A MONUMENTAL CHALLENGE TO AMERICA

Alon Ben-Meir, February 11, 2008

The collapse of the Soviet Union at the beginning of the last decade of the twentieth century, leaving the United States as the sole superpower, led to the century being dubbed, “The American Century.” The world looked forward to enlightened leadership, visionary policies, and a multilateral approach in the conduct of American diplomacy. President Clinton was, though tainted by the Lewinsky affair, widely respected in the global community. It was hoped the new president would follow, if not the same policies, an enlightened path. But in seven short years, President Bush turned the world’s hope and optimism into deep disillusionment. Many in the Middle East, looking back, wonder how a single president could have committed so many blunders that so tarnished America’s global standing and moral leadership.

Ironically, although Mr. Bush’s Middle East policy was prompted by national security and strategic considerations championed by the neo-conservatives, everything he touched had the opposite effect than intended. Mr. Bush’s Middle East adventures underscore the enormity of his foreign policy failures, from which it may take America years to recover. But for such a recovery to occur, we must first understand what went wrong and the underlying assumptions supporting such disastrous policies. The short answer is that the failures stem from a complete lack of understanding of the historical background, cultural orientation, religious extremism, and social and political schisms in every country where the administration intervened. As examples: no central government or conqueror has ever tamed, subdued, or governed the tribal areas in Afghanistan, and the enmity and distrust between the Shiite, Sunnis, and the Kurds in Iraq, has existed for hundreds of years–thus no elections could possibly engender their amity. Yet the administration plunged into these countries with an attitude of “we know best what is good for you”– a recipe of arrogance mixed with ignorance that has proved toxic.

It was initially sound policy to invade Afghanistan to oust the Taliban and destroy Al Qaeda’s base and infrastructure, and that is why the international community fully supported the war. It was, however, tragically mistaken to not fully consolidate the coalition’s presence, pursue Al Qaeda to the bitter end, and invest all necessary resources and military power to prevent the Taliban from resurfacing and Al Qaeda from restructuring again as they both now have.

Instead of focusing on these ends, Mr. Bush decided, in the name of the war on terror, to wage, at astronomical cost, both financially and in terms of human sacrifice, a war of choice in Iraq, against a presumed enemy that posed no immanent danger and had neither connection to Al Qaeda nor weapons of mass destruction. The war unleashed a tragic civil war between the Sunnis and the Shiites, causing untold destruction and sowing the seeds for a divided Iraq, a divided region, and ominous discord between radical Muslims and the West. Iraq has now become the training ground for terrorists poised to terrorize the entire region.

Also, instead of capitalizing on the progress made in the Camp David negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians in the summer of 2000, Mr. Bush left the combatants to slug it out by themselves, which allowed Hamas to become a political force that must be reckoned with. Mr. Bush’s convening an international peace conference in Annapolis at the 11th hour of his presidency was simply cynical theatrics. Few of those with credibility believe the announced goal to reach an Israeli-Palestinian agreement by the end of 2008 is anything but an illusion.

Refusing to negotiate with Iran to end its nuclear ambitions and insisting rather on regime change in Tehran was another failed policy that only pushed Iran to accelerate its nuclear program. Further emboldened by the debacle in Iraq and swimming in oil money, Tehran defied both America and the international community without fear of real reprisal. Today, Iran poses a greater regional threat than ever, and it will become doubly menacing with nuclear weapons.

And what of the administration’s obsession to marginalize and isolate Syria? It pushed Damascus steadily into Iran’s belly, a result that should have been obvious. Refusing to be ignored and threatened with regime change, Syria spared no effort to become the regional spoiler. It has allowed Hezbollah to arm to the teeth, provided political support and facilitated financial assistance to Hamas coming from Iran, while turning a blind eye to the infiltration of insurgents and weapons into Iraq. The 2006 summer war between Hezbollah and Israel was just another unhappy consequence of Mr. Bush shortsighted Syrian policy.

Finally, Mr. Bush’s push for political reform and democracy has backfired wherever elections have occurred: In Egypt, elections strengthened the Muslim Brotherhood, in the Palestinian territories, they brought Hamas to power, in Lebanon, they created dangerous political instability, in Iraq, they precipitated civil war, and in Pakistan, they created neither peace nor stability. Without understanding the socio-economic and political conditions unique to each county, allowing democratic institutions to develop, permitting liberal parties to compete, without a free press and a fair judiciary, and a serious commitment to sustainable development projects to lift millions of Arabs from abject poverty, it should have been obvious that Islamic groups, better organized and financed, and with extensive social networks and services, would be the ultimate beneficiaries.

The administration’s mishaps in the Middle East have not been unique. Its recklessness in dealing with the environment, in denying fundamental human rights in the name of national security, in bullying and alienating many allies, in its addiction to oil and the oil interests, and in its unilateralism, have come back to haunt it. Mr. Bush is either unwilling or unable to change before his departure. The question is will the next president rise to this monumental challenge now facing America?

Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies, alon@alonben-meir.com, www.alonben-meir.com.

KOSOVO AND THE POLITICS OF RECOGNITION

KOSOVO AND THE POLITICS OF RECOGNITION

Stephen Zunes, February 21, 2008

Reprinted from Foreign Policy In Focus: www.fpif.org.

Even among longstanding supporters of national self-determination for Kosovo, the eagerness with which the Bush administration extended diplomatic recognition immediately upon that country’s declaration of independence on February 17 has raised serious concerns. Indeed, it serves as a reminder of the series of U.S. policy blunders over the years that have compounded the Balkan tragedy.

This is not the first time Kosovo has declared its independence. In 1989, Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic revoked the province’s autonomous status, allowing the 10% Serb minority to essentially impose an apartheid-style system on the country’s ethnic Albanian majority.  The majority of ethnic Albanians in the public sector and Serbian-owned enterprises were fired from their jobs and forbidden to use their language in schools or government.

In response, the province’s ethnic Albanians – consisting of over 85% of the population – declared an independent republic in 1990, establishing a parallel government with democratic elections, a parallel school system, and other quasi-national institutions. The movement constituted one of the most widespread, comprehensive and sustained nonviolent campaigns since Gandhi’s struggle for Indian independence. In response, Serbian authorities engaged in severe repression, including widespread arrest, torture, and extra-judicial killings.

For most of the 1990s, the Kosovar Albanians waged their struggle nonviolently, using strikes, boycotts, peaceful demonstrations, and strengthening their parallel institutions. This was the time for Western powers to have engaged in preventative diplomacy. However, the world chose to ignore the Kosovars’ nonviolent movement and resisted the consistent pleas by the moderate Kosovar Albanian leadership to take action. By the end of the decade, the failure of the United States and other Western nations to come to the support of the Kosovars’ nonviolent struggle led to the rise of a shadowy armed group known as the Kosovo Liberation Army, ultra-nationalists with links to terrorism and the drug trade, who convinced an increasing number of the province’s ethnic Albanians that their only hope for national liberation came through armed struggle.

By waiting for the emergence of guerrilla warfare before seeking a solution, the United States and other Western nations gave Milosevic the opportunity to crack down with even greater savagery than before. The delay also allowed the KLA to emerge as the dominant force in the Kosovar nationalist movement. Rejecting nonviolence and moderation, KLA forces murdered Serb officials and ethnic Albanian moderates, destroyed Serbian villages, and attacked other minority communities. Some among its leadership even called for ethnic cleansing of the Serb minority to create an ethnically pure Albanian state.

Tragically, former KLA leaders and their supporters now dominate the newly-declared independent Kosovo Republic.

Western Dithering

The United States and other Western nations squandered a full eight years when preventative diplomacy could have worked. The United States rejected calls for expanding to Kosovo the UN and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) missions set up in Macedonia or to bring Kosovo constituencies together for negotiations. Though many Kosovars and others expected that the U.S.-brokered 1995 Dayton accords would include an end to the Serbian occupation and oppression of Kosovo, the United States and other parties decided it did not merit attention.

When Western powers finally took decisive action toward the long-simmering crisis in the fall of 1998, a ceasefire was arranged where the OSCE sent in unarmed monitors. However, they were given little support. They were largely untrained, they were too few in number, and NATO refused to supply them with helicopters, night vision binoculars, or other basic equipment that could have made them more effective.

As Serb violations of the ceasefire, including a number of atrocities, increased, Western diplomatic efforts accelerated, producing the Rambouillet proposal that called for the restoration of Kosovo’s autonomous status within Serbia.  While such a political settlement was quite reasonable, and the Serbs appeared willing to seriously consider such an agreement, it was sabotaged by NATO’s insistence that they be allowed to send in a large armed occupation force into Kosovo along with rights to move freely without permission throughout the entire Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.

Also problematic was that is was presented essentially as a final document without much room for negotiations. One of the fundamental principles of international conflict resolution is that all interested parties are part of the peace process. Some outside pressure may be necessary — particularly against the stronger party — to secure an agreement, but it cannot be presented as a fait accompli. A “sign this or we’ll bomb you” attitude also doomed the diplomatic initiative to failure. Few national leaders would sign an agreement under such terms, which amount to a treaty of surrender: allowing foreign forces free rein of your territory and issuing such a proposal as an ultimatum.

Smarter and earlier diplomacy could have prevented the war. Instead, the U.S.-led NATO allies began bombing Serbia in early 1999, prompting a brutal ethnic cleansing campaign against ethnic Albanians by Serbian forces, resulting in nearly one million refugees. After 11 weeks of bombing, a compromise was reached in which Serbian forces would withdraw and the province would be placed under a UN trusteeship.

Though initially set back by the nationalist reaction to the NATO bombing of their country, pro-democracy Serbs were able to gain enough support to mobilize a popular nonviolent insurrection in October of 2000 that ousted Milosevic. Serbia has been under a democratic center-left coalition ever since. Meanwhile, UN administrators and a multinational peacekeeping force have tried to keep peace in Kosovo, even as KLA remnants and their supporters have continued to harass the ethnic Serb minority, forcing nearly half of its population to flee.

U.S. Support for Independence

Despite widespread sympathy for Kosovo independence, many in the international community had hoped for a compromise settlement that would grant the province genuine autonomy under nominal Serbian sovereignty. As with Taiwan and Iraqi Kurdistan, most nations have had to balance their support for the right of self-determination with concern over the threat of the violence and regional instability that could result if the country’s de facto independence became official.  In this case, however, no such balance was found, and the fallout from Kosovo’s declaration of independence and recognition by the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, and other countries could be serious.

Any effort by Kosovo to join the UN will be unsuccessful in the foreseeable future given the certainty of a veto by Russia and China. Both countries have their own “autonomous regions” composed of national minorities – a number of which have dreams of formal independence – and thus fear the precedent such international recognition could establish. Kosovo is the only state recognized by the United States not also recognized by the United Nations.

Ironically, the United States refuses to join the more-than-75 nations that have recognized the independence of Western Sahara, originally declared back in 1976. Indeed, the Bush administration is on record supporting Morocco’s call for international recognition of its unilateral annexation of Western Sahara as an “autonomous region” of that kingdom. This double standard is particularly glaring in light of the fact that Kosovo had been legally recognized as part of Serbia whereas Western Sahara is legally recognized as a non-self-governing territory under belligerent military occupation, a status confirmed by the UN Security Council and the International Court of Justice.

The United States has rejected proposals that would allow Serbia to annex a small strip of land in the northern part of Kosovo with a predominantly ethnic Serbian population and several sites that the Serbs consider to have important historical significance. At the same time, however, the United States is on record supporting Israeli proposals to annex strips of Palestinian land on the West Bank populated by Israeli Jews and other areas considered by Israelis to be of important historical significance. Ironically, the Kosovar Serbs have mostly lived on their land for centuries while the Israelis in the West Bank are virtually all colonists occupying illegal settlements built recently and in direct defiance of international law and a series of UN Security Council resolutions.

Such double standards help expose the fallacy of U.S. claims that its recognition of Kosovo is based upon any moral or legal basis.

Potential Problems

Recognition of Kosovo independence by the United States and some Western European nations under these circumstances could lead to a number of potential problems.

In Serbia, radical national chauvinists – in large part due to the incipient threat of Kosovar independence – came very close to defeating the moderate democratic coalition in the recent national elections. Hostility toward the United States and Europe as a result of what most Serbs see as a renegade province could retard the country’s efforts at European integration, worsening its economy and further strengthening reactionary forces. Though the government appears unwilling and unable to try to resolve through force what they see as a secessionist movement and the initial response from most Serbs appears to be more that of resignation than defiance, fears of rekindling Serbian national chauvinism are real. Masked Serb arsonists setting fire to UN and NATO border check posts in recent days is one such sign of looming unrest.

Another potential problem could emerge in the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia. Here, a restless Albanian minority concentrated along its western border with Kosovo could be inspired to resume an armed secessionist movement in an effort to join with its newly independent Albanian-populated neighbor.

There is potential for fallout in the Caucasus region, with the possibility that the autonomous South Ossetia region in Georgia could declare itself independent and be immediately recognized by its neighbor Russia and its allies. With the Kosovo precedent, the Georgian government could do little diplomatically to garner support and, with Russian troops already in the territory, little militarily either.

The impact of Kosovo’s independence and recognition by the United States and other Western nations could also seriously worsen U.S.-Russian relations, exacerbating differences that hawks on both sides are warning could evolve into a “new Cold War.”

It is also quite possible that there will not be any serious negative long-term impact of these recent events and, with its legacy of nonviolent struggle and democratic self-governance, an independent Kosovo could prove itself worthy of universal recognition. Nevertheless, U.S. policy has contributed a great deal to the tragic political climate in this corner of the Balkans, a climate so poisoned that the international community is greeting Kosovo’s long-awaited independence with more apprehension than joy.

Stephen Zunes is a professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco. and a contributor to Foreign Policy In Focus (www.fpif.org). From 1996 to 1999, he served as chair of the board of Peaceworkers, a U.S.-based group supporting the nonviolent struggle of the Kosovar Albanians and other nonviolent movements and peacemakers in areas of conflict.

”WE ARE LIVING THROUGH ANOTHER HIROSHIMA,” IRAQI DOCTOR SAYS

“WE ARE LIVING THROUGH ANOTHER HIROSHIMA,” IRAQI DOCTOR SAYS

Sherwood Ross, March 23, 2008

This is a revision of an essay written last year on this subject. It is based on published reports from authorities in the field.

The U.S., Great Britain and Israel are turning portions of the Middle East into a slice of radioactive hell. They are achieving this by firing what they call “depleted uranium” (DU)ammunition but which is, in fact, radioactive ammunition and it is perhaps the deadliest kind of tactical ammo ever devised in the warped mind of man.

There‚s a ton of data about this on the Internet for the skeptics: from sources such as the 1999 report of the International Atomic Energy Commission to oncologist members of England’s Royal Society of Physicians to U.S. Veterans Administration hospital nuclear medicine doctors to officials at the Basra maternity and pediatric hospital to reporter Scott Peterson of the Christian Science Monitor. Peterson used a Geiger counter in August, 2003 to find radiation readings between 1,000 and 1,900 times normal where bunker buster bombs and munitions had exploded near Baghdad.  After all, a typical bunker bomb is said to contain more than a ton of depleted uranium.

For a concise overview on radioactive warfare, read “DU And The Liberation of Iraq” by Christian Scherrer, a researcher at the Hiroshima Peace Institute, published on Znet on April 13, 2003. Scherrer states: “Based on the report of the 48th meeting issued by the UN Committee dealing with effects of Atomic radiation on 20th April 1999, noting the rapid increase in mortality caused by DU between 1991 and 1997, the IAEA document predicted the death of half a million Iraqis, noting that ‚some 700-800 tons of depleted uranium was used in bombing the military zones south of Iraq. Such a quantity has a radiation effect, sufficient to cause 500,000 cases which may lead to death.”

Scherrer writes, “In 1991 the DU ammunition was mainly used against Iraqi tanks in the desert near Basra, while in the present war DU is being used all over Iraq, even in densely populated areas including the heart of Baghdad, Mosul, Tikrit and other cities.” He adds that, based on IAEA estimates and his previous research, “the death toll may surpass a million deaths over the next few years, with more to follow!”

Scherrer notes, incidentally, the UN’s Human Rights Commission back in 1996 declared DU a weapon of mass destruction(WMD) and that those who use it are guilty of a crime against humanity. Among its users: the first President Bush, President Bill Clinton, who irradiated the Balkans, and the current occupant of the White House.

Now let’s hear it from Iraqi doctors: Oncologist Dr. Jawad Al-Ali of Basra Hospital and Professor Husam al-Jarmokly of Baghdad University “showed a rapidly increasing death toll in Iraq since 1991 due to cancer and leukemia caused by U.S. radiological warfare,” Scherrer writes, based on their presentation of December 1, 2002 at the Peace Memorial Hall in Hiroshima. Al-Ali, who is also a member of England’s Royal Society of Physicians, is quoted in Feb. 5, 2001, “CounterPunch” as stating, “The desert dust carries death. Our studies indicate that more than 40% of the population around Basra will get cancer. We are living through another Hiroshima.” (Basra is a city of 1.7 million. Does that mean 680,000 people will be stricken? That toll alone would be more than Hiroshima and Nagasaki‚s casualties.)

The same article also reported since 1990, the incident rate of leukemia in Iraq has grown by more than 600 percent and, similarly, “The leukemia rate in Sarajevo, pummeled by American bombs in 1996, has tripled in the last five years” and “NATO and UN peacekeepers in the region are also coming down with cancer.”

Dr. Zenad Mohammed, employed in the maternity department of the Basra teaching hospital, said in the three-months beginning in August, 1998, 10 babies were born with no heads, eight with abnormally large heads and six with deformed limbs, according to a report on World Socialist Web Site of September 8, 1999. And the British Guardian newspaper reported Basra maternity reported cancer cases shot up from 80 in 1990 to 380 in 1997.

Reporter Phil Gardner quotes Dr. Basma Al Asam, a gynecologist, at Al Manoon hospital, Baghdad, stating: “I’ve been watching this for seven years now and it’s increasing. We‚re not just seeing babies born with congenital abnormalities, but very late spontaneous abortions because of congenital defects. In the past we used to see, maybe, one a month. Now it is two or three cases per day.” (Two to three cases a day, h-m-m-m, does that equal about 1,000 a year at this one hospital?)

And from American doctors: Colonel Asaf Durakovic, formerly chief of nuclear medicine at the VA hospital in Wilmington, DE, said he found uranium isotopes in the bodies of Persian Gulf War veterans. The New York Times reported on January 29, 2001, Dr. Durakovic said he found “depleted uranium, including uranium 236, in 62 percent of the sick gulf war veterans he examined. He believes that particles lodged in their bodies and may be the cause of their illness.” Once inhaled, Dr. Durakovic noted, „uranium can get into the bloodstream, be carried to bone, lymph nodes, lungs or kidneys, lodge there, and cause damage when it emits low-level radiation over a long period,” the Times reported. The Times article also called attention to the cancer deaths of 24 European soldiers that served as peacekeepers in the Balkans “and the illnesses reported by many others.”

And from a U.S. researcher: Roberto Gwiazda, of the environmental toxicology department at the University of California Santa Cruz, was the lead researcher examining returned Gulf War veterans that had radioactive shrapnel wounds. The university’s “City On A Hill Press” newspaper quotes him as saying, “Of those with radioactive shrapnel wounds, all had significant levels of uranium in their urine seven to nine years after the explosion. Of those who only inhaled the incendiary uranium, a statistically significant number also had high uranium levels.”

And from U.S. veterans: Tom Cassidy, of the 1st Cavalry Division who saw service in Iraq in 2003-05: “After the first gulf war, the level of radiation was 300 times what is considered normal. In this invasion we used even more DU bullets. The effects there are horrible,” he told the UCSC paper.  Added Dennis Kyne, from the U.S. Army’s 18th Airborne division and Desert Storm veteran and who suffers from an „undiagnosed illness”: “The scientists call it cell disruption, and they don‚t know why it‚s happening to veterans, but it‚s really radiation sickness, and it’s because the DU is all over.”

Sherwood Ross is a Miami, Florida-based public relations consultant and columnist. He was formerly employed by the Chicago Daily News and Miami Herald and has written for national magazines on military and political topics and for wire services. Reach him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com.

THE POLITICS OF ILLUSIONS

THE POLITICS OF ILLUSIONS

Alon Ben-Meir, February 5, 2008

I have just returned from an extended trip to the Middle East, hoping that I would come back feeling recharged by the progress made in the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, especially in the wake of the Annapolis peace conference. To my dismay, not in Israel or in Jordan or in talking to Palestinian and Egyptian officials, have I felt or seen much optimism. Those who still believe that an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement is possible by the end of 2008–President Bush’s stated desire–are few and far between.

The pervasive sense of resignation does not stem from a lack of strong yearning for peace by either side. It mostly seems to come from the recognition that political conditions in Israel and in the Palestinian territories are not ripe for the transformative concessions needed to make a peace agreement possible. And the lamentable fact, as many throughout the political spectrum repeat, is that there is no decisive, visionary leadership that could change the political dynamic to engender public support for a new and credible narrative for peace.

In Israel, although the final Winograd report does not appear to be as damning to Prime Minister Olmert as feared, and thus he may hold on to power, he remains handcuffed by his coalition partners who do not see eye-to-eye with him on how to further the peace process. The ultra orthodox Shas party has threatened to leave the government if Jerusalem is put on the negotiating table, and Olmert has already conceded on this issue. The Labor party, led by Defense Minister Ehud Barak, still hopes for early elections, but at a time of his choosing, to unseat Mr. Olmert; in the interim Barak pursues defense policies that often are at odds with those of his prime minister. And Tzipi Livni, Israel’s Foreign Minister, is marking time. Although she called for Olmert to resign after the publication of the initial Winograd’s report, she currently supports him.† Convinced that she alone carries the mantra of Prime Minster Ariel Sharon she will miss no opportunity to assume the leadership of Kadima. The Israeli public is as divided as its government. The people charge their leaders with being self-absorbed, concerned more with their personal interest than with the affairs of the state. The opposition party, led by Natanyahu, who is leading in the national polls, accuses the government of selling Israel’s national security down the river and is lying in wait to capture the premiership once new elections are held. To be sure, although a consistent majority of Israelis (nearly 70%) accept the idea of a two-state solution, there is no national consensus on to how to proceed and what

concessions must be made to achieve this goal.

The Palestinian side is not faring much better. Mahmoud Abbas appears weak not only in the eyes of Israelis but to most Palestinians, regardless of their political leanings. The continuing violent conflict between the Fatah faction, which controls the West Bank, and Hamas, which controls Gaza, does not seem likely to abate any time soon. While Fatah seeks quick progress in the negotiations with Israel to demonstrate that moderation pays, the Kassam rockets launched against Israel from Gaza under the watchful eyes of Hamas are designed not simply to demoralize the Israelis, but specifically to undermine any progress in the negotiations between Olmert and Abbas. And while Hamas and Fatah are fighting, ordinary Palestinians, especially in Gaza, continue to bear the brunt of Israel’s closure of the border crossing in retaliation for the Kassam attacks. Out of desperation and partly orchestrated by Hamas, Gazans blasted the Rafah border crossing with Egypt to demonstrate their plight, and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians marched into Egyptian territories to buy basic necessities, to the chagrin of the Egyptian authorities. Most Israelis do not believe that the Palestinian Authority, as led by Abbas, is capable of delivering on promises made. They cite the intense and often violent conflict between Hamas and Fatah that makes it nearly impossible to reach a workable agreement with Fatah if Hamas does not accept or at a minimum acquiesce to it.

Egypt, which has been serving as a go-between for Israel and Hamas, has found itself caught between the rock and the hard place. Egyptian authorities have been struggling to find a peaceful solution to the border crisis without violence that could, if left unchecked, result in the death of many Palestinians; an outcome that would play into the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood, which is closely affiliated with Hamas–and potentially ignite tremendous unrest in Egypt. As one high Egyptian official explained to me: “We are not looking to please either the Israelis or Hamas or the Palestinian authority . . . we do not want the Palestinian people to suffer but at the same token we will not allow our territory to be violated by anyone.” As, however, the search for a permanent solution to the border crisis between Egypt and Gaza continues, it appears that Egypt is, against its intentions, being drawn ever closer into the internal and external affairs of Gaza. For reasons of their own, both Israel and Hamas seem to favor such a development. Although the Egyptian authorities reject, on the face of it, deeper involvement in Gaza, they also know the importance of controlling Hamas and of preventing the Muslim Brotherhood from sowing the seeds of political instability via Hamas throughout Egypt.

Finally, the Bush administration, which is pressed for time to show some progress, continues to exert pressure on Olmert and Abbas to make meaningful concessions. But while they are paying some lip service to Washington, both Israelis and Palestinians are looking to 2009, when a new American administration takes over, to reassess their situations. The sad thing is that every one talks about pe”ace but then everyone sees peace from their narrow and often lost perspective.

Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies: (212)600-4267, FAX: (212)866-7376, alon@alonben-meir.com, www.alonben-meir.com.

THE LANGUISHING INITIATIVE

THE LANGUISHING INITIATIVE

Alon Ben-Meir, March 4, 2008

Even before it begins the Arab summit scheduled for the latter part of March in Damascus, is in serious trouble; there are several political discords among Arab states as well as the region’s continuing violent conflicts. Whereas a resolution to the crisis in Lebanon over the selection of a new president seems a prerequisite to holding the summit, no one expects its leaders to even attempt to resolve the many other crises that have plagued the Arab world. The one critical issue that will resurface in Damascus is what to do about the languishing Arab peace initiative with Israel to prevent it from becoming another relic in the annals of the unending Arab-Israeli conflict.

This is not the time to threaten to withdraw the Initiative or to present Israel with an ultimatum to either accept or face the consequences, as some Arab leaders have suggested. Both sides have failed to do enough and both share equal blame for the lack of progress. The Initiative represents the most important position the Arab states have taken collectively, and it must remain the bedrock on which to base the peace process until a comprehensive Arab-Israeli peace is achieved. The current negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority will lead nowhere and the bloody conflict with Hamas will persist unless the collective Arab will and weight, especially Syria’s, are positively engaged in the process. All previous peace plans–including the Road Map, the Clinton\Barak parameters, and the Oslo accords–have failed because they lacked the comprehensiveness of the Arab Initiative and excluded Syria from the peace

process.

Although Israel has certain reservations about the Initiative, it must fully embrace it and publicly state its willingness, in order to achieve peace, to exchange territories captured in the 1967 war, participate in the search for a humanitarian solution to the Palestinian refugee problem, and seek a mutually accepted solution to the future of Jerusalem, all of which represent the Initiative’s principle requirements. Taking this position should not preclude Israel from clearly stating its basic four requirements for peace, which are reconcilable with the principles of the Initiative: (1) ensuring Israel’s national security and territorial integrity, (2) sustaining Israel’s Jewish national identity, (3) securing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, (this should not preclude the Palestinians from establishing their own capital in the same city), and (4) establishing normal relations with the entire Arab world. Israeli leaders must understand that for the Arab states to offer this Initiative represents a monumental leap forward. They are bewildered as to why Israel does not grasp this historic opportunity to secure the peace it has been presumably seeking for sixty years. The Initiative offers Israel peace with security; an acceptance into the Arab folds; can the Israeli leaders imagine the implications of raising the Israeli flag in 22 Arab capitals? Can they imagine the transformation that will engulf the entire region?

Meanwhile, although the Initiative is a momentous document, the Arab states cannot simply wait for Israel to act. They must make clear and open overtures toward Israel to demonstrate to their own masses that their leaders have made a strategic choice for peace while simultaneously assuring the Israeli public of their commitment to peace. This is what the Israeli public wants to see. They remember very well the late Anwar Al-Sadat’s offer of peace with Egypt in exchange for the territories captured in 1967. Sadat traveled to Jerusalem before receiving any assurance that Israel would concede even a single inch of territory. He journeyed there because he wanted by his action to demonstrate his commitment to peace. This, more than anything else, persuaded the Israeli public to fully support the Camp David negotiations in 1979, which led to peace between the two nations and Israel’s total withdrawal from Egyptian territories.

Imagine the effect on Israelis if Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah traveled to Jerusalem to worship at the Muslim’s third holiest shrines and while there address the Israeli Parliament on the merits of the Initiative. Imagine the dramatic shift in Israeli public opinion if the public sees Arab officials other than Jordanians or Egyptians (as designated by the Arab League to pursue the Initiative with Israel) meeting with their Israeli counterparts inside or outside of Israel. Imagine the effect of these encounters on Arab extremists who seek the destruction of Israel, as they face the collective Arab will. Such overtures do not suggest acceptance of the Israeli position or the endorsement of its policies. That is, they do not signify that the Arab world recognizes Israel’s borders or Jerusalem as its capital or the settlements as legitimate. What they mean is that the Arab world simply accepts Israel as a state, and is thus willing to translate a declaration of principles into a peace process. When President Sadat addressed the Israeli Parliament he made absolutely clear the price Israel had to pay for peace. He was cheered and hailed by the vast majority of Israelis as the most courageous, visionary, and trustworthy leader. Now, nearly 30 years later, Egypt remains at peace with Israel. The Arab League courageously put forth the Arab Initiative, a document that would have been unthinkable without Sadat’s historic journey.

How do the Saudis expect their Initiative to provide the basis for Arab-Israeli peace making if they continue to refuse even a handshake with an Israeli official? Although a host of issues separate Israel from the Arab states, Israel’s distrust remains the underlining factor as long as there are radical Arab groups and Islamic states such as Iran that openly avow and actively seek its destruction. Israel may be accused of paranoia regarding its national security, but then how do the Arab states intend to address this paranoia when Israelis measure their national security in existential terms? Efforts to persuade Israel to embrace the Initiative must include concrete and transparent steps that clearly demonstrate a real change in the conflict’s dynamic, as the Israeli public sees it. “Public,” is the key word here. The Arab states seeking peace must be unequivocal in their readiness to interact with Israel. They must appeal directly to the Israeli public, which despite its factional nature, agrees on the terms for real peace. If the Arab states do not want this Initiative to meet the fate of the earlier version in Lebanon, in 2002, then they must change strategy.

Israel is open to persuasion but it must recognize this historic chance and publicly embrace the Initiative. Considering, however, the long and bitter history of the conflict it will take more than a declaration by the Arab states for Israel to be persuaded.

Alon Ben-Meir is a professor of international relations at the Center for Global Affairs at NYU. He teaches courses on international negotiation and Middle Eastern studies, alon@alonben-meir.com, www.alonben-meir.com.

REVITALIZING DIPLOMACY

REVITALIZING DIPLOMACY

Daniel Kurtzer*

Source: Daily Star (http://www.dailystar.com.lb), February 5, 2008. Distributed by the Common Ground News Service with ght permission for republication.

With the resumption of the Middle East peace process after Annapolis, the focus has turned to the substantive divide between the parties regarding the core issues of territory and boundaries, security, Jerusalem and refugees. Different ways have been suggested to approach these issues: for example, trying to reach agreement on a declaration of principles; trying to reach a full agreement and then putting it on the shelf until the time is ripe for implementation; or trying for a full agreement and implementation in phases, to begin immediately.

Less attention has been devoted to questions related to the negotiation process˜for example, how to structure the negotiations, and what should be the role of the United States and other outside parties. If the past teaches us anything, however, it is that negotiation issues can often be as important as substantive issues in determining the success or failure of the peace process. A study of past negotiations, as we have learned, can be quite revealing and instructive.

Over the past 18 months, I directed a study group of the United States Institute of Peace that assessed US negotiating behaviour in the peace process since the end of the Cold War. Our study group – composed of professors William Quandt, Steven Spiegel and Shibley Telhami – interviewed more than 100 current and former officials and analysts from the United States and the region. The results will be published in mid-February in a book I have co-authored with Scott Lasensky entitled Negotiating Arab-Israeli Peace: American Leadership in the Middle East.

During the period of active negotiations, 1993 to 2000, the US administration failed to exercise its role effectively in several important respects. American officials failed to understand and deal with key asymmetries in the Palestinian-Israeli negotiations. While the United States paid attention to Israeli security requirements, less attention was devoted to Palestinian political requirements. The United States did not find a way to compensate for Palestinian political weakness. This was the first time in history a people under occupation was expected to negotiate its own way out of occupation while at the same time creating a viable, democratic and independent state.

The United States also failed to set up a monitoring system to hold the parties accountable for fulfilling their commitments and implementing agreements. American officials dedicated significant attention to keeping the process alive, even though the behaviour of the two sides ˆ settlement activity, limitations on mobility, violence and terrorism and governance weakness ˆ weighted the process down and destroyed mutual confidence and trust.

Since 2000, the United States has been almost absent from peacemaking altogether. Rhetoric has replaced diplomacy and little has been done to create or exploit opportunities for progress. If the United States is to be more successful in supporting the peace process after Annapolis, several policy initiatives and changes need to be implemented.

First, the American president must make clear that an Arab-Israel peace settlement is a vital US national interest, not a favour Washington is doing for the parties. We must avoid the false dichotomy embodied in the statement that “we cannot want peace more than the parties.” The parties need peace, and the United States needs there to be peace.

Second, there is a critical need for effective monitoring and for holding the parties accountable with regard to whatever they have committed to do. There must be consequences for bad behaviour lest the parties accustom themselves to not carrying out their obligations.

Third, the United States can and must carry out diplomacy more effectively and make better use of its “diplomatic toolbox.” The United States must have an experienced peace team with a deep understanding of the region. We must rely more on our representatives in the field. A special envoy might be necessary, but our study found that, with the right policy, the question of an envoy will sort itself out˜better a policy without an envoy than an envoy without a policy.

Fourth, the United States needs to do homework, to lock in the gains of previous negotiations and to be ready to do what is necessary ˆ and what has proved beneficial in the past ˆ to assist the parties on substance with creative ideas to bridge differences. The United States also has an array of economic tools and other incentives, which, if deployed wisely, can make a difference in the negotiating process.

Just as we have done with respect to the US role ˆ that is, analyze weaknesses and failures in an effort to learn lessons from the past ˆ Israelis and Palestinians should consider doing the same. The substantive issues are challenging and require deft and agile diplomacy that benefits from a proper evaluation of what has succeeded or failed in the past.

*Daniel Kurtzer is former US ambassador to Israel.

JEWISH ARABS AND A NEW MIDDLE EAST

JEWISH ARABS AND A NEW MIDDLE EAST

Marc Gopin*

This article was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews), March 27, 2008, and can be accessed at http://www.commongroundnews.org, CGNews has distributed it with permission for publication.

In 1998, Prince Hassan of Jordan appeared on video at the University of Notre Dame, marking one of the first academic conferences in the field of religion and conflict resolution. As he spoke via teleconference, he quoted at length and with great love from the writings of Moses Maimonides˜the world-famous medieval Jewish philosopher who had been a chief conduit between Arab neo-Aristotelian philosophy and the Christian world.

It was already a thrilling moment for me ˆ the conference was the first that I attended as an academic speaker ˆ but Maimonides was part and parcel of my sequestered religious childhood. I went to school for 13 years as a child at a place called Maimonides School, and prayed there on Sundays and Saturdays. For Prince Hassan, a major figure of the Arab world, to be embracing Maimonides felt like an extraordinary inter-cultural and inter-religious gesture. I was so moved that I had to say something to the plenary meeting.

Then I got a shock. When I shared my feelings of gratitude publicly, someone from the audience of scholars responded quite forcefully, “But he is our Maimonides, one of the great Arab philosophers of history.” I think that if I were brought up with more Jewish wounds than I had (‘Jewishness’ could be defined by how many and how deep your wounds are), I might have taken offense. But I did not, and was instead stunned, intrigued, and amused at the playful re-orientation of identities afoot in the room.

That was one of those life-changing moments for me. In that instant I realized the truth of Gandhi’s words when he claimed that, the more fluid and multiple our identities, the easier peace and coexistence can flourish at a very profound level. I noticed later in various texts and articles that Jews from the Middle East, who often originated from Spain/Al-Andalus, were referred to by scholars not only as Sephardim but as Arab Jews.

One decade later, Prince Turki, Saudi Arabia’s current National Security Adviser and former Ambassador to America, said it was time for Israel to respond to the Arab League’s 2002 offer to integrate into the Middle East. After fully withdrawing to the 1967 borders, after realizing a just two-state solution with the Palestinians˜then, he added crucially, Israelis could become Arab Jews of the Middle East.

This went unnoticed by most of the enlightened press, presumably because Al Qaeda was not mentioned and no blood of Arabs or Jews was spilled. But at a deeper level, blood was very involved: this former head of intelligence ˆ from a country from which so much of the extremism of the Middle East had emerged – was now utterly redefining identity, family, tribe and clan in terms of ethical relationships, in terms of peace and justice.

In the pages of The Forward, a centrist Jewish journal, some people reacted to Prince Turki’s offer as insulting. They assumed that it was an offer from the majority group of the Middle East for a minority to attain some subsumed and subjugated status. But after working with Prince Turki for years at the World Economic Forum, I saw that he embraced the interfaith moment as a moment of absolute equality. He was suggesting, from within the most conservative religious environment in the Middle East, that “Arab” was an ethical term of belonging and community, not a racial or tribal term. It would be like the Orthodox Chief Rabbi of Israel saying that if Palestinians can live in peace with us then they will be our Jewish brothers. I have never heard anyone, no matter how progressive, say this.

Prince Turki went to the heart of the matter, to the question of how the definition of identity can drive us away from hatred, fear, and war, toward the peaceful embrace of the other, or, alternatively, how much identity can stand in the way of all rational negotiation. He has placed a challenge before every Jew and Arab as to who they really are, and who they will be in the future of the Middle East.

*Marc Gopin is the James Laue Professor of World Religions, Diplomacy and Conflict Resolution at George Mason University in Washington D.C. He can be reached at mailto:mgopin@gmu.edu.

SLOWLY BUT SURELY OUR HEARTS ARE TURNING

Dvir Abramovich*

Source: The Age (http://www.theage.com.au) 31 March 2008. Distributed by the Common Ground News Service with permission to republish.

The heartbreaking and seemingly intractable Israeli-Palestinian conflict seems to embody W. B. Yeats’ feeling that “Too long a sacrifice can make a stone of a heart”. And indeed, the situation in Gaza may have reinforced the perception that hatred, irreconcilable differences and hopelessness make up the prevailing mood between Israelis and Palestinians.

Yet another tale is slowly emerging. Although the news reports tend to zero in on the religious division, tension and violence, the truth is that reconciliation efforts between Israelis and Arabs are quietly gathering momentum. Small and faithful acts of hope form part of a continuum of peace-making possibilities propelled forward by tireless warriors who are driven by the belief that the mightiest tree may grow from the tiniest seed.

Determined not to allow extremists such as Hezbollah and Hamas to win, Israelis and Palestinians have been doggedly attempting to build peace from the ground up, breaking through the years of distrust and suspicion, and boldly trekking towards co-existence.

Consider the Open House initiative, a centre situated in the Arab town of Ramle that is devoted to building trust and friendships between Muslim and Jewish children. Among its programs are a summer camp for 100 Jewish and Arab teenagers and an Arab and Jewish parents’ network, as well as a day-care centre for Arab children.

In Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam (Oasis of Peace), a Nobel peace prize-nominated community in Israel founded in 1972, Palestinians and Israelis live harmoniously side by side and teach their children the histories and national narratives of both peoples.

The eminent Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim has created the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, an ensemble of young Jewish and Arab musicians, including participants from the Palestinian territories, Syria and Egypt. The collection of talented players has performed in Britain, Brazil and Argentina.

In the spirit of building understanding and unity, four Israelis and four Palestinians scaled an icy mountain and braved rough seas in Antarctica as part of the Breaking the Ice expedition in 2004. After reaching the top, the group named the snow-capped point ‘Mountain of Israeli-Palestinian Friendship’. Their joint statement read: “We have proved that Palestinians and Israelis can co-operate with one another with mutual respect and trust ∑ We hereby declare that our people can and deserve to live together in peace and friendship.”

Then there is Hello, Salaam! Hello, Shalom!, a telephone hotline that allows Israelis and Palestinians to talk with someone on the other side. Within the first seven months of the launch, more than 80,000 people from across Israel and the Palestinian areas have called the line, talking for a total of about 300,000 minutes.

Particularly significant is the Pathways to Reconciliation project, an inspiring program that sends about 80 Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs and Palestinian educators to Turkey each year to take part in a conference entitled Continuing Dialogue in Times of Crisis. When they return, the teachers work to strengthen the peace education program that has been running for 12 years in 60 Palestinian and Jewish high schools. Much of the program’s power comes from the tremendous change it brings about in the mindset of the participants.

In June 2003, a group of about 250 Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs, Palestinians, and Jews and Muslims from France took part in a four-day journey to the Nazi death camps of Auschwitz-Birkenau and Krakow. Amid the ghastly images, the group walked along the railway tracks where the diabolical selections of Jews had taken place; they then entered the gas chambers, the crematoriums and prisoners’ huts.

After hearing the testimonies of survivors, the group erected a small memorial near the Death Wall, where Jews were lined up and shot. Then, Arab participants read out the names of the mission’s Jewish members’ relatives who perished there. At this moment of shared charity and compassion, the delegation began singing traditional songs of the Holocaust.

One cannot avoid mentioning the bereaved parents who have lost loved ones to spasms of violence. Israeli Roni Hirshenson lost his eldest son, Amir, in a bus bombing only to lose his second son, Elad, when he committed suicide after his best friend was killed in a bombing. Rather than choose vengeance, the shattered father remarkably chose reconciliation, believing that only by erecting common interests between Israelis and Palestinians can the senseless slayings stop.

He heads the Parents’ Circle Relations committee, an interfaith organisation composed of 200 bereaved Jewish parents and 200 Palestinian bereaved parents who have lost children to the protracted violence. The group has lectured to more than 50,000 students, in addition to staging political rallies and donating blood to each other’s hospitals. Let us hope that reconciliation continues, an endeavour that, in the words of Abraham Lincoln, “the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless.”

*Dr. Dvir Abramovich is director of Jewish Studies at the University of Melbourne.

MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX CALLS SHOTS IN AMERICA TODAY

MILITARY-INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX CALLS SHOTS IN AMERICA TODAY

Sherwood Ross*

On the brown prairie just a few miles west of Belle Fourche, (pronounced BELL-foosh, South Dakota), a town that styles itself the geographic heart of America, you can pull your car off two-lane blacktop highway 212 and watch the antelope graze. These graceful creatures keep back a couple of hundred yards from the road, and if you approach them to take pictures they will pick up their heads and tails and amble off in the opposite direction. They’re wary enough so that if some fool with a rifle tried to take a shot, there’s a good chance they’d escape.

Now and then behind the barbed wire fence strung along the highway, you can spot the antelope grazing near the concrete ruins of an abandoned missile silo nudging above the surface. Here, at the height of the Cold War, missiles slept waiting for the alarm clock that would ring if nuclear war broke out with Soviet Russia. The antelope pay no mind to the possibility some really indigestible stuff might have leaked up from the silos that might ruin their meal.

The nuclear silos were peopled by two men, so that, in theory, if one went nuts, the other could prevent him from launching the nuclear missile on his own initiative. A U.S. Senator once boasted, “We can hit the men’s room in the Kremlin” and these silo soldiers were the plumbers at the ready to flush the world’s troubled toilet bowls. In order to fire the missile, though, both operators had to turn the handles of their instruments simultaneously. The only wee problem is someone figured out how one man could disable the other and, by using a rope attached to a spoon, turn the disabled man’s trigger along with his own, thus launching his own private nuclear holocaust.

Much of the country’s nuclear stockpile has been dismembered, and the ranchers in nearby Belle Fourche are no longer collecting a little extra rent from the Pentagon for the use of their meadowlands. They console themselves with a homespun parade and genuine rodeo every July 4th that’s worth a trip to South Dakota. Cowpokes on the floats throw candy at bystanders and the cowgirls racing around the barrels in the arena are among the prettiest.

USA has reduced its stockpile of nuclear warheads to about 10,000, according to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. “No Nukes News,” published by Peace Action Education Fund of Washington, D.C., says the arsenal is nevertheless equivalent to 130,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs. “This is firepower enough to destroy the Earth, and all life on it many times over,” they observe. Nuclear war-ready America is just one of the several props that sustain the Military- Industrial Complex (MIC). Nuclear warfare began when President Truman sought a way to shorten WWII, in part to save the lives of U.S. fighting men. The bombs that leveled Hiroshima and Nagasaki did that all right, at the expense of shredding international conventions against bombarding civilians. Another outcome was the costliest arms race in history. If the U.S. could drop the atomic bomb, why couldn’t Soviet Russia make one and drop one? Why not China? Israel? India? Iran? And rather than share the technology with its wartime Soviet allies, the U.S.-U.K. bomb developers kept the secret to themselves, insuring a nuclear arms race that has bled the U.S. of $7-trillion since the Manhattan project. Albert Einstein, looking back, said writing FDR about the possibility of creating an atomic weapon was the worst mistake he ever made in his life. Over the years, the manufacture and testing of A-Bombs and H-bombs would lead directly to many deaths and fill the atmosphere with poisonous fallout liable to cause cancers for centuries to come. As for the cost of a Cold War that might have been averted, General Douglas MacArthur, hardly a pacifist, said, “The hundreds of billions of dollars now spent in mutual preparedness (by America and the Soviet Union) could conceivably abolish poverty from the face of the earth.”

Unfortunately, there are some American who do not wish to end arms spending, much as they’d deny it if accused of such perfidy. We know, though, because we have their word for it. Named by President Truman as Defense Mobilization Director in World War II, former General Electric chief Charles E. Wilson put it baldly when he called for an alliance of Big Business and the military in a “permanent war economy.” He got his wish, too. It wasn’t idle talk. A Bureau of the Budget report in 1946 said during the war the Army sought “total control of the nation, its manpower, its facilities, its economy,” according to author Fred J. Cook in his “The Warfare State”(Macmillan), published in 1962. That’s not exactly what President George Washington had in mind when he declared in his Farewell Address in 1796, “Overgrown military establishments are under any form of government inauspicious to liberty, and are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican liberty.”

Earlier, when FDR’s appointee to run the War Production Board, Donald Nelson, a former Sears’ vice president, had a difference with the Pentagon, FDR told Nelson not to rock the boat. It was General Brehon Somervell, boss of Pentagon procurement, who called the shots. So military contractors built and overbuilt, to the point where the U.S. produced, for instance, more than 130 aircraft carriers during WWII, so many it sent a flotilla of leftovers to ally Winston Churchill.

In 1944, with an Allied victory probable and when humungous stockpiles of ammunition and other war materials were climbing skyward, many small contractors wanted to begin the conversion to peace-time consumer goods. According to author Cook, the big defense contractors quashed this initiative because the nimble small players could convert more quickly, so nothing was done until the top defense contractors were good and ready.

The military wasn’t supposed to run the USA. Alexander Hamilton warned us about it long ago: “The continual necessity for their services enhances the importance of the soldier, and proportionably degrades the condition of the free citizen. The military state becomes elevated above the civil.” The Declaration of Independence indicted Britain’s King George for making “the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.” The military’s lavish spending goes back even to Colonial times. As “Yankee Doodle” himself recalled in the famous song, “And what they wasted every day I wish it could be saved.”

Starting with WWII, according to Cook, permanent revolving doors were built linking the Pentagon and Corporate America. There were 1,400 executives from the rank of major and up employed by the top 100 defense contractors, he said. General Dynamics alone had 27 generals and admirals on its payroll. That practice continues to this day, and at the highest levels. The MIC crowd also occupies top slots in Washington. As John Perkins noted in “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man” (Plume), George Shultz, Nixon’s Treasury secretary, served as a Bechtel president and Caspar Weinberger, Defense Secretary under President Reagan, had been a Bechtel vice president. Bechtel, of course, is one of the Pentagon’s leading business partners.

During the Fifties, many generals and their business buddies fanned out across the country preaching the gospel of preparedness and, at times, even the lunacy of preventive war. Government contributed to the hysteria by urging Americans to build fallout shelters. In an uncharacteristic but prescient remark, General MacArthur declared: “Our government has kept us in a perpetual state of fear — kept us in a continuous stampede of patriotic fervor ï¿∏ with the cry of a grave national emergency. Always there has been some terrible evil at home or some monstrous foreign power that was going to gobble us up if we did not rally behind it by furnishing the exorbitant funds demanded.”

So it was that another general, President Dwight Eisenhower said upon leaving the White House, “In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.”

In words that now seem prophetic written in 1962, Cook predicted Vietnam: “If we are dragged into another (after Korea) limited war in Southeast Asia, we shall bleed ourselves of our finest youth and our future leadership in a blind endeavor to halt and contain by force an ideology we detest. The battle, if it is fought on these terms can only succeed in bleeding us white in endless ‘police actions.’”

“America has been changed without any popular recognition of the fact, from a peace-loving and isolationist democracy into a Warfare State whose real intent…is not the preservation of peace and law and order in the world, but the extension of our own capitalist system throughout the world…” Cook concluded, adding “…insanity has become our way of life.”

The CIA spread the insanity by creating revolutions the world over, just the sort of violent action it liked to blame on Communists such as Cuba’s Che Guevera, who invaded Bolivia. Did the American people ever vote to overthrow all the governments the CIA toppled from power? Did they even know what was being done in their name? A partial list of countries overthrown by the CIA includes Iran, 1953; Guatemala, 1954; Dominican Republic, 1963; Ecuador, 1963; Indonesia, 1965; Cambodia, 1970; Chile, 1973; Portugal, 1975; Chad, 1982; Bolivia, 1982.

As a result of the CIA’s breeding so much hatred around the world, if we’re not scared out of our wits over possible reprisals, maybe we should be. Today, leftover Cold War era nukes can be smuggled into the U.S. and detonated. How does an industrialized nation with so much to lose respond to a desert kingdom or a stateless gang of thugs having access to a nuclear trigger? What good are all the Star Wars anti-missile defense shields (still being built, naturally, at great cost to the taxpayers,) against incoming missiles, when the nuclear strike can be imported for cheap on a cargo ship? It is nations such as the U.S. and Great Britain, whose leaders decided 60 years ago to build atomic weapons, that stand in the gravest peril today as a result of that decision.

Speaking of the Star Wars defense, the New York Times reported a senior Congressional investigator has accused the Government Accounting Office of covering up a scientific fraud among builders of the $26-billion system designed as an anti-nuclear missile shield. The contractors are off to a poor start, he said, on a system that will eventually cost the taxpayers $250-billion. The investigator, Subrata Ghoshroy, said GAO ignored evidence the two main contractors “had doctored data, skewed test results and made false statements” to the government. Ten years ago like charges were made by a senior engineer who then charged contractor TRW in 1995-96 “had falsified research findings” about the project. (By the way, how many public schools can you build for $250-billion? How much low- and moderate-income housing? How much mass transit? How many diseases could you wipe out around the globe?).

As the late economist John Kenneth Galbraith wrote in UK’s “The Guardian” on July 15, 2004: “In 2003, close to half the total US government discretionary expenditure was used for military purposes. A large part was for weapons procurement or development. Nuclear-powered submarines run to billions of dollars, individual planes to tens of millions each.”

Galbraith went on to write, “Such expenditure is not the result of detached analysis. From the relevant industrial firms come proposed designs for new weapons, and to them are awarded production and profit. In an impressive flow of influence and command, the weapons industry accords valued employment, management pay and profit in its political constituency, and indirectly it is a treasured source of political funds. The gratitude and the promise of political help go to Washington and to the defense budget. And to foreign policy or, as in Vietnam and Iraq, to war. That the private sector moves to a dominant public-sector role is apparent.”

Today, the MIC is operating full-blast. For example, President Bush is determined to keep the Texas factories that make the F-18 fighter-bombers humming by selling the planes to India and Pakistan. No matter these planes can deliver nuclear warheads and will only escalate tensions between the touchy neighbors. America today has the unenviable distinction of being the world’s No. One arms peddler. Uncle Sam, the hardware king!

What’s more, under Bush, military spending climbed from $290-billion in 2001 to $437-billion in 2004 and, counting the separate appropriations for the Iraq War and the tens of billions spent on the intelligence agencies, it could top $600-billion this year.

Arms makers are becoming millionaires overnight. United for Fair Economy and Institute for Policy Studies reported in 2004 the Iraq War is leading to “huge average raises (for CEOs) at the biggest defense contractors. One CEO of a bulletproof vest firm increased his salary from $525,000 in 2001 to $70-million in 2004, the report said. As for “free enterprise,” so cherished by Republican lawgivers, only one of the top 10 defense contractors “won a majority of its contracts through ‘full and open’ competition,” according to the Center for Public Integrity, of Washington. “All the rest collected most of their contract dollars through sole source contracts or other no-bid procedures.”

The exception was SAIC. The other contractors who cashed in largely without competing are Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, United Technologies, General Electric Carlyle Group, and Newport News, CPI said.

Taxpayers typically do not know of the lack of competitive bidding or recognize that much of what is spent is lavished on obsolete technology. William D. Hartung, co-author of a World Policy Institute Special Report at the New School University, found “Contracts for the top 10 weapons contracts were up 75% in the first three years of the Bush Administration alone,” — much of it apparently wasted on obsolete technologies.

When the Pentagon is informed of wasteful practices, it commonly ignores them. As Knight-Ridder reported last January 24, Congressman Walter Jones, (R-N.C.) is quoted as understating, “We’ve got an agency that is not doing its job of being a watchdog for the taxpayers.” Retired Army Reserve officer Paul Fellencer Sr. complained to the Pentagon’s fraud hot line last year about $200-million worth of outrageous overpayments for ordinary supplies. Pentagon investigators never bothered to call him and dismissed his tip as “unsubstantiated,” the news service said.

The failure to perform by contractor Halliburton, formerly headed by Vice President Dick Cheney, has been well documented. Now it appears, according to the Los Angeles Times, President Bush’s uncle, William H.T. Bush, better known as “Uncle Bucky,” collected just under $1.9-million in cash plus stock valued at more than $800,000 from the sale of Engineered Support Systems Inc. The Times said ESSI “experienced record growth as a result of expanded U.S. military contracts — many to supply U.S. efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.” The paper also noted some of the contracts were awarded on a no-bid basis, including a $77-million deal to refit military vehicles with armor for use in Iraq and the firm is under investigation because equipment it was supposed to supply didn’t work properly.

Author Johnson quotes Robert Higgs of the Independent Institute, of Oakland, Calif., as describing the MIC as “a vast cesspool of mismanagement, waste, and transgressions not only bordering on but often entering deeply into criminal conduct… The great arms firs have managed to slough off much of the normal risks of doing business in a genuine market, passing on many of their excessive costs to the taxpayers while still realizing extraordinary rates of return on investment.”

Meanwhile, President Bush chops away at the domestic budget, even cutting back funds for cancer research, veterans, and education. Several million Americans are homeless. Forty million do not have medical insurance. Thirty million slave at jobs that do not pay them enough to afford decent housing. Millions of potentially valuable young people cannot afford to start college. And the man responsible for much of today’s record $8-trillion national debt, as part of his plan to gut Social Security, has the temerity to warn the country this solvent and self-sustaining system will be in trouble 25 years from now!

Let us recall Washington Post reporters Woodward and Bernstein were told during their Watergate probe to “follow the money.” Apparently, that’s what government in America is all about. It surely is what the MIC is all about. Of the estimated $1-trillion wrung from taxpayers on April 17th, about half will find its way into the coffers of the MIC. The American public is being victimized by defense spending while its domestic needs for affordable housing, fair wages, medical care, and social justice are unmet. As Charlie Wilson knew long ago, MIC can be a perpetual money machine. To keep the military cauldron boiling, the Pentagon is plowing $1.5-trillion dollars into research to create a witches’ brew of 80 new advanced warfare systems.

In so many ways, the invasion of Iraq is all about money. WMD was just the lie to bring it about. Not only is the MIC cashing in big time but oil companies, such as Exxon-Mobil are gorging themselves on record high profits. Other Anglo-American oil companies are waiting in the wings for regimes friendly to the U.S. to push through pipeline deals the Taliban government in Afghanistan and the Hussein regime in Iraq refused to permit. As war-related damage to Iraq’s oil infrastructure has reduced its oil output below pre-war levels, thus tightening supplies, the price of gas charged at the pump to American motorists goes up and up.

In sum, Americans have a problem. What Hamilton and the other Founders feared long ago is now reality. The MIC has thrived for nearly a half century thanks to a compliant Congress, but never so much as today when Republican congressmen and lobbyists are being jailed wholesale for greed. The MIC has transformed an isolationist nation that didn’t want to get involved in WWII into a global bully with 725 acknowledged military bases in 130 foreign nations. (That’s in addition to nearly 1,000 bases in the USA.) Actually, writes historian Chalmers Johnson in his best-seller “The Sorrows of Empire”(Henry Holt), “there are many more, since some bases exist under leaseholds, informal agreements, or disguises of various kinds.”

On Okinawa alone, he writes the Pentagon operates 38 separate bases on the choicest 20 percent of the island.” In South Korea, there are more than 100 bases. Johnson says Okinawa is typical: “The conditions there — expropriation of the island’s most valuable land for bases, extraterritorial status for American troops who committed crimes against local civilians, bars and brothels crowding around the main gates of the bases, endless accidents, noise, sexual violence, drunk driving crashes, drug use, and environmental pollution—are replicated anywhere there are American garrisons.” That Okinawa’s people, and others unhappy with the American presence, would like the U.S. “gone” is irrelevant to the Pentagon. As Johnson notes, “After more than fifty years, the air force shows no signs of leaving (Greenland) despite continuous protests by the Inuit of Greenland and numerous lawsuits filed in the Danish Supreme Court.”

“Our country deploys well over half a million soldiers, spies, technicians, teachers, dependents, and civilian contractors in other nations and just under a dozen carrier task forces in all the oceans and seas of the world,” Johnson writes. “We operate numerous secret bases outside our territory to monitor what the people of the world, including our own citizens, arte saying, faxing, or e-mailing to one another. Our globe-girding military and intelligence installations bring profits to civilian industries, which design and manufacture weapons for the armed forces or undertake contract services to build and maintain our far-flung outposts.” What’s more, the State Department’s International  Military Education and Training Program has been providing instruction to the armies of  133 out of 189 countries around the globe. Johnson writes, “The Pentagon finds it convenient to train foreign military forces and police to carry out secret programs of state terrorism, including the assassination of foreign leaders, without being charged with war crimes and violations of the Geneva Convention.”

Unfortunately, Americans seem as indifferent to military control as antelope grazing on the South Dakota prairie. The question is: Will Americans take action to rein in the MIC? As President Bush was deaf to the cries of the UN’s Hans Blix that Iraq had no WMD, as he did not listen to the UN Secretary-General and the Pope when they pleaded with him not to invade Iraq, as he paid no heed to the millions of common folk around the world who demonstrated against his Iraq invasion, he is not likely to listen to any critics now. He is threatening Iran with “the nuclear option” because Iran, with its paltry $3.5-billion military budget, might be capable of making one atomic bomb five to ten years from now. All the while President Bush sits on an obscene nuclear stockpile of 10,000 bombs, repudiating nuclear arms control treaties on his own and reigniting the arms race!

Not surprisingly, people the world over, as historian Johnson writes, have caught on to the fact that the U.S. is “something other than what it professed to be, that it was, in fact, a military juggernaut intent on world domination.” What can people do? One effective response each individual can take is to boycott American-made cars and other manufactured goods, cancel vacations and business travel in USA, refuse to educate children in America, and stop patronizing American fast food restaurants and buying Hollywood films. By following the nonviolent path shown by Gandhi and Martin Luther King, peace-seeking people in every nation can send President Bush a message even he can read.

*Sherwood Ross, a former executive in the U.S. civil rights movement, reporter for the Chicago Daily News, and wire service columnist, is founder of the League for Nonviolent Solutions, Charlottesville, Virginia, USA. Contact him at sherwoodr1@yahoo.com.

PEACE & NONVIOLENCE EDUCATION FOR WORLD PEAC & HUMAN UNITY

PEACE & NONVIOLENCE EDUCATION FOR WORLD PEAC & HUMAN UNITY

Dr.Subhash Chandra, Director- World Peace Center, New Delhi, scpeace2000@yahoo.com

Modern Civilization & World Crisis

“For building a better world, the transformation should begin at individual level,” Said Acharya Mahapragya, Leader and propagator of the Anuvrat movement.

We have built a society, which is violent & explosive .We are living in extremely explosive times where the context of human life is changing every moment. Our society is crumbling; the wave of destruction is constantly taking over the way of life. The ecological crisis, population increase with increasing poverty, hunger & violence, economically unbalanced world, arm race & expenditure on armament are facing man to think & face the realities of destruction of humanity. We are living in a world of crisis, crisis of self-destruction. Humankind has entered into 21st century & new millennium. Due to the process of globalization there are many opportunities as well as threats to the human society. In spite of the remarkable material progress made by the human being due to advancement of science & technology, mankind is still facing the following crisis particularly in the third world countries.

Survival Crisis        – from possible Environmental destruction;

Civilization Crisis   – from possible violence & hatreds;

Cultural Crisis       – from possible mind pollution; &

Spiritual Crisis       – from possible erosion of human values.

As we are living in world of crisis – crisis of poverty, economic crisis, crisis of environmental degradation, cultural crisis and crisis of human values i.e. crisis of peace & human rights violation. In total sum – we are facing ‘Crisis of Peace & Humanity’.

Origin of violence & violent consciousness:

Violence resides in the minds of humans, while socially it is organized through so many structures of violence. The key forces of Violent Consciousness are as follows:

‘Avidya’ – Ignorance

‘Krodha’ – Anger

‘Ahamkara‘ – Ego

Division of Humanity:

The main root causes of division of humanity are as follows:

Fear, Hatred; &  Greed.

The root causes of divisiveness and compartmentalization is fear, hatred & greed. Together, they breed prejudice, discrimination & violence. Therefore, it is in the mind of human being that the struggle must be waged to eliminate the artificial barriers that divide nation from nation, race from race, religion from religion, tribe from tribe & human being from human being. To meet the challenges of 21^st century & to save the humanity from further destruction we have to change our attitude from  ‘Culture of violence ‘ to ‘Culture of Peace’ & we have to change our consciousness from ‘Violent Consciousness’ to  ‘Peace Consciousness’.

Peace Education

Mind is the origin of violence & peace. Fear, hatred & greed are produced in the mind due to Avidya (Ignorance), Anger (Krodha) & Ahamkara (Ego) Violent Consciousness has to be converted into peace consciousness through control of mind or through conquest of mind.

World peace starts with peace in self, in family, in our society, in our cities and extends beyond all political borders. We must teach our children and ourselves Peace & value education for creating peace in ourselves and in the minds of the children. “World peace is possible and a natural part of mankind’s evolution and it can be achieved only through Peace values.” Education is the process of human transformation through which we try to lead someone from ignorance to knowledge, from confusion to clarity of mind, & from darkness to light.”

Aim & Objectives of Peace Education:

“The aim of the Peace Education is to create a consciousness of world civilization and to ensure to coming generations a world wide union of minds & hearts, springing from the integration of all the essential insights within the various cultures of the world.” – Said Swami Nitya-Swarup-Ananda.

Peace & value education is directed to the full development of the human character and personality; towards greater respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms. Peace & value education promotes understanding, tolerance and respect among the people of all nations without exception.

What are the Goals of Peace Education?

Betty Reardon In her book “Comprehensive Peace Education: Educating for Global Responsibility,” states that the overarching purpose of Peace Education is to “promote the development of an authentic planetary consciousness that will enable us to function as global citizens and to transform the present human condition by changing the social structures and the patterns of thought that have created it.”

In essence, there are three main goal of peace education i.e. Development of certain knowledge, Development of Skills, and attitudes in learners and teachers.

1. Development of Knowledge and exploration of: Human Rights, Environment, Structural Violence, Peace & Justice, Power, Freedom, Participation, and Human Welfare.

2.Development of Skills in: nonviolence, the ability to negotiate, compromise, assess personal feelings and the feelings of others, conflict resolution, listening, and communication.

3 Development of Attitudes or Values relating to: Peace, Trust, Cooperation & Empathy, Respect for Self, Others, and the Environment, Caring and Awareness, and Tolerance.

The UN General Assembly, as part of its 1999 Declaration and Program of Action, called for a Global movement for a Culture of Peace. The United Nations General Assembly has proclaimed the Year 2000 as the ‘International Year for the Culture of Peace’ and the Period 2001- 2010 as the ‘International Decade for the Culture of Peace and Nonviolence’ for the children of the world.

The World looks forward to a non-violent society. But such a change can be affected only if we are willing to experiment with and subsequently practice non-violence in our society. A culture of peace entails understanding, tolerance, and respect for human rights, democracy, equality, and free flow of information and equitable and sustainable development. Peace is also defined as a human right, we as citizens of a society do not have the right to go and bomb our neighbor, so how then can we justify bombing our neighboring country?

The principle of non-violence is the key factor to eliminate the culture of war, violence and terrorism.

“Culture of Peace is a set of values, activities, modes of behavior and ways of life that reject violence and prevents conflicts by taking their root causes to solve problems through dialogue and negotiation among individuals, groups and nations”-

The key-values of this culture are: tolerance, solidarity, sharing and respect of every individual’s right -the principle of pluralism that ensures and upholds the freedom of opinion that strives to prevent conflict by tackling it at its source, including new non-military threats to peace and security such as exclusion, extreme poverty and environmental degradation.

To achieve this culture of peace we must respect all life; the lives of the citizens of our own country as well as the lives of those living in the countries of our “enemies” and furthermore our enemies themselves. We have to reject violence in all its forms, from physical to sexual and economical. Sharing with others, cooperation, and listening to understand. A special focus should be given to the Peace & value education in future of next generations for developing a nonviolent global harmonic society. Youth are “creative & change agents” of dream and manifest the beauty of tomorrow through Peace & value education. Youth as “agents of change” can explore a greater understanding and therefore a way towards a Global Peaceful world with human dignity & progressive Harmony of co-existence. Peace Education is ‘a process of self transformation from violent consciousness (VC) to Peace consciousness for building peace and harmony.

The Call for Values

The call for values is currently echoing throughout every land, as educators, parents and more and more children are increasingly concerned about and affected by violence, growing social problems, the lack of respect for each other and the world around them, and the lack of social cohesion. World leaders struggle with a myriad of problems. Educators are, therefore, once again being asked to address problems, which have arisen within their societies.

As UNESCO’s Commission, headed by Jacques Delors,¹ reports in Learning: ‘The Treasure Within’, “In confronting the many challenges that the future holds in store, humankind sees in education an indispensable asset in its attempt to attain the ideals of peace, freedom and social justice. The Commission does not see education as a miracle cure or a magic formula opening the door to a world in which all ideals will be attained, but as one of the principal means available to foster a deeper and more harmonious form of human development and thereby to reduce poverty, exclusion, ignorance, oppression and war.”

Living Values: An Educational Program (LVEP) has been produced in response to the call for values. Living Values Education Program LVEP is part of the global movement for a culture of peace in the framework of the United Nations Decade for a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World.

Living Values: An Educational Program (LVEP) is a values education program. It offers a variety of experiential values activities and practical methodologies to teachers and facilitators to enable children and young adults to explore and develop 12 key universal values: Cooperation, Freedom, Happiness, Honesty, Humility, Love, Peace, Respect, Responsibility, Simplicity, Tolerance, and Unity.

As we move into the 21st century, the search for ways to improve the quality of education is global. One area of focus has been that of values, attitudes, and behavior and how to develop these aspects of character in a positive and productive way.

 How do we empower individuals to choose their own set of values?

 What kind of specialized training is necessary for educators to integrate values into existing programs?

 How can values-based education prepare students for lifelong learning in their communities?

We need to keep in mind that peace is not merely the absence of war. Peace develops from inside the individual. It cannot be imposed on anyone from the outside; education is not merely based upon culture but also upon spirituality. We can only have lasting and solid peace when people are trained from early childhood to be kind, charitable, humble, patient, concerned for the needs of others.

The 21st century is marked by the emergence of a knowledge society driven by the revolution in information and communication technologies. The manner and rapidity, with which knowledge is produced, reconfigured and disseminated plays a key role in innovation and competitiveness in the global arena. Integral to this transition to a ‘knowledge society’ is a parallel redefinition of education, knowledge and development – and also what it means to be educated. Peace & Value education have a crucial role to play in shaping the future of youth for building a global harmonic society. In the light of these developments the Role of Peace Education in New Millennium focuses on how to face the challenges of 21st century, and building Peace &Human Unity in the 21st century.

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1. Delors, Jacques, et al. Learning: The Treasure Within, Report to UNESCO of the International Commission on Education for the Twenty-first Century. UNESCO Publishing, 1996. ISBN 0 7306 9037 7.