Haiti: A Case Study In Condi's 21st Century Foreign Policy

Plenty of blatantly hypocritical assumptions and proclamations have made their way onto the scene as a result of the conflict over South Ossetia, but Condoleezza Rice deserves an award for the masterpiece she uttered, straight-faced even, the other day:

Russia is a state that is unfortunately using the one tool that it has always used whenever it wishes to deliver a message and that's its military power. That's not the way to deal in the 21st century.

Any member of the press present that did not instantly burst out into uncontrolled laughter should have their credentials revoked. President Bush, no stranger to rhetorical one-upsmanship, won't go down without a fight, though:

The Cold War is over. The days of satellite states and spheres of influence are behind us...Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century.

A formidable challenger, to be sure.

There is no country on Earth to which Condi's epithet is more applicable than the United States, for when it comes to finding a military solution to every perceived problem, the US is without peer. Running a close second is the US's baby brother, Israel, with the aid of US arms. For all the animosity flung in the direction of Iran, Iraq under Saddam, and North Korea, none have invaded another country in the past ten years, a claim the US is in no position to make.

Haiti, one of the poorest nations in the hemisphere, provides but one prescient example of the US's dependency on military solutions to diplomatic problems, presenting us with perhaps history's only example of a country performing a second coup on the same democratically-elected leader in 2004. Not surprisingly, the first came in September 1991 under the first President Bush, when the US funded a coup that forced out Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had beaten out 11 opponents with a massive 67 percent of the vote. (For comparison, our current president didn't even capture a majority against a single opponent the first time around.)

Aristide was reelected in November 2000, again democratically, but hadn't yet learned his lesson. As he again moved to push out the criminal elements of the military, democratize the government, and begin other social programs sure to be unpopular in the boss of the hemisphere to the north. In February 2004, the US kidnapped Aristide and took him to the dictatorial Central African Republic. The official narrative, dutifully repeated verbatim by a complicit press, was that the leader simply chose to up and disappear, with no help from the US. But as Amy Goodman notes,

Why would Aristide have willingly chosen to go to a place he'd never been -- the Central African Republic -- a remote African dictatorship with poor communications and minimal access to the outside world? [Static, page 120]

Indeed, the US also banned the Steele Foundation, in charge of Aristide's security detail, from performing their duty, ordering them to leave the country instead.

For all its harping on the need to spread democracy around the globe, the US has an absolutely miserable record when it comes to supporting it more than simply rhetorically. Haiti is but one more example of the US aversion to democracy when it comes at the expense of multinational corporations of US influence. Democracy is to be supported only when it amplifies US power, never the reverse. The US, in some cases, takes an active role in bringing down democracies, as it did in Haiti.

Upon Aristide's reelection in 2000, the National Endowment for Democracy and the International Republican Institute set about creating his opposition, spending millions to create, arm, and organize the group, which was portrayed as a grassroots movement free of foreign influence. Thus, while promoting democracy in its rhetoric, the US was actively making Haiti ungovernable, paving the way for the return of dictatorial rule. The leaders installed by the Bush administration began a military campaign, rounding up Aristide's supporters with the help of US marines, who had conveniently failed to show up to protect the democratically-elected leader.

The story is well-worn by now. America is rightfully a symbol of democracy and republican government to be a model for the rest of the world. When it comes time to practice what it preaches, however, it invariably fails anywhere that falls out of step with Washington. The NED and IRI, central to the coup in Haiti, also had a hand in the attempted coup of Hugo Chavez in 2002. (Chavez is indeed a demagogue, but in the words of Bush, himself, "the days of overthrowing regimes are over.") If the US backed up its rhetoric with tangible support of democracy, its problems would be diminished many-fold, but it chooses instead to tear democratic leaders down.

Worse still, is that the American public and its press agents absolutely refuse to call the government on their double-talking foreign policy.

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Orwell Alive and Well in Georgia

President Bush spoke in the Rose Garden today, and uttered perhaps the most consecutive laughably-false phrases the world has ever known. As I've said before, one of the overarching themes of American foreign policy is the inability to see that actions carried out by others are in fact mirror images of our own, which leads to our leaders making ridiculous statements condemning common occurrences in American foreign policy without the slightest realization or self-awareness. The Russian response in South Ossetia presented a rare opportunity for the long-dormant Cold Warriors to exhibit Pavlovian responses at the slightest of stimuli, making common sense and rational thought two of the first casualties.

For his part, President Bush assures us that "bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century," hoping, I assume, that no one will point to the bullying and intimidation employed in Iraq, Afghanistan and currently Iran. Quite the contrary of Bush's statement, his foreign policy rests almost entirely on bullying and intimidation, as every nation can be placed in the "with us or against us" category.

Bush also states, "the Cold War is over. The days of satellite states and spheres of influence are behind us." This said as the US signs a deal with Poland for a missile defense shield, to compliment the deal already signed with the Czech Republic, and works feverishly to accept Georgia into NATO despite the lackadaisical efforts at democratization undertaken by the former Soviet satellite. Far from signaling the Cold War is over, the US has been intent since the withdrawal from the ABM early in Bush's presidency to be the only country allowed to pursue it. The only possible interpretation of Bush's statement is "only the US shall be allowed a sphere of influence, and Russia will like it."

Thus, the same country that spawned the Monroe Doctrine and its Wilson Corollary expects the Russians to sit idly by and accept the build up of American arms along its borders. The Russian leaders would not be fulfilling their obligations to the Russian population if they did so, and the US, of all countries, should realize that.

Georgia is just another in a long line of US allies that are less democratic in practice than they appear in American foreign policy rhetoric. Saakashvili has shut down media organs and political affiliations opposed to his governance, sometimes violently. While the US would be quick to point out such shortcomings in Tehran, Georgia is necessary to built the US's sphere of influence around Russia and they are therefore swept under the proverbial rug. The US has no objective stance on democracy, it is but one more hobby horse used to advance its agenda because the target audience has their own view of the word in their head, precluding the US from having to settle on an objective definition.

There is perhaps no country more ill-suited to deliver a lecture of this kind to Russia in the current state of the world. Bush may speak out against bullying and intimidation, but it would be immensely difficult to find two words that better defined his own foreign policy. Rather than exhibiting good moral standing, Bush's prose is an exercise in Orwellian fantasy and ludicrous hypocrisy.


Related:

Missile Defense: Rehabbing the Cold War, July 13
Reaping What We've Sown, August 12
Georgia vs. Kosovo, August 9

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Reaping What We've Sown

The overwhelming media narrative of the conflict over South Ossetia is one of pre-defined roles and clearly-defined morality which leaves little room for actual analysis of reality. Though both countries are in propaganda mode, one thing remains clear, Russia's response -- "disproportionate" or not -- was exactly that, a response to Georgia's incursion into South Ossetia. No doubt that Ossetians were engaging in small-scale provokation, and no doubt the Russians were amply prepared, but that doesn't obscure the fact that this was a Georgian operation from the start.

The other obvious missing link here is the seemingly obvious revelation that should be lurking in the background: Russia's reaction is purely a manifestation of the seeds the US has sown. Taking proportionality out of the equation, Russia was at least responding to a tangible threat to its citizens. (South Ossetians are overwhelmingly Russian.) Compare that with the US policy of pre-emption, which states that we are allowed to take unilateral military action against threats as we perceive them, even if they exist solely in the imaginations of our imperial leaders.

The groundwork for the fight in Georgia was lain in 1999 with the NATO power-expanding adventure in Serbia, yes, to protect a breakaway enclave. The US has spend the inter-nicene period in a Quixotic quest to expand NATO influence and surround Russia, a policy of which Georgia was no small part. The US officials apoplectic over Russia's opposition to such power plays are members of the same government that spawned the Monroe Doctrine and has for centuries claimed the entire Western Hemisphere as its own. Witness the US response to Cuba, a solitary, minuscule island Communist country. The US wants to put missiles on Russia's doorstep, but seemingly can't fathom that the Russians might oppose such a move, as if the US response would be vastly different were the roles reversed.

The same government now demanding that Russia follow international law is the same government that invaded a country that posed no threat in clear violation of that law, and the same country that has spent an administration utilizing lawyers to effectively make international law inapplicable to its actions. International law is what we point to when we oppose others' actions, its not what we apply to ourselves.

The conflict also provides yet another opportunity for the administration and its surrogates to side with a regime it touts as "democratic" even though such a position is clearly belied by facts. Saakashvili has been increasingly un-democratic, shutting down opposition in the form of media outlets or political parties. "Democracy" again proves to be a word without objective meaning, pliable to whatever use the administration has for it. Our allies are invariably "democratic," no matter how authoritarian. Bill Kristol illustrates the motif perfectly:

[Georgia] has had the third-largest military presence — about 2,000 troops — fighting along with U.S. soldiers and marines in Iraq. For this reason alone, we owe Georgia a serious effort to defend its sovereignty. Surely we cannot simply stand by as an autocratic aggressor gobbles up part of — and perhaps destabilizes all of — a friendly democratic nation.

Because it is allied with NATO, Georgia becomes 'democratic' by default. Punitive measures undertaken by the ruler of the country to thwart democracy do not figure into the equation. Also, as I noted Saturday, it is intellectually dishonest to treat South Ossetia differently than Kosovo. When the US goes to war in support of a breakaway province, it's taking up the flag for democracy and liberating a people. When Russia does precisely the same after that province is attacked, its an "autocratic aggressor [gobbling] up part of [sic] a nation." The argument is blatantly fallacious on its face, and clearly has no foundation in either logic or intellectual honesty.

What is central to all of the reactions to the Georgia-Russia conflict is a failure to see that the actions of Russia are directly derivative of the US's own policies. It was the US that invaded to "protect" Kosovo in 1999. It was the US that declared that nothing but a perceived threat -- tangible or not -- is required for the country to take military action with complete disregard for the UN and international law. Of all of the world's nations, there is not a single one with less moral authority to now call for the application of either than the US.

Related:

Georgia, Kosovo, and the US's Shifting Stance on Independence, August 9
What's the End Game in Georgia?, August 10

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What Orwell Didn't Know

The idea for this piece was stolen from the collection of essays by the same name. Overall a mediocre effort, but a worthy idea.

One of the first things that struck me about Orwell, as it does about many historical figures, is that both sides (in our polarized world, it is imagined that there are only two worldviews, to be taken in whole or not at all) claim him as their own. The right, recalling 1984 sees him as a virulent anti-Socialist and anti-Communist, though it is clear that it is the tyranny he opposes rather than the economics. The left, likewise, revels in his scathing of totalitarianism while simultaneously ignoring their own talent for the same. Orwell, himself, saw much the same pillaging of Dickens in his essay, Charles Dickens:

When Chesterton wrote his introduction to the Everyman edition of Dickens's works, it seemed quite natural to him to credit Dickens with his own highly individual brand of medievalism, and more recently a Marxist writer, Mr. T. A. Jackson, has made spirited efforts to turn Dickens into a bloodthirsty revolutionary. The Marxist claims him as "almost" a Marxist, the Catholic claims him as "almost" a Catholic.

The argument is baseless from the start, as Orwell was writing for his own time, not to please one side or the other of this counter-productive, mundane, polarized muck we've found ourselves in. But also, one of his prevailing themes is the use of language and its effect as a vehicle for propaganda and abuse. Who, having witnessed the banality of our current campaign season, cannot see examples of Newspeak and Orwellian language in abundance? If not used explicitly for propaganda, then at least to obfuscate the fact that the speaker, while profusely spilling forth words, is indeed saying very little.

What is clear from Orwell's writing, especially Politics and the English Language, is that he would achieve no favor in either camp, Obama a master of flashy vacuousness, and McCain a great utilizer of phrases which have assumed meanings but whose definitions he intentionally fails to apply. Citing the lack of precision in his contemporary prose:

The writer either has a meaning and cannot express it, or he inadvertently says something else, or he is almost indifferent as to whether his words mean anything or not. This mixture of vagueness and sheer incompetence is the most marked characteristic of modern English prose, and especially of any kind of political writing. As soon as certain topics are raised, the concrete melts into the abstract and no one seems able to think of turns of speech that are not hackneyed: prose consists less and less of words chosen for the sake of their meaning, and more and more of phrases tacked together like the sections of a prefabricated henhouse.

Both Obama and McCain are guilty of this fault, neither wishing to attach their prose to a specific meaning, preferring instead to allow the listener to paint their own canvas of what they want to hear. Boxing in their rhetoric with the concrete would force explanation and only inhibit their ability to woo as many people as possible.

The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different.

It seems that a men like John McCain and George Bush were no less prevalent in Orwell's time, as both embody Orwell's laments in the above passage. Both are rhetorical fans of freedom, democracy, and patriotism, but both are equally opposed to applying a concrete definition to the words. In speech, both are avid fans of Iraqi democracy and sovereignty. In practice, they see the country as nothing more than the 51st state which just happens to contain an obscene amount of oil. By throwing the words out, however, the listener applies their own meaning, and as such is capable of seeing a process in which 100s of thousands of Iraqis die as a humanitarian mission and "for their own good." Cluster bombs don't spread death, they spread democracy and freedom. The words, in true Orwellian fashion, hide from view the practical outcome of their true meaning.

Likewise, Obama is greatly aided by the fact that he, himself, is a blank canvas, which only further strengthens the effect of his equally-vacuous words and phrases. Obamas followers paint onto him their own hopes and dreams, their own wishes for a "new direction," and little attention is paid to his actual words. Much of the recent presumption of Obama flip-flops stems from the reality that many are hearing his words for the first time, although he has repeated them often.

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism., question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.

It is in this manner that killing thousands of people becomes an act of good will, the sending of other parents' children to die an act of bravery, the calling for the addition of troops and the addition of a new country in which to fight as anti-war. What's more, the electorate for the most part does not ask politicians to eliminate euphemism or vagueness. For the most part, the voting public has no more desire to see the dark face of reality than politicians have motive for giving it to them. As such, to a large extent, the American public censors itself and consigns itself to orthodoxy.

Controlling the public in a totalitarian world is simple, in democracy a little more tact is needed. Propaganda has developed since the time of Orwell in a manner which invites the target audience to do most of the censoring and imbibing of falsehoods themselves. Under the guise of a free society, the public is bombarded with false images and half-truths to the point that they censor themselves, they begin to take as fact total falsehoods without the ruling party lifting a finger.

Americans are bombarded with images of materialism on a daily basis, convinced that all they need to be happy is more toys, and in this pursuit they shed all skepticism of the political structure and cease to ask questions, preferring instead to chase pipe dreams and manufactured illusions. The public clamors for coverage of Obama's bowling average, engages in ritualistic shock at nearly every phrase consisting of anything more than pre-fabricated euphemisms and phrases, all the while ignoring any significant discussion of topics which might actually affect them.

Great pains are taken to paint the two candidates as inhabiting the extreme ends of the ideological spectrum, which sucks the public into a false, polarized debate which ignores virtually anything of substance and import. Presenting Obama and McCain as the extremes of acceptable thought rules out any possibility that the public might begin to think outside that range, might begin to question facets of the system itself. A public that willingly chases red herrings will keep quiet in the corridors of power. A public that censors itself won't ask questions or seek a return on the empty, vacuous rhetoric employed by politicians of all stripes.

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Wherein the Free Market Simply Won't Do: Airbus vs Boeing

In the world of television fiction, Seinfeld had a way of tying every minute detail of each episode together in the waning seconds. Reality provides no shortage of such symmetry, as time and again stances taken by the government one day have an uncanny knack for being contradicted days later.

The most recent instance involves the re-opening of the Air Force tanker contract, originally granted to a European company, Northrop Grumman. The first 25 minutes of the episode can be seen as the confluence of two tenets on American economic policy abroad, which in any logical world would be seen as faintly contradictory.

One is the persistent worship of the 'free market.' The term of course is not taken to mean quite what it implies. That is, the US supports the free market and concurrent globalization so long as the victors are American multinational corporations. Should any other outcome occur by happenstance, corrections (read: not-free market forces) will be applied by the rightful owners of the world marketplace.

Second, compare the US's dealings and consternation over the tanker deal with its influence over the Iraqi oil contracts. Again, in an equitable world, these two examples would seem contradictory. Consider that the US's economic policy in the globalized world is that it is the rightful heir to every other country's wealth, resources, and cheap labor. Those countries in turn are the rightful heirs to allowing America free reign within their markets.

Whereas the US has defended its granting of no-bid contracts for the reconstruction of Iraq to American companies tied to the administration, it is now putting a halt to the free market after the Air Force chose the wrong company in a bid with actual competition. Those of us still committed to defining words clearly would see that as the antithesis of the free market, but logical consistency has become somewhat quaint these days.

The deal was expected to cost Americans jobs and send US funds to a foreign country, to be sure, but when placed alongside the taking by the West of 75% of Iraq's oil revenue it begins to pale. Americans, though, have never been known for their grasp of analogies.

John McCain isn't helping his conservative credentials on the deal either:

The Pentagon's decision will also enter the realm of U.S. presidential politics because John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, had long been a critic of Boeing's initial bid. As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, he held a series of hearings that opened the door to the bid made by Northrop and EADS.

Some critics have contended that McCain favored a European supplier over an American company for a critical U.S. military contract - an impression not helped by the fact that several of his top campaign advisers had worked as lobbyists for Airbus.

McCain's crime, then, was not opposing vehemently enough the first chance for a European company to fulfill an American defense contract in spite of the fact that the Europeans, along with the rest of the world, regularly buy from America in large quantities. In other words, he allowed the free market to dictate the outcome. Or, to put it yet another way, he took the rhetorical facade of conservative pundits a bit too literally.

But conservatives aren't for a free market any more than they're for democracy. Though both are used as political punching bags, they are supported only so long as the benefits find their way to their proponents. Should a country's citizens democratically choose a path independent of Washington or a competitive contract be granted to the wrong company (say with ties to a country that didn't support the Iraq invasion), the gig is up.

Related:

Iraqi Oil, Western Profits, July 9

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Jesse Helms, Just a Man of Conviction

The outpouring of Jesse Helms eulogies since his death this weekend has been a sad sight indeed. It is standard practice to gloss over a person's life once they're gone, but occasionally there are people that dictate deviation from the societal norm. Jesse Helms was just such a person.

An unabashed racist, Helms spent his entire career crusading against civil rights, even switching parties once the Democrats proved too receptive to the incendiary demands of equality coming from Martin Luthur King and his contemporaries.

And just like the current Conservative torch bearer, George Bush, conservatives have come out in droves to praise Helms for his conviction. It doesn't seem to matter that his convictions were that of blatant racism and inequality, merely that he had them. We see the same in reference to Bush. Namely, that it doesn't matter so much that his foreign policy is a complete failure because he believes things and continues to believe them in spite of reality, the sign of a real man, to be sure.

Trent Lott said on Fox news "He had a philosophy, had principles he believed in, and he stood and fought for them."

Mike Huckabee followed with "The thing that many of us loved and admired about Jesse Helms was that, here was a guy, he didn’t care what you thought about his view, but you were going to always know where he stood because he stood for something and he stood clearly."

Again, neither see fit to state exactly what those principles he stood so strongly for were, and it doesn't take much to understand why. Those unwavering principles were on full display in 1950 as Helms supported the Senatorial campaign of Willis Smith:

"White people, wake up before it is too late," said one ad. "Do you want Negroes working beside you, your wife and your daughters, in your mills and factories? Frank Graham favors mingling of the races."

Mingling of the races, what horror. Of course, the fellas at National Review would certainly be quick to point out that that was a different time, which of course only strengthens my point. Standing for one's convictions is admirable only when not concurrent with a full frontal assault by reality.

As with many a meme in the political arena, worshiping conviction sounds deeper than it is in practice. Throughout history, there have been many men who stood by deeply held social tenets: Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, Hitler, George III just to name a few. Principled? Yes. But the content of those principles matters.

Helms' brand of racism was not merely a product of failing to adhere to PC norms, either. He wasn't merely opposing Affirmative Action or quotas, he was a racist of the most regressive kind. One who, as the ad above shows, thought that not only should minorities not be granted preferences, but that they, as inferior beings, did not belong in integrated society. In that respect, Helms would not have been out of place in the 18th Century, principles, convictions and all.

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Obama's Predictable Posturing as Centrist and the Shocked Libs in His Wake

To hear the Kossacks tell it, you'd think Barack Obama's Centrist pose was something shocking and wholly unexpected, rather than the flagrantly predicable product of the typical American campaign season. What the Koskeyites forget is that Obama knows he's already got them in his pocket, and he won't spend a minute of his general election campaign tending to that particular flock. And why should he?

American campaigns have never been about ideas, and this year's product offers nothing contradictory to that nature, despite the presence of the Orator-in-Chief and Maverick himself. McCain has spent the campaign trying to prove he's just as crazy as Bush, and Obama will spend the rest of it proving to middle class, white America he's just like them. If the Joneses get a flag pin, he'll wear a bigger one. If McCain wears a flag tie on Independence Day, Obama and Hillary will wear a matching flag blazer and pantsuit.

You see, Americans don't really care about ideas. Most Americans don't even care enough to inform themselves about anything at all that can't be found by reading US, Star, or watching TMZ. What the liberal blog denizens forget is that the opposition to the Iraq occupation isn't so prevalent because of opposition to war in general, it exists because the war turned out to be more difficult than it was supposed to be. Americans don't like long wars, but that doesn't mean they don't support sending 18-year-old men into foreign nations to teach them the ways of being a better country.

Americans don't want to hear about Shia and Sunni. Americans don't want to know that there are different factions within those delineations. That's complicated. What Americans want is an enemy. An 'other.' And, Obama, in his quest to get elected is not about to break tradition in the rush to give them one.

We will also use all elements of American power to pressure Iran. I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon, everything.

What the left generally forgets is that Americans have a short memory. While the boys and girls at Kos hold out hope that the country has learned the lessons of Vietnam, Americans demonstrate quite readily that they have already lost the lessons in Iraq that are still ongoing.

American foreign policy should serve American interests, but what American can't fathom is that every other country's foreign policy doesn't do the same. It's inconceivable that the Iranians would foster relationships they found beneficial to their own interests rather than seek America's guidance. It baffles the US that Russia would have the gall to support Russian interests.

That is why, with a prescient example of the likely outcome of an attack on Iran still happening in Iraq, the public is still hungry for candidates tripping over themselves to prove their willingness to do the same in Iran. That is why, despite all available evidence to the contrary, Iran can still be discussed as a nuclear power, and a blockade of Iranian trade can be considered without the slightest concern of its impact on the Iranian population.

But foreign policy isn't the only arena in which Obama has shown himself to be par-for-the-course. Timed well with the coming holiday, he has donned his best Super-Patriot cape and trotted out the dual symbols of flag and Cross.

I believe those who attack America's flaws without acknowledging the singular greatness of our ideals, and their proven capacity to inspire a better world, do not truly understand America.

This statement seems innocuous enough, as some tend to see flaws in America without recognizing its positive qualities, but then it diverges into a Bushian worldview in which those ideals, instead of being admired, are thrust forcibly upon the rest of the world. Patriotism no longer means an appreciation of America, it means the militaristic imposition of that appreciation on the 'others.' In that regard, Obama proves himself no different than the current administration or the potential next administration of his rival.

Asking for America to back off dictating how Iraqis or Iranians should live is not unpatriotic. It's anti-imperialistic. Bushian rhetoric dictates that America has, rather than colonized, liberated Iraq, and that instead of forcing its view on Babylon it has merely presented them the opportunity to choose their own path. But looking beyond the rhetoric and into the reality paints an entirely different picture.

The status of forces agreement that infinitely-benevolent America planned to foist on the Iraqis was nothing more than a contract in which the Iraqis would sign over any potential sovereignty to the Americans. But a position which holds that the Iraqis should choose their own path is indeed very rare in America. When it does appear, it is is instantly denounced as anti-American, rather than pro Iraqi sovereignty.

Americans aren't tired of war. They're tired of wars that can't be won post haste. That makes them open to conjecture on Iran, and Obama proves he has the audacity to conform to that ideal in his quest for the Presidency. Encyclopedic knowledge of world affairs is cute, but it won't win the hearts and minds of Americans anytime soon. In the two-party buffoonery of American politics, he who wears the biggest lapel pin wins the race.

Watching the coverage of the Presidential campaign, it becomes clear that it is not about ideas, it's about building constituencies. That means pandering to the ones you don't have and ignoring the ones you do. Where the liberals blindsided by Barack's about-face are mistaken is in their belief that his posturing is somehow antithetical to the system we've built. It's not.

On the contrary, it is the very essence of American politics. Pick out a demographic, tell 'em what they want to hear, then move on to the next. Those that see that aspect of politics as the sham it is are still lost on how to resolve it. The solution never hinges on making significant changes to the system, but always on finding better politicians. But politics is a capitalistic exchange, and as long as there's a market for bullshit, there'll be rich lawyers willing to exploit it.

The system won't be changed by better politicians, and they certainly won't come from the current bi-polar universe. No, change will come when Americans take away the market for hollow rhetoric and empty platitudes.

I'm not holding my breath.

Related:

American Foreign Policy, June 25
Obama Would Retain Contractors, March 3
The Folly of Iranian Policy, May 19

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John McCain Takes the Reins on Wishful Thinking

The spin on Barack Obama this campaign season has been that he's all bluster and little substance. That was to be expected, given his short time on the national political scene, especially when compared to his two competitors.

But John McCain on Thursday took the baton, delivering a speech in Ohio in which he laid out his vision of the world at the end of his first hypothetical term, a speech which was grandiose in scope but limited in specifics.

By January 2013, America has welcomed home most of the servicemen and women who have sacrificed terribly so that America might be secure in her freedom. The Iraq War has been won. Iraq is a functioning democracy, although still suffering from the lingering effects of decades of tyranny and centuries of sectarian tension. Violence still occurs, but it is spasmodic and much reduced. Civil war has been prevented; militias disbanded; the Iraqi Security Force is professional and competent; al Qaeda in Iraq has been defeated; and the Government of Iraq is capable of imposing its authority in every province of Iraq and defending the integrity of its borders. The United States maintains a military presence there, but a much smaller one, and it does not play a direct combat role.

Again, McCain is falling back on "winning" as the impetus for withdrawal while never spelling out what that entails or how it can be achieved. Even as he acknowledges "centuries of sectarian tension," he supposes that it will have faded in the next four years. An incredible claim, really, to presume that centuries of animosity will be solved by a decade of relative anarchy.

"Civil war has been prevented," by refusing to acknowledge it already existed, or that ethnic cleansing has been thorough enough as to render more a moot point. Disbanding militias will undoubtedly continue as more militia members are absorbed by the ISF, which is already seen as a sectarian tool by the under-represented Sunnis.

McCain seems also to be proposing permanent bases while refusing to acknowledge that Congress has to approve any SOFA, something a likely Democratic-controlled legislature will be loathe to approve.

The threat from a resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan has been greatly reduced but not eliminated. U.S. and NATO forces remain there to help finish the job, and continue operations against the remnants of al Qaeda. The Government of Pakistan has cooperated with the U.S. in successfully adapting the counterinsurgency tactics that worked so well in Iraq and Afghanistan to its lawless tribal areas where al Qaeda fighters are based. The increase in actionable intelligence that the counterinsurgency produced led to the capture or death of Osama bin Laden, and his chief lieutenants. There is no longer any place in the world al Qaeda can consider a safe haven. Increased cooperation between the United States and its allies in the concerted use of military, diplomatic, and economic power and reforms in the intelligence capabilities of the United States has disrupted terrorist networks and exposed plots around the world.

As the Taliban is currently enjoying a resurgence, in order to speculate that there will be regression McCain is obligated to propose some strategic alteration which would precipitate such a change. It can't be more troops, as the US has already pleaded for more NATO forces to no avail, and the rest of our forces are stuck in Iraq. If it's cooperation he's after, the US has already be rebuffed by NATO allies and now by its supposed staunch ally, Pakistan. As of now, and short of any specific and tangible alterations in strategic aims, that al Qaeda would be unable to find a safe haven in Pakistan is a pipe dream.

After efforts to pressure the Government in Sudan over Darfur failed again in the U.N. Security Council, the United States, acting in concert with a newly formed League of Democracies, applied stiff diplomatic and economic pressure that caused the government of Sudan to agree to a multinational peacekeeping force, with NATO countries providing logistical and air support, to stop the genocide that had made a mockery of the world's repeated declaration that we would "never again" tolerant such inhumanity. Encouraged by the success, the League is now occupied with using the economic power and prestige of its member states to end other gross abuses of human rights such as the despicable crime of human trafficking.

I can't argue with the impotency of the UN, but that in 4 years, McCain will have established a functional League of Democracies is an incredible in and of itself, but that it will have succeeded in ending decades-old conflicts and centuries-old vices is ludicrous.

Health care has become more accessible to more Americans than at any other time in history. Reforms of the insurance market; putting the choice of health care into the hands of American families rather than exclusively with the government or employers.

McCain's plan to allow Americans to buy their own insurance ignores the fact that they can currently buy their own insurance. The problem isn't availability, it's prohibitive costs and that many people, McCain included, aren't qualified for coverage.

McCain goes on to predicate several improvements on "reduction of costs." Of course, no suggestion as to just what might lower these costs.

It goes on from there, with nary a suggestion save for wishful thinking to illustrate just how any of these propositions comes to fruition.

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Crickets at the Pentagon

It's now been 10 days since the New York Times ran its piece exposing the propaganda machine in which the Pentagon utilized retired military commanders, who stood to gain from defense contracts, to propagate its message--unattributed--in the mass media outlets. In those 10 days, not a single major news outlet has discussed it, clearly indicative of the significant role played by the outlets themselves.

Consider the implications here. In the run up to the war, and in its early stages, the press of a free nation willingly disseminated the government's propaganda message in support of the war. A free press that is supposed to speak truth to power, thereby enfranchising the public, instead chose to serve, unadulterated, the meal the Pentagon was dishing out.

Until last Sunday, it seemed that the embed program was the biggest embarrassment for free press in decades. Now that pales in comparison, yet not a single major news outlet has seen fit to even broach the subject or offer apologies for committing crimes against intellectual honesty and serving the will of the state before their viewers.

Finally asked about it today (probably by someone other than a regular member of the White House press corps), Dana Perino repeated the company line that the program was okay because "it's absolutely appropriate to provide information to people who are seeking it and are going to be providing their opinions on it." The law, however, disagrees.

The GAO addresses just such a program:

Because the Department’s role in the production and distribution of the prepackaged news story is not revealed to the target audience, the prepackaged news story constitutes covert propaganda. We disagree with the Department’s contention that the prepackaged news stories are not covert propaganda because they contain only factual information. To constitute a legitimate information dissemination activity that does not violate the publicity or propaganda prohibition, the Department must inform the viewing public that the government is the source of the information disseminated.

In two successive sentences, the administration's argument (along with Max Boot and John Podhoretz) loses two of its main ingredients. Namely, that the factual basis of the information disseminated is immaterial to the question of propaganda and that failure to cite the government as the source--regardless of intent--qualifies as covert propaganda. The Pentagon met the government's own criteria for propaganda.

As is par for the course in this administration, the Pentagon, who has suspended the program, and its spokespeople are relying on recipients of the party line to forget that words have definitions. Words like occupation and invasion and torture. But propaganda does have a working definition, and the Pentagon program surely meets it.

The Office of Legal Council has insisted that the Executive Branch is not subject to the GAO, but even its legal semantics don't do much to alter the basic premise. The OLC claims that publicity doesn't meet the standard for propaganda so long as it is factual in nature and not meant to support a particular program or department policy.

Consistent with that view, OLC determined in 1988 that a statutory prohibition on using appropriated funds for "publicity or propaganda" precluded undisclosed agency funding of advocacy by third-party groups. We stated that "covert attempts to mold opinion through the undisclosed use of third parties" would run afoul of restrictions on using appropriated funds for "propaganda."

Assuming that they are correct in this assessment, the test is still met by the Pentagon program, as the military analysts were clearly supporting a specific policy, not merely disseminating facts. Those that didn't were denied access and those that did were rewarded. Documents obtained by the Times prove as much. Support of the administration's war policy was a prerequisite for participation, so clearly the program fails to adhere to the OLC's own standards for legal communications.

No matter how you slice it, the Pentagon's propaganda campaign was at the very least immoral and dishonest, and by many standards--the GAO, the OLC, and the US Code--probably illegal.

The possibility that there will be consequences aside (there won't), the mass media owes the American public at least a cursory story about the program. Voters deserve to know that the government of a free country is engaging in covert propaganda to push its policies through a complicit media.

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Tortured Logic

If there's one thing the War on Terror has made unambiguous, it's that ambiguity will continue to surround the actions of the United States and the Bush administration in its attempt to prevent further attacks upon the nation. Faced with preserving rights or preserving the ability of government to take those rights, Bush always sides with the latter, be it ever-growing surveillance powers or the use of torture in interrogations.

All too often, the administration is allowed to toss around misleading statements and outright falsehoods in the pursuit of those aims, and just as often cable news networks with 24 hours of space to fit questioning of the process fail miserably to that end. When the Attorney General was making up implausible scenarios in San Francisco, the news was centered on Barack Obama's inability to bowl. When the leader of the free world admitted that he knew and approved of violations of international and domestic law, the media wrapped itself in a blanket of despair over perceived elitism. From the poorest (relative term, of course) and least-established of the three candidates, no less.

What began years ago as "a few bad apples" participating in a sophomoric lapse in judgment has been fleshed out into full-fledged human rights violations under the umbrella of international and domestic statutes. And the media couldn't be less impressed.

As time has progressed from March of 2004, so has the overwhelming mountain of evidence pointing ever higher in the administration in search of the origins of the use of torture in US interrogation techniques. But, until Friday, there was nothing to link President Bush directly to the negotiations and planning. Those who thought such a revelation would portend some sort of culmination were sorely disappointed, as the country ignored the news with the same callous disregard in which Bush delivered it.

For the leader of a free nation to be admitting freely, without any hesitation or outwards sign of guilt, that he had full knowledge of his surrogates planning to break the law and be greeted with a shrug is nothing short of breathtaking.

First, it is important to emphasize that there is a definition of torture under US Code. It is a legal definition, not something which Bush or John Yoo get to manipulate with shifty words or maneuvering.

Sec. 2340. Definitions

As used in this chapter--
(1) "torture" means an act committed by a person acting under
the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or
mental pain or suffering (other than pain or suffering incidental to
lawful sanctions) upon another person within his custody or physical
control;
(2) "severe mental pain or suffering" means the prolonged
mental harm caused by or resulting from--
(A) the intentional infliction or threatened infliction of
severe physical pain or suffering;
(B) the administration or application, or threatened
administration or application, of mind-altering substances or
other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or
the personality;
(C) the threat of imminent death; or
(D) the threat that another person will imminently be
subjected to death, severe physical pain or suffering, or the
administration or application of mind-altering substances or
other procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or
personality; and

(3) "United States" means the several States of the United
States, the District of Columbia, and the commonwealths,
territories, and possessions of the United States.

Waterboarding has been the most-discussed method of interrogation (though the administration admits to using it on only 3 prisoners), and despite the rhetorical side-stepping of Bush and his appointees, it clearly meets the criteria of "'servere mental pain or suffering' resulting from threat of imminent death." There is really no way being made to feel as though drowning does not constitute 'threat of death.'

Yet, the act is still presented as an unclear procedure which may or may not be wrong, although any discussion of the veracity of either position is typically centered on the personal feelings of those involved in the argument rather than an objective utilization of definitions. When asked if the US tortured prisoners, Bush assured us "the United States does not torture," but we have admissions that waterboarding was used and the clear-enough definition of 'torture' under US Code to compare it to. This isn't a matter of asking the participants if they think they did anything wrong. It's not a matter of semantics. All that is required is a faithful adherence to the English language.

But beyond waterboarding, those interrogation techniques--though not talked about--which are much more widely-used still meet the definition. Consider several of the commonly-used methods: deprivation of sleep, deprivation of senses, exposure to extreme temperatures, and electric shock. To contend that these techniques fail to meet the definition spelled out in the US Code strains credibility and illustrates a wanton disregard for objectivity.

The definition clearly defines torture as "causing mental harm through procedures calculated to disrupt profoundly the senses or the personality." The Geneva Conventions explicitly prohibit "violence to life and person," "outrages upon personal dignity," and "conditions exposing [prisoners] to contagion or infection." All of the previously-listed techniques meet one or more of those definitions.

So George Bush is free to say that the "United States does not torture," but it is equally fair for others to bring up the actual definition of the US Code he has sworn to uphold in claiming he's lying. It's not a matter of opinion whether or not these acts are torture. There are legal definitions, and they are all met.

The administration, of course, does all this under the umbrella of homeland security. You've gotta break a few eggs to stop all the terrorists attacks. This first requires the belief that a government that missed a massive attack spanning two presidencies is suddenly competent enough to act upon what some schmuck says in conditions designed precisely so he'll say anything to get out of them. But, that aside, this again begs the question: When did the Executive Branch become responsible for interpreting and re-writing the law?

All good intentions aside, if the laws need to be changed, get them changed. Through legislation, not back-room semantic mangling by a sycophant flunkie. As much as it pains me, I mostly think Bush is a somewhat pitiful, hopeless idealist. I don't believe him to be inherently evil. But one thing is clear, and that is that the United States has flouted international treaties it has promised to uphold--and expects other countries to uphold when detaining our soldiers--and its own code.

Bush often says that history will be the true judge of his presidency. Sadly for him, I think that's true, because we haven't reached the end of the line yet. For all its egregious acts and slaps in the face to representative democracy, this administration has proven time and again that something more scandalous always lurks just around the corner.

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Support the Troops: Make Them More Than a Campaign Prop

In American political discourse, opposition to war--in the general or the particular--must always be counterbalanced with an unquestioning belief that US troops are paradigmatic of all that is good and virtuous about the country. To oppose the war is possible, but comes with marginalization. To be perceived as not supporting the troops is a death sentence.

Support, however, comes in many different forms. While proponents of the war are always willing to lend their rhetorical and moral support in heaping portions, tangible support is often hard for the soldiers to come by. Famously, Donald Rumsfeld lent his support to troops looking through landfills for scrap metal to armor their vehicles thusly: "As you know, you have to go to war with the Army you have, not the Army you want." And thus were the spirits of the troops lifted by the support of their generous patrons in Washington.

That was 2004. Now comes a report released by the Inspector General of the Defense Department revealing that nearly half of Army contracts between 2004 and 2006 were put into rotation "without the gear ever going through an initial test."

Nearly $3 billion worth of body armor did not go through early inspections known as "first article testing," or FAT, that are performed before major production to ensure that a company can meet the contract's requirements and to catch any defects...

"Army contracting officials did not require or perform FAT for 13 of the 28 Army contracts and orders reviewed," the report said. As a result, the Defense Department "has no assurance" that the equipment produced under the 13 contracts "met the required standards," the report said.

'Supporting the troops' has become an empty, vapid mantra recited by those who wish to perpetuate a war fought under false pretenses and marginalize all those who disagree. But when it comes to supporting the soldiers in tangible form, such as testing the body armor their lives depend on, those same people are the first off the train.

The Army's response is a thing of beauty:

The Army manager who oversees the body armor program told Defense Department officials that "the Army has no evidence of deaths that can be attributed to defective body armor."

Oh. Of course not.

"None of this equipment in all of the tests we've done is flawed," said Paul Boyce, the spokesman. "It has not shown any signs of flaws."

None of the equipment you tested is faulty? Fantastic. But perhaps the point has eluded you. It's the armor you didn't test we're worried about.

Disagreements over the war aside, if you're sending the military overseas, it is at least a primary responsibility to properly equip and protect them. To bellow and proselytize about morale and support while wrapping a young man in armor you don't know is flawless rings hollow.

Hawks already have a monopoly on rhetorical support of the troops. Now we just need them to supplement that with a little tangible support.

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