to targets around the world. A fourth seeks to turn radio waves into weapons whose powers could range "from tap on the shoulder to toast," in the words of an Air Force plan.

Speaking of Star Wars, can it really be coincidence that this is being pushed to coincide with the final Star Wars Revenge of the Sith release?  Having learned what to expect from Karl Rove, I doubt it.

Democracies Combating Terrorism Posted by Suzanne Nossel

The Security and Peace Institute held an excellent seminar on this topic today in New York City.  The most provocative and sobering part of the day was a panel discussion on the tension between the war on terror and the protection of civil liberties.  Richard Ben-Veniste, late of 9/11 Commission fame, laid out how easy it is for a government to use fear to lure people into giving up their freedoms voluntarily to a point where there is no reclaiming them.  He ended with this quote:

"Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger."

It was a statement by Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg trials.   Next up was former Congressman Mickey Edwards, a conservative Republican who put the onus squarely on the Congress to stand up for civil liberties in the face of executive overreach. 

Then Professor Jenny Martinez of Stanford laid out four imperatives for a detention regime in a democracy:  1) a law governing detentions; 2) a mechanism for judicial review of the application of the law; 3) a set of human rights standards applied to detainees; 4) transparency so that the public and the media can monitor how the system works.   The U.S. has none of this (we do have a law governing detentions, the U.S. constitution, but by declaring some detainees "enemy combatants" the government has argued that constitutional protections and habeas corpus do not apply - the Supreme Court disagrees, but this is one area where its far from certain which branch will get the last word in practice).

Professor Cherif Bassiouni of DePaul University, whose ouster as the UN's Expert on human rights in Afghanistan is discussed here, then weighed in to say that he differed from the other 3 panelists only in his view that the Administration is not well-intended when it comes to preserving civil liberties.  He gave a host of examples from his work in Afghanistan, including the U.S.'s practice of extraordinary rendition, which means turning over detainees for interrogation in countries that we know practice torure.   

My question to the panel was how do we build a political constituency to fight against all this?  Detainees are a voiceless population.  The media has very limited access to what's happening at Guantanamo, much less detention facilities that the U.S. maintains in Afghanistan and Iraq (moreover, after the Newsweek debacle, they will likely be more circumspect in what they report). 

The panel's reply was that there's a way to make the case to the American people that the war on terror can be fought effectively without resorting to these tactics.  That's true, but until they are detaining our children, parents, and friends, there will be no pressing reason for ordinary people to demand the less repressive alternative. 

The same point, of course, is true relative to so many issues we talk about here.  We are confounded by how to get the broader public to understand the ill-consequences of the U.S.'s approach in Iraq, its manipulation of intelligence, its high-handedness at the UN and other multilateral forums, its misuse of the military. 

You might think that the riots in the Muslim world last week would be a wake up call about the resentment caused by US detention practices, but rather than taking a hard look at what's behind the reaction, the Administration blames it all on Newsweek.

What will it take to turn this around?  This may be naive, but I believe that bit by bit the American public is waking up to the painful boomerang effect of many of Bush's policies.   

They worry that we'll soon learn that the Koran incident actually did happen.  They know that, based on everything reported about Guantanamo, Muslims had reason to believe it even if it wasn't true.  They don't want to live in a world where America's standing is withering like a leaf in winter. 

They see the contradiction between Bush's stand for Sunni minority rights in the Iraqi government, and his trammeling of minority rights in the U.S. Congress back home. 

They were fearful enough to bury all these misgivings for a while, but not forever. 

Boots on the Ground, Pumps Too Posted by Lorelei Kelly

I am on the road this week, visiting my family in New Mexico, so here's my unofficial poll on the latest foreign policy happenings: both seat mates on my flight out here offered unsolicited opinions on John Bolton upon finding out that I work on national security issues. A Republican on my left and an unaffiliated on my right -- after a spirited exchange over the absurdity of it all -- both agreed that the Congress and its conservative leadership is off the tracks and dragging the rest of us unwilling participants along for the ride.

An important contribution to the DA discussion about how to fix our broken legislature: please have a look at "The War Congress: Shouldering the Responsibilities of a US Global Role" (PDF).

This document examines the shocking failure of today's Congress to participate in foreign policy and defense deliberations in a truly meaningful way. It examines the War Powers Act, specifically in the context of congressional actions post 9/11 and the second Iraq war. Author Eugene Kogan depicts the dangers that befall us when committees of jurisdiction become political advocacy venues -- rather than oversight focused.

On expanding the size of the US Army by 100,000 individuals. Although I believe we do need more "boots on the ground", I fear that calling for 100K more troops is just too easy because it assumes that the military -- especially landpower forces -- is the organization that can best solve problems in the post 9/11 world. We have to be more creative than the "more is better" solution. Any additional personnel on the defense side should always be discussed and in fact conditioned upon an integrated strategy of balance between civilian and military tools for engagement.

What do I mean by that?

We need more than boots. In fact, over-reliance on boots may be a primary cause of our public relations problems with the rest of the world. We need loafers, pumps, Birkenstocks, waffle-stompers, sensible flats and tourists in tennis shoes out around the planet… working to retrieve the golden reputation of the good ole USA. The more the face of America is seen in uniform and holding weapons, the less this reputation holds up.

Now, I love the Army as much as anybody, so why do I have a problem with it expanding to carry out ever more duties around the globe? This question needs to be answered with perspective sharing. The American experience with the military institution is by and large positive and mutual. Civilian control over the military is scrupulous and most military officers themselves know democratic principles backwards and forwards.

This is, however, not true for many countries. Just think back two or three decades. In Central and South America, military dictatorships crushed popular participation and democracy. Today, countries where the military is the most functional government organizations are not considered healthy (Pakistan) by any democratic standard. If the United States bills itself as the paragon of democracy, it should model balanced partnership between civilians and the military. Today, as is discussed frequently on this blog, that is just not the case in our tools for engagement.

How about this suggestion? Why doesn't the Army just come out and declare that it will assume a ten year "interim" inter-agency leadership responsibility for our current global challenges...but with the explicit acknowledgment that part of the decade long planning will be to de-militarize our international security policy? During this time, Congress and the federal agencies will work together with the military to set up a time-line and framework for discussion, plus explicit benchmarks for how spending priorities must change. This also means that the military will have to get used to advocating for civilian agencies. I know this is professionally uncomfortable for the uniformed, but we must find a way for this shared responsibility, indeed, this vital national security interest to move forward productively. American landpower professionals have the best stories to tell about how the world has changed. We need to figure out a way for them to inform the process of helping us create better policy. From my discussions with friends in the military, most of them support a variation on the theme of a larger Army…but always with serious caveats about balance and who should be responsible for what. Progressive security policy is to be found in those footnotes. Bonus: it gives the Army ten years to figure out the doctrine for what "fighting and winning the nation's wars" means in today's world.

More on Newsweek Posted by Suzanne Nossel

So now the Administration is calling on Newsweek to undo the "serious consequences" and "lasting damage" of its Koran report.   But with Karen Hughes on leave until the summer and the Administration's public diplomacy [Ed.  There was a typo here helpfully pointed out by Greg Djerejian.  Sorry, Greg, as a Texan might say, its the A'merkin way.  Actually, it was posted consciously to celebrate just how close we are to the 70,000 visitors mark] effort having won little ground, the question is who will undo the "serious consequences" and "lasting damage" of U.S. policies and approaches.

Question 1: Mideast Transformation Posted by Suzanne Nossel

Many thanks to Heather and Derek for intrepidly helping answer the 10 toughies I posed a couple of nights ago. I will try to gradually work through thoughts on several of the others. I also urge everyone to read through the thoughtful comments appended to the original post.

The Middle East

: Isn’t it the case that had a progressive been in the White House, Saddam Hussein would still be in power, with the Middle East as stagnant as ever? Do you now admit that the only way to get the region moving was to dislodge a major dictator and launch at least one important country on the route to transformation? How else would you have gotten change afoot?

Before getting to answers, there are three things that – while highly relevant to an evaluation of the Bush Administration’s Mideast policy – are tangential to the question posed here: 1) the grave mistakes made en route to, and in the occupation of, Iraq; 2) the anti-American backlash triggered by those policies; and 3) the legitimate misgivings over whether the apparent progress in the region is sustainable and significant. 

These points are all important subjects of continuing debate, but they don’t answer the question of how progressives would have gotten the Arab world’s head out of the desert sand. They illustrate the wrong way to go about transformation of the region, but don’t illuminate the right way.