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Today's
Stories
July
19, 2004
Jennifer
van Bergen
The Death of the Great Writ of Liberty
July
17 / 18, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Apocalypse Now: Why the Book of Revelations
is Must Reading
Ghada
Karmi
Vanishing the Palestinians
Lenni
Brenner
When Cattle Unite, Lions Go Hungry: Notes for Ralph Nader
Ben
Tripp
Man on a Bridge: a Ghost Story
Brandy
Baker
What Would Elizabeth Cady Stanton Make of John Kerry?
M.
Shahid Alam
Israel Builds Another Wall
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
Nuclear Hypocrisy: Israel, Iran and the IAEA
Patrick
Bond
The George Bush of Africa
Fred
Gardner
Politics of Marijuana: Cannabiniod Therapuetics
William
Blum
Bush and Thucydides
Ben
Terrall
Carter and the Indonesia Elections: "I Don't See Anything
Wrong with a General Running the Country"
Tom
Barry
John Lehman on the War Path
David
Vest
Dylan Without the Music
Phyllis
Pollack
Return to Sin City: Keith Richards Does Gram Parsons
Ron
Jacobs
Smearing Muhammad Ali: Bob Feller Strikes Out
Joshua
Frank
Kerry to Edwards: "Let's Lose!"
David
Nally
A Call for Sudan: Our Georgraphical Blindspot
Toni
Solo
Bolivia's Gas Referendum
Landau,
Hassan, Prashad & Lindorff
Three Reviews of Moore's F911
Poets's
Basement
Ford, Smith and Albert
July
16, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Adonal Foyle: Master of the Lefty Lay-Up
Shervan
Sardar
Dershowitz, the ICJ and Jim Crow Laws
Ron
Jacobs
The Lil' Engine That Couldn't: Kucinich Surrenders on Anti-War
Plank
Robert
Fisk
Iraq, According to Edgar Allen Poe:
Coffin Bombs in Baghdad
Greg
Moses
The Forts of Iraq
Mickey
Z.
Ad Infinitum?: Presidential Campaigns in the Age of TV
Dan
Bacher
A Landmark Win for Salmon and the Tribes
Dave
Lindorff
The Mumia Case: Support from NAACP,
But a Movement in Shambles
Paul
McGeough
Did Allawi Shoot Inmates in Cold Blood?
Website
of the Day
10 Reasons to Fire Bush (and 9 Reasons Kerry Won't Be Any Better)
July
15, 2004
Heather
Williams
McMissing
the Point: Supersize Me Crashes on Its Message
Werther
Iraq: Follow the Money
Tom
Crumpacker
The Birds of Guantanamo
Brian
Cloughley
What Does the Bush Regime Object To?
Bill
Christison
Reorganize the CIA? Of Course,
But...
July
14, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Chronicle of a Nomination Foretold:
the Green Deceivers
Neve
Gordon
Of Socrates and the Apartheid Wall
Diane
Christian
The Priesthood of Death
Stefan
Wray
Who Benefits from Missing Data at Los Alamos Nuclear Lab?
Josh
Frank
The Nader / Dean Debate
Conn
Hallinan
Divide and Conquer as Imperial Rules
Elizabeth
Weill-Greenberg
Bring My Brother Home!: Class, War
and Education
Website
of the Day
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of US Empire
July
13, 2004
Ray
McGovern
The CIA and Iraq: an Intelligence
Debacle...and Worse
Mark
Donham
The Sierra Club's Inexplicable Treatment of Cynthia McKinney
Ben
Tripp
Politus Interruptis: With Friends Like
These, Who Needs Electorates?
Mark
Gaffney
Slipping Towards Armageddon: Israel
in Iraq
Dave
Lindorff
Osama Wins! Election Postponed!
Chris
White
Double Think: the Bedrock of Marine
Indoctrination
July
10 / 12, 2004
Kathleen
Christison
The Problem with Neutrality Between
Palestinians and Israel
Janine
Pommy Vega
Trail of the Comet: a Gathering of the World's Poets Against
War
Sherry
Wolf
From Maverick to Party Attack Dog: Howard Dean Gay-Bashes Nader
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassen
A Transfer of Power, Sort Of
Michael
Donnelly
How to Steal an Election: the Green Version, 2004
Stanton
/ Madsen
Iraq Survey Group: Rumsfeld's al-Qaeda?
Richard
Lichtman
The End of Innocence: Reflections on American Pathology
Gila
Svirsky
Thank You, Your Honors: a Legal Blow to the Wall
Kurt
Nimmo
Clinton's Life
Toni
Solo
Empire-Speak: What Roger Noriega Really Means
Ron
Jacobs
The Black Panthers and the Rest
Camelo
Ruiz Marrero
Gene Warfare in Oaxaca: Genetic Mutation of Mexican Maize
Omar
Barghouti
Wither the Empire: Rise of a Global Resistance
Poets'
Basement
Curtis and Albert
July
9, 2004
Dave
Zirin
Carlos Delgado on Deck: Blue Jays Slugger
Stands Up Against War
Justin
Delacour
Wishing Kerry Would Shut Up About
Latin America
Robert
Fisk
Iraq in Reverse: Martial Laws Fuel Insurgency
Boris
Kagarlitsky
Two Congresses and a Funeral
William
S. Lind
The October Surprises
Sibel
Edmonds
Our Broken System: John Ashcroft's War on Truth
Ron
Jacobs
Reading Tea Leaves: What Vietnam Tells Us About Iraq's Future
Gary
Leupp
The Lie That Will Not Die: Cheney and
the Iraq/al-Qaeda Link
July
8, 2004
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
The Inexplicable John McCain
Toufic
Haddad
Protesting Israel's Apartheid Wall:
a Letter from the Hunger Strikers' Tent
Dave
Lindorff
Liberation as Martial Law
Joshua
Frank
The Fall: How Beltway Dems Sank Howard
Dean
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush & Cheney Play the Hitler Card
James
Petras
The Truth About Jimmy Carter
July
7, 2004
John
Chuckman
Kerry's BBQ: a Deafening Silence
of Meaning
Virginia
Tilley
A Line in the Sand: Azmi Bishara's
Hunger Strike
Susan
Martinez
A Letter to Bill Cosby
Mickey
Z
Elie Wiesel's Strange Parade
Michael
Donnelly
Our Own Private Wilderness: Trusting the Land in the Inland Empire
Sean
Donahue
Boston Social Forum: the Dems aren't the Only Show in Beantown
Diane
Christian
Sovereignty and Freedom in Iraq
July
6, 2004
Lisa
Viscidi
Fleeing Guatemala: Central Americans
Risk Lives to Reach El Norte
Marc
Norton
The Felonious Five Ride Again: the
Supreme Court and Enemy Combatants
James
Brooks
Chemical Warfare on the West Bank?
Ray
McGovern
Porter Goss as CIA Director?
William
Cook
Legacy of Deceit: If Dante Knew of Bush and the Neo-Cons...
July
5, 2004
Forrest
Hylton
US Imperialism in Latin America: Sept.
11, July 4 and Systematic Torture
Chris
White
A Former Marine Sgt. on the Meaning
of Independence Day
Joe
Bageant
Cranky Reflections on the 4th of July
Robert
Jensen
Stupid White Movie: What Michael Moore
Misses About the Empire
Kathy
Kelly
"Two Days an' a Wake-Up"
July
3 / 4, 2004
Elaine
Cassel
Bush's Police State and Independence
Day
Stan
Goff
ABC of Opportunism: "Progressive"
Latin American Leaders Support the Coup in Haiti
Snehal
Shingavi
"We Want Real Justice for Bhopal": Two Survivors Speak
Out
Bruce
Anderson
The Cheney-Leahy Metaphor and the Greens
Sharon
Smith
Twilight of the Greens: the Chokehold of "Anybody But Bush"
Josh
Frank
Ralph Nader's Revolt: an Interview with Greg Bates
Robert
Fisk
Pentagon Tried to Censor Saddam's Hearing
Joe
Bageant
Sons of a Laboring God: Leftnecks Unite!
Brian
Cloughley
Fortress Bush and the One Law Doctrine
Justin
Delacour
The Anti-Chavez Echo Chamber: Venezuela's Media Tycoons
William
S. Lind
Saudi Spillover
Linda
S. Heard
A Joke Called "Justice"
Greg
Moses
"It's Illegal, But It's Our Right": Korean Labor Won't
Back Down
Ron
Jacobs
"Ain't You Proud to be White on Independence Day?"
Toni
Solo
Weary of Indigenous Resistances? Just Pretend They're Not There
Dan
Nagengast
Chicken Manure as Cattle Food: Safe, But Do We Want to Eat It?
Stew
Albert
Brando, a Personal Recollection
Dave
Zirin
From the Black Panthers to Sacheen Littlefeather: a Eulogy for
Our Brando
Patrick
W. Gavin
The Progressive Case for Dodgeball
Steven
Rosenthal / Junaid Ahmad
The Problem is Bigger Than the Bushes: a Review of F911
Poets'
Basement
Kearney, Ford and Davies
Website
of the Day
Global Peace Solution
July
2, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
Suicide Right on the Stage: the Demise
of the Green Party
Douglas
Valentine
Fahrenheit 911: Mocking the Moral Crisis of Capitalism
Gary
Leupp
"Just Because I Could": On Obscenities and Opportunities
Lee
Ballinger
Illegal People: Kerry Opposes Immigrant Rights
Robert
Fisk
Saddam in the Dock: Confused? Hardly
CounterPunch
Wire
"What Law Formed This Court?": a Transcript of Saddam's
Arraignment
Christopher
Brauchli
Bush's Drug Card Lottery: the Price Ain't Right
Saul
Landau
Buzz Words and Venezuela
July 1, 2004
Katherine
van Wormer
Bush's Damaged Mind: the Madness in
His Method
Joe
Bageant
Is Our President a Whackjob? Does It Matter?
William
James Martin
The Dogma of Richard Perle
Dave
Lindorff
Bush's Evacuation Moment
Robert
Fisk
Bread and Circus Trials in Iraq
Alan
Maass
Green Party in Reverse
Website
of the Day
Michael Moore and Israel: Blind or a Coward?
June
30, 2004
Kurt Nimmo
Nicholson
Baker's Checkpoint: a New Kind of Anger About Bush
Tariq
Ali
Getting Away with Murder in Iraq
Jennifer
Van Bergen
Bush and the Detainees
Douglas
Valentine
Apotheosis of the Psychopaths: Instead of Fahrenheit 9/11, Rescreen
The Quiet American
David
Price
Fahrenheit 9/11 Through the McCain-Feingold Looking Glass
Roger
Normand
America's Criminal Occupation of Iraq
Stan
Cox
Sanitized for Your Protection: Ashcroft's
War on Art
Henry
David Thoreau
On the Futility of Bush v. Kerry: All Voting is a Kind of Gaming
Ben
Tripp
Who Dast Call Him Liar: a Rebuttal to Nicholas Kristof
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
July
19, 2004
"Be
It Resolved That..."
What
Has Been Accomplished?
By
Col. DAN SMITH
In a January 1, 2004 New York Times
editorial, Secretary of State Colin Powell listed a number of
goals the Administration resolved to achieve during the year.
With 2004 half over, it's time to take stock, to applaud accomplishments,
identify shortfalls, and encourage--even offer suggestions--on
ways to achieve the so-far unachieved.
Powell's first resolution,
one that has become a mantra within the Administration, was to
expand democracy, initially in Afghanistan and Iraq, then in
the broader Middle East, then in other regions. What progress--and
at what cost--has been made to date?
The first steps in the U.S.
drive to spread democracy required the "liberation"
of Afghanistan and Iraq from their respective oppressors. The
effort to date has been costly, and will continue to be so for
many families. The real number of Afghan and Iraqi military and
civilians killed may never be known, but approximately 11,500
have died in Afghanistan since Operation Enduring Freedom began
October 7, 2001. At least 20,000 Iraqis have been killed in Operation
Iraqi Freedom. Allowing for reporting delays, coalition military
and civilian deaths through the second week in July 2004 are
166 in Afghanistan (127 U.S.) and 1,097 in Iraq (910 U.S.). Another
seven U.S. Special Forces troops died in helicopter crashes in
the Philippines. Dollar costs are running at $200 billion for
warfighting and reconstruction; with more to come as ongoing
operations expend nearly $5 billion a month. These amounts do
not address the psychological and physical costs of rehabilitating
and caring for the tens of thousands wounded. Nor do they reflect
the "opportunity costs" off the war, those programs
that cannot be funded or implemented because of the human and
dollar burdens of the war.
What has been accomplished?
Iraq
In Iraq on June 28, two days
ahead of the date set last November 15, the Coalition Provisional
Authority (CPA) handed "full sovereignty" to an unelected
Iraqi interim government that is to oversee this month the selection
of an advisory council of 1,000 prominent tribal leaders and
prepare for the election of a National Assembly in January 2005.
However, along with "full sovereignty" came 97 CPA
edicts and 160,000 foreign troops led by the U.S.--the occupation
armies re-designated as the UN-mandated multinational force in
Iraq (MNF-I). Over the next weeks, additional U.S. troops are
expected to be added, bringing the foreign military presence
to about 165,000 with an additional 20,000 armed foreign "security"
contractors.
With only 175 days until elections
for the national assembly, the interim government must improve
security and restore basic services sufficiently to win and then
maintain the allegiance of the Iraqi population. As a first step,
within ten days of the handover, the interim government passed
a martial law statute giving the prime minister direct control
of the army, police, and other security forces in areas of significant
unrest. Actual exercise of powers that could include curfews,
warrantless searches, and bans on public gatherings would require
approval of a majority of the cabinet, the president, and the
two vice-presidents. The initial period of martial law could
be as long as 60 days, renewable in 30 day increments. Actions
by the prime minister would be open to review by the courts.
The rapid passage of the martial law statute has raised concerns
among Iraqi civil liberty groups because of the possibility of
too great a centralization of power similar to the Saddam Hussein
era. Interestingly, Iraq's Minister for Human Rights compared
his country's new law to the USA PATRIOT Act, which has come
under harsh criticism and a concerted effort this month by Congress
to modify some provisions that were over-reactions to September
11, 2001 events.
In a concurrent security-related
move, the Iraqi government proposed a wide-ranging amnesty for
Iraqi "nationalist" insurgents whose "hands are
bloodless." The government is attempting to separate the
estimated 5,000 low-level Sunni "nationalist" fighters
from the 900-1,000 insurgent leaders, extremists associated with
al Qaeda, and foreign fighters in the country (Washington
Post, July 7, 2004). Moreover, the government must now contend
with a nascent "right-wing" vigilante militia, five
of whom appeared on television warning Abu Zarqawi and his adherents
that they will be targets of the vigilantes should they remain
in Iraq.
Although the UN-mandated foreign
forces in Iraq have the mission of creating the security parameters
within which the structures of democracy can begin to take hold,
they also provide the focal point for the attacks by the insurgents--whether
Shi'ite (Moqtada al-Sadr), Sunni, Ba'athist, or "foreign
Arabs." This fact, together with the inevitable casualties
among innocent Iraqis when multinational forces respond to attacks,
contributes to the persistently high percentage of Iraqis who
want the foreign armies out of their country--80 percent in a
poll conducted at the end of June (London Financial Times,
July 7).
As the British colonists' objections
to the quartering of British soldiers in private homes helped
fuel the U.S. rebellion and experiment in self-governance, the
presence of foreign military forces in Iraq is seen by many as
just as inconsistent with full democracy--largely because of
the potential for "independent" violence to be initiated
by such a force. In Iraq's case, this potential for violence
is compounded by the reality that Iraq is awash with unsecured
ammunition and weaponry of all types except heavy combat vehicles.
The "Small Arms Survey 2004," released July 1, estimated
that Iraqi civilians possessed between six and seven million
individual weapons. Earlier "on the ground" surveys
of arms dumps scattered throughout Iraq indicated these held
at least 600,000 tons of arms and ammunition ranging from sidearms
and automatic rifles to rocket-propelled grenades and artillery
rounds.
Taken together, these facts
and trends suggest that, for the time being, Iraqis are less
interested in democracy than in ending the violence, the key
to which most see is the departure of the foreign soldiers. Whether
this is true, or whether an Iraq left on its own now would experience
more violence, deaths, and sabotage, will not be tested for some
months. But tested it will be at some point, either as an emerging
"democracy" or with a benign authoritarian ruler.
Afghanistan
While Afghanistan is not beset
by such huge unsecured stockpiles of weapons and ammunition as
is Iraq, its tradition of widespread ownership and use of weapons
has had a tangible effect on the evolution of the country's democratic
institutions. This has been evident since December 2001, when
the Taliban government collapsed, in the continuing internecine
fighting between the militias of the various warlords-turned-ministers
and provincial "governors." With clashes becoming more
frequent and militias expanding their numbers, the central government
of President Hamid Karzai now regards the warlords as a greater
danger to Afghanistan's future than the Taliban.
The uncertain state of security
induced by the militia strife has been reinforced over the last
six months by the steady regrouping of and operations by Taliban
fighters and sympathizers in the provinces and districts along
the Afghan-Pakistan border. Despite frequent operations by the
20,000 foreign troops in Afghanistan, security is so poor in
some areas that UN and nongovernmental aid and humanitarian workers
have been pulled back to major cities. In rural areas, resistant
to centralized control, voter registration and other electoral-related
activities have languished. Registration of women otherwise eligible
to vote is especially difficult in light of "tradition."
Even for men, voter registration can be fatal; in late June,
the Taliban killed 18 Afghan men reportedly for the "crime"
of registering to vote.
With security so tenuous, President
Karzai decided to postpone presidential elections for the second
time--to October 9, some four months after the original schedule.
Even the promise by heads of state of North Atlantic Treaty Organization
countries to send 1,500 additional troops to Afghanistan may
not be enough to appreciably improve security in the country
to meet the new timetable. Moreover, continued strife among warlords,
lagging voter registration, slow demobilization and disarmament,
and the Taliban's resurgence in the south and southeast have
forced Karzai to postpone the logistically more complex parliamentary
elections until well into spring 2005.
Middle East
Democracy
With Iraq and Afghanistan in
such disarray, it now appears that President Bush's dream that
these two countries would initiate a tsunami of new democracies
in the Middle East is just that--a dream.
On December 18, 2003, the highly
respected nonpartisan Freedom House (FH) released its annual
survey on the health of freedom in the world. Among the six regions
into which FH divides the globe (Western Europe, Asia-Pacific,
Middle East/North Africa, sub-Saharan Africa, Americas, and Central
and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union), the Middle East/North
Africa had made "the least progress" toward democratic
governance over the past 31 years. FH counted only Israel as
free while rating five countries "partly free" and
twelve "not free"--two-thirds of the countries in the
region. Moreover, four of the world's eight countries assigned
the worst possible rating are in this region: Saudi Arabia, Sudan,
Syria, and Libya.
Four months later (April 28,
2004) FH publicized its 2004 survey of press freedom around the
world. Again, the results for the Middle East/North Africa were
dismal: 90 percent of the countries in the region were rated
"not free"--the highest such rating for any region.
One of the five lowest rated countries worldwide in terms of
press freedom comes from Middle East/North Africa region: Libya.
Although finding the "largest
freedom gaps" in countries with Muslim majorities, FH was
careful to not attribute political constraints on populations
and the press to any strictures in Islam. FH noted that half
of the global Muslim population resides in countries with governments
that are chosen in elections deemed democratic.
In early February, 2004, news
leaked to the media of a Bush Administration plan to close the
Middle East/ North Africa "freedom gap." Called the
"Greater Middle East Initiative," the plan hit the
region like a hammer; no government had been consulted on any
of the initiatives--economic, governance, or human, social and
civic development. Moreover, some of the initiatives appeared
to by-pass governments, especially economic programs aimed at
women, small business, and civic organizations (Strategic
Comments, Volume 10, March 2, 2004). These factors created
reactions ranging from a cautious willingness to explore the
initiative further to outright opposition, with many leaders
in the region and Europe warning against hasty changes in regimes
that could lead to anarchy.
For an Administration that
believes the U.S. has a mission to spread democracy, these responses
must have been unexpected. Washington seemed to assume that
its plan to further freedom would elicit an obedient echo. What
resounded instead from leaders and publics outside the U.S. was
a longing for security from anarchy.
Undoubtedly, part of the resistance
stemmed from foreign perceptions of U.S. motives for taking on
the burden of the "forward strategy of freedom." In
his 2004 State of the Union speech, President Bush told Congress
that as long as tyranny, despair, and anger characterized the
Middle East, it threatened "the safety of America and our
friends." This suggested that the U.S. was less interested
in bestowing freedom's benefits on those who had never enjoyed
them as in a manifestly "U.S. first" approach--no different
than in the past when the U.S., in the name of "vital national
interests, was equally willing to deal with and support autocratic
regimes that denied basic freedoms to their publics.
By the time of the early June
2004 G-8 summit at Sea Island, Georgia, the U.S. had revamped
its Middle East initiative to such an extent that the G-8 adopted
it as their own. That plan envisions a series of consultations
between Arab and G-8 foreign, economic and "other"
ministers, "dialogues" between western and Arab civic
groups to "promote and strengthen democratic institutions,"
and literacy and job creation initiatives. But there is a significant
philosophical difference from Washington's messianic approach:
the G-8 limited itself to supporting "democratic,
social, and economic reform emanating from that region"
(emphasis added).
Global Democracy
Freedom House's December 18,
2003 survey rated 88 countries free, 55 partially free, and 49
not free (of which nearly one-quarter are in the Middle East/North
Africa). But FH saw more improvement than slippage in the worldwide
march toward democracy, with 28 countries expanding the civil
liberties of their citizens while 13 countries lost ground. Western
Europe has the best record with the Americas next, followed by
Central and Eastern Europe and the former USSR, Asia-Pacific,
and sub-Saharan Africa.
But at the mid-point of 2004,
other than in Western Europe, each region has countries in which
the extent of democratic practice is increasingly in jeopardy.
In the Americas, Bolivia, currently under an interim president,
faces a highly contentious referendum in mid-July that could
split the country further between descendents of the indigenous
population and Europeans. Haiti is trying to weather its latest
crisis in democracy which many believe the U.S. precipitated.
Peru is seeing the possible resurgence by the Sendero Luminoso
(Shining Path) pro-Maoist insurgency in which more than 30,000
people died in the 1980s and 1990s. And in Venezuela, where a
number of armed "militias" are springing up, the potential
for civil war--which would elicit a response by the military
as the final guarantor of constitutional order--looms as President
Hugo Chavez faces a mid-August referendum on his performance.
The area comprising the former
Warsaw Pact and USSR, outside of the volatile Caucasus region
(Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia), is actually relatively "stable"
in that the countries in Central and Eastern Europe and the three
Baltic states seem committed to democratic institutions while
the remainder of the former USSR, especially the countries of
Central Asia, seem almost as committed to authoritarian rule.
In the Asia-Pacific, democracy
is under attack most notably in Nepal where another pro-Maoist
insurgency has a strong foothold in many parts of the country.
Other formal "democracies" such as Sri Lanka, Papua
New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, and Pakistan are at risk if
peace talks break down, ethnic rivalries escalate, or an assassination
of a leader occurs.
Sub-Saharan Africa suffers
from such wide-spread ethnic-related violence, corruption, and
societal disintegration from illnesses, especially HIV/AIDS,
that Secretary Powell's resolution to expand democracy, despite
the attention he has devoted to this region, has not met with
much success. Largely through interventions by western democracies,
the fighting in war-devastated western Africa was finally contained.
Very shaky fledgling or interim administrations are underpinned
by large numbers of UN peacekeeping troops, most of whom come
from neighboring countries. Similarly, the combination of western
forces and UN peacekeepers (again largely from other African
nations) has been influential in curbing violence in eastern
Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, and Burundi. Some observers
regard these and other sub-Saharan countries as "shadow"
democracies: they possess democratic forms but, in full sunlight,
these are seen to be hollow. With widespread poverty, massive
foreign debt, the ravages of war and disease (the region is home
to ten percent of the world's population but has 70 percent of
the globe's reported HIV cases), food and security needs will
continue to be the focus of populations in many of these countries.
Yet in the midst of these problems, the U.S. military is preparing
an "African Coastal Security Program" whose objective
would be to counter activities by pirates, criminals, smugglers,
and terrorists in west Africa's oil-rich Gulf of Guinea (Washington
Times, July 13, 2004).
Powell's other resolutions
called for eliminating oppression against individuals (human
trafficking and diseases); expanding international free trade;
and improving security against the depredations of international
terrorists, drug lords, and proliferators of weapons of mass
destruction. There also was a surprising pledge, given the Bush
Administration's largely unilateral approach to foreign affairs:
to rely on "international cooperationto advance freedom,
prosperity, and peace in 2004."
This last pledge pinpoints
the dichotomy that haunts the future of U.S. foreign policy in
general and the "forward strategy of freedom" in particular.
The people whom the Administration says it wants to influence
and seeks to help reach freedom see U.S. motives and presence
as a new hegemony, a new colonialism--imposed by a country whose
declaration of its divine "mission" is a fig leaf for
its real agenda of global, unilateral, "benign" (usually)
dominance.
In this respect, Daniel Webster's
caution is most apropos: "There are men in all ages who
mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to
be good masters, but they mean to be masters."
Col. Daniel Smith, a West Point graduate and Vietnam
veteran, is Senior Fellow on Military Affairs at the Friends
Committee on National Legislation, a Quaker lobby in the public
interest. He can be reached at: dan@fcnl.org
Weekend Edition
Features for July 17 / 18, 2004
Gary
Leupp
Apocalypse Now: Why the Book of Revelations
is Must Reading
Ghada
Karmi
Vanishing the Palestinians
Lenni
Brenner
When Cattle Unite, Lions Go Hungry: Notes for Ralph Nader
Ben
Tripp
Man on a Bridge: a Ghost Story
Brandy
Baker
What Would Elizabeth Cady Stanton Make of John Kerry?
M.
Shahid Alam
Israel Builds Another Wall
Sasan
Fayazmanesh
Nuclear Hypocrisy: Israel, Iran and the IAEA
Patrick
Bond
The George Bush of Africa
Fred
Gardner
Politics of Marijuana: Cannabiniod Therapuetics
William
Blum
Bush and Thucydides
Ben
Terrall
Carter and the Indonesia Elections: "I Don't See Anything
Wrong with a General Running the Country"
Tom
Barry
John Lehman on the War Path
David
Vest
Dylan Without the Music
Phyllis
Pollack
Return to Sin City: Keith Richards Does Gram Parsons
Ron
Jacobs
Smearing Muhammad Ali: Bob Feller Strikes Out
Joshua
Frank
Kerry to Edwards: "Let's Lose!"
David
Nally
A Call for Sudan: Our Georgraphical Blindspot
Toni
Solo
Bolivia's Gas Referendum
Landau,
Hassan, Prashad & Lindorff
Three Reviews of Moore's F911
Poets's
Basement
Ford, Smith and Albert
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