Just Foreign Policy News
October 1, 2010
Urge President Obama to Oppose Any Attempted Coup in Ecuador
Urge President Obama to make a clear, personal, and unequivocal statement of support for democracy in Ecuador, affirming that the democratically-elected government of President Rafael Correa is the only government that the U.S. will recognize.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/ecuador
vanden Heuvel: Midterm elections – build or retreat?
The Nation’s Katrina vanden Heuvel argues that those seeking reform must not sit out the midterm elections.
http://www.thenation.com/blog/155017/eat-pray-and-vote
Iraq Veterans Against the War: Operation Recovery
A campaign to stop the deployment of traumatized troops.
http://www.ivaw.org/operation-recovery
Help Support Our Work
Your donation helps us educate Americans and create opportunities to advocate for a just foreign policy.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/donate
Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Ecuador was under a state of siege Friday, after soldiers rescued President Correa from a hospital where he’d been surrounded by police who roughed him up and tear-gassed him, AP reports. Correa and his ministers called the events – in which insurgents also paralyzed the nation with airport shutdowns and highway blockades – an attempt to overthrow him. The region’s presidents quickly showed their support for Correa, rushing to a meeting in Buenos Aires early Friday and condemning what many called a coup attempt.
2) Liberal groups hoping to revive enthusiasm before November’s midterm elections are encouraging their members to come to the Mall Saturday for a rally they expect to draw tens of thousands of people, the Washington Post reports. [AFL-CIO President Trumka has said, "hundreds of thousands" – JFP.] The organizers of this weekend’s rally, dubbed One Nation Working Together, are calling it the "most diverse march in history." The amalgam of 400 progressive groups – including environmentalists, antiwar activists, church and civil rights groups, union organizers and gay rights coalitions – is planning four hours of speeches, songs and poetry. [It is expected that cspan will broadcast the event – JFP.]
3) The Obama administration is trying to cajole the Israeli government into a 60-day renewal of the freeze on Jewish settlement building by offering it security guarantees, ranging from military hardware to support for a long-term Israeli presence in the Jordan Valley, the New York Times reports. But with Netanyahu so far resisting the administration’s entreaties, the US is weighing a fallback plan that could involve reaching out to the Palestinians with a pledge to formally endorse one of their central demands for the borders of a future Palestinian state. To assure Palestinians, Obama formally endorse a plan under which Israel’s pre-1967 borders, with land swaps, would form the baseline for negotiations over territory. Some Palestinians point out US officials have all but embraced the idea of using the 1967 borders, making a formal endorsement of that position no grand gesture. But such an announcement by the US could put pressure on Israel by buttressing the Palestinian position ahead of negotiations, the NYT says.
4) A government audit by the inspector general of USAID has found that millions of dollars in US taxpayer funds may have been paid to Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan to provide security for a U.S. development project, the Los Angeles Times reports. The audit examined payments for security under a $349-million contract awarded to a U.S. contractor, Development Alternatives. It says subcontractors may have paid more than $5 million to militants. The auditors didn’t propose ways to put controls on the spending. Instead, they recommended the agency consider whether it was wise to try to carry out work in highly insecure areas. The report also found "indications of pervasive fraud" in Development Alternatives’ project office in Jalalabad.
5) This past weekend, four more soldiers at Fort Hood killed themselves, the Washington Post reports. All four were decorated veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. 104 Army troops have killed themselves this year. An Army report two months ago points to several causes, including troops being so busy fighting two wars in 10 years that they don’t take time to focus on their mental health and a rise in crime and substance abuse.
Pakistan
6) Armed men torched dozens of NATO fuel tankers in southern Pakistan on Friday, the Washington Post reports. The Torkham pass remained closed to NATO trucks Friday, one day after Pakistan blocked their passage in apparent retaliation for recent U.S. air incursions into Pakistan, including an airstrike Thursday that allegedly killed three Pakistani soldiers.
7) A new poll of the Pakistani tribal areas found that only 16 percent of respondents say US drone strikes "accurately target militants," Spencer Ackerman reports. Three times that number say they "largely kill civilians." A plurality of respondents say the U.S. is primarily responsible for violence in the region. Nearly 90 percent want the U.S. to stop pursuing militants in their backyard and nearly 60 percent are fine with suicide bombings directed at the Americans.
Afghanistan
8) The annual report of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime says the Afghan government and Western aid programs have modestly reduced poppy cultivation in the country’s largest opium-producing province in the past year, but cultivation nationwide remained at last year’s levels and in two provinces increased sharply, the New York Times reports. Production was down sharply in the past year because of a blight that decreased the yield by 48 percent. Experts said they were worried skyrocketing poppy prices could undercut the efforts to reduce cultivation in the coming year.
Iraq
9) A coalition of Shiite political blocs chose Nouri al-Maliki as their candidate for Prime Minister Friday afternoon, breaking a deadlock and pushing government formation forward, the Washington Post reports. The new backing for Maliki’s bloc came from followers of Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr.
Venezuela
10) Final official results showed President Chavez’s Socialist Party won a narrow plurality of the popular vote in legislative elections, Reuters reports. The National Electoral Council said the Socialist Party took 5.45 million votes or 48.9 percent of ballots cast in Sunday’s poll, compared with 5.33 million votes or 47.9 percent for the Democratic Unity opposition coalition.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Ecuador in state of seige, region supports Correa
Gonzalo Solano and Tatiana Coba, Associated Press, October 1, 2010
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/lt_ecuador_protest
Quito, Ecuador – Ecuador was under a state of siege Friday, the streets quiet with the military in charge of public order, after soldiers rescued President Rafael Correa from a hospital where he’d been surrounded by police who roughed him up and tear-gassed him earlier.
The chief of the national police, Gen. Freddy Martinez, gave Correa his resignation because of Thursday’s revolt, police spokesman Richard Ramirez told The Associated Press.
Correa and his ministers called the events – in which insurgents also paralyzed the nation with airport shutdowns and highway blockades – an attempt to overthrow him and not just a simple insurrection by angry security force members over a new law that would cut benefits for public servants.
The region’s presidents quickly showed their support for Correa, rushing to a meeting in Buenos Aires early Friday and condemning what many called a coup attempt and kidnapping of Correa. The U.S. also warned those who threaten Ecuador’s democracy that the leftist Correa has Washington’s full support.
There was no sign on the capital’s streets Friday morning of the rebellious police who had thrown the country into chaos the previous day. Quito’s Mariscal Sucre airport and the airfields in Guayaquil and Manta, which were shut to international traffic Thursday by soldiers, reopened overnight.
At least two police officers and a soldier were killed and dozens injured in Thursday’s mayhem, said Irina Cabezas, the vice president of congress. Dozens were injured.
At least five soldiers were wounded in the firefight at the hospital before Correa was removed at top speed in an SUV, according to the military and Red Cross.
Correa, 47, speaking from the balcony of the Carondelet palace after his rescue, told hundreds of cheering backers that Thursday "was the saddest day of my life." He said 27 of his special forces bodyguards had been injured.
Correa thanked the supporters who had converged on the hospital "ready to die to defend democracy." His loyalists had hurled stones at police who repelled them with tear gas. He said the uprising was not just a pay dispute. "There were lots of infiltrators, dressed as civilians, and we know where they were from," the U.S.-trained leftist economist shouted.
[…] Dramatic images of the rescue broadcast by TV stations showed one helmeted soldier dressed in black and wearing a flak jacket, apparently struck by a bullet. He tumbled down a small embankment outside the hospital. The Red Cross said at least one civilian was also wounded.
Correa was trapped for more than 12 hours in the hospital, where he being treated for the tear-gassing that nearly asphyxiated him when he tried to talk with angry police officers at a capital barracks. The officers also roughed him up and pelted him with water.
[…] The leaders of Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Uruguay, Colombia and Venezuela rushed to Buenos Aires for an emergency session of the continent’s fledgling UNASUR defense union, meeting with Argentine President Cristina Fernandez and her husband Nestor Kirchner, the union’s secretary general.
Early Friday, they resolved to send their foreign ministers to Quito and issued a resolution saying that they "energetically condemn the attempted coup and subsequent kidnapping of President Rafael Correa Delgado." They also called for those responsible to be tried and convicted, and warned that in the event of new threats to the constitutional order, they would immediately close frontiers and air traffic, suspend commerce and cut off energy supplies and other services to Ecuador.
Both Hugo Chavez of Venezuela and Evo Morales of Bolivia alleged in Buenos Aires on Friday that the United States was somehow behind the police rebellion.
U.S. officials had forcefully declared otherwise. "The United States deplores violence and lawlessness, and we express our full support for President Rafael Correa, and the institutions of democratic government in that country," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said.
[…]
2) Liberal groups to gather in D.C. for One Nation rally
Krissah Thompson, Washington Post, Thursday, September 30, 2010; A3
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/29/AR2010092907339.html
Liberal groups hoping to revive enthusiasm before November’s midterm elections are encouraging their members to come to the Mall on Saturday for a rally that they expect to draw tens of thousands of people.
Their goal is to reclaim the excitement that surged among left-leaning groups after the 2008 presidential race but that more recently has belonged to tea party groups and other conservative activists. Last month, for instance, conservative commentator Glenn Beck partly filled the Mall with tens of thousands of his supporters.
The organizers of this weekend’s rally, dubbed One Nation Working Together, are calling it the "most diverse march in history." The amalgam of 400 progressive groups – including environmentalists, antiwar activists, church and civil rights groups, union organizers and gay rights coalitions – is planning four hours of speeches, songs and poetry.
"We lose separately, and absent of a strategy to work together, we will continue to lose," said Phaedra Ellis-Lamkins, chief executive of Green for All, an environmental group supporting the event. "We have to be able to take critical action on all of the issues facing this country. We’re at a critical moment in history, and we have the opportunity to move forward in a really significant way."
One Nation’s organizers, hoping to compete with the tea party movement, will try to hold the groups together as a revived political force if their rally is successful. They are promoting the event through their network of groups, on liberal radio and on television host Ed Schultz’s show.
"We aren’t the alternative to the tea party; we are the antidote," said NAACP President Benjamin Jealous, who is also a lead organizer. The team that produces the NAACP’s annual Image Awards show are putting together the One Nation rally.
The groups involved represent many of President Obama’s core supporters, including the National Council of La Raza, the NAACP, the AFL-CIO, the Service Employees International Union and the U.S. Student Association.
[…]
3) U.S. Presses Israelis on Renewal of Freeze
Mark Landler, Helene Cooper and Ethan Bronner, New York Times, September 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/world/middleeast/01mideast.html
Washington – The Obama administration is trying to cajole the Israeli government into a 60-day renewal of the freeze on Jewish settlement building by offering it security guarantees, ranging from military hardware to support for a long-term Israeli presence in the strategically sensitive Jordan Valley, according to lawmakers and other officials briefed on the proposals.
But with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu so far resisting the administration’s entreaties, the United States is also weighing a fallback plan, officials said, that could involve reaching out to the Palestinians with a pledge to formally endorse one of their central demands for the borders of a future Palestinian state.
The American proposals to Israel came amid a frenzy of diplomatic horse-trading, with the administration maneuvering furiously to keep the talks alive while Mr. Netanyahu appeared to be trying to extract a high price for acquiescing on settlements. The Palestinians have threatened to walk away from the talks if Israel does not renew its freeze on construction, something Mr. Netanyahu has ruled out.
Adding to the pressure is a meeting in Cairo next week of the Arab League, at which the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, has promised to deliver a speech in which he will "declare historical decisions." That sparked rumors that he might threaten to resign, something he has done before.
For now, the administration’s focus remains on Mr. Netanyahu, whom American officials hope they can persuade to renew the freeze, with the understanding that Washington will ask for no further extensions. The administration’s special envoy to the region, George J. Mitchell, met with Mr. Netanyahu on Wednesday and plans to meet him again before seeing Mr. Abbas on Friday.
Details of the American offer were first reported in the Israeli news media, and widely disseminated in Washington in an essay by David Makovsky, a Middle East analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.
The White House denied Thursday that President Obama had sent a letter with proposals to Mr. Netanyahu. It declined to comment further on the negotiations. But on Wednesday, the White House’s senior Middle East advisers, Dennis B. Ross and Daniel B. Shapiro, briefed Democratic representatives on Capitol Hill about what Mr. Ross described as a "string of assurances in return for a two-month moratorium," according to people who were in the meeting.
These would include additional military equipment – missile systems, aircraft, and satellites – a pledge to help Israel enforce a ban on the smuggling of weapons through a Palestinian state, and a promise to help forge a regional security agreement that would defend Israel against the threat posed by Iran.
[…] The administration has not yet made a proposal to the Palestinians, according to a Palestinian official. But if Mr. Netanyahu turns down the United States, officials said, Mr. Obama could provide the Palestinians with their own assurance: his formal endorsement of a plan under which Israel’s pre-1967 borders, with land swaps, would form the baseline for negotiations over territory.
Some Palestinians point out that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other American officials, in their public statements, have all but embraced the idea of using the 1967 borders, making a formal endorsement of that position no grand gesture.
Still, that could increase the pressure on Israel; Israeli officials have long fretted that once Mr. Obama puts American parameters on the table, the Palestinians will refuse to accept anything less. And the White House has said that it will wait until negotiations get going before offering any bridging proposals.
Many Palestinians seemed incensed that Israel would get anything more from the United States in exchange for freezing settlements, which are widely regarded as illegal. "It is like giving a prize to a thief," said Mustafa Barghouti, a Palestinian politician. "Palestinians want to see their president stand up and say enough is enough."
4) Audit: U.S. government funds may have gone to Taliban
An audit says subcontractors on a development project in Afghanistan may have paid more than $5 million to militants for security purposes. Employee fraud is also alleged.
Paul Richter, Los Angeles Times, 5:56 PM PDT, September 30, 2010
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-fg-taliban-payoffs-20101001,0,1379818.story
Washington – Millions of dollars in American taxpayer funds may have been paid to Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan to provide security for a U.S. development project, a government audit has found.
The report, released Thursday by the inspector general of the U.S. Agency for International Development, says subcontractors hired to protect a development project near Jalalabad may have paid more than $5 million to the militants through local authorities.
Allegations often have been made about such payments, but the report is a rare investigation by the government into a specific case.
The audit examined payments for security under a $349-million contract awarded to a U.S. contractor, Development Alternatives Inc., for a small-scale infrastructure and community development project.
Because the Taliban fighters are entrenched in the area and it is deemed too dangerous to be visited regularly by the contractor, Development Alternatives left it to local subcontractors to negotiate security arrangements.
The report says local authorities often demand a 20% "protection tax" in such circumstances. Under those deals – along the lines of extortionist protection rackets in the U.S. – the Taliban sends security guards with promises that they won’t attack the subcontractors or their equipment and won’t try to halt the contract work, the report says.
Often local authorities will try to renegotiate the agreement just before the work begins to further jack up the price, the report says.
Officials from the agency and the contractor told the investigators that the development work was not being directly monitored because it was taking place in a war zone, so there was no way they could provide assurances that U.S. taxpayer money paid to subcontractors didn’t end up in the hands of the insurgents.
If the Taliban demanded the typical 20% cut on the amount of money budgeted for security, as much as $5.2 million might have ended up in its hands, the report says.
The auditors didn’t propose ways to put controls on the spending. Instead, they recommended that the agency consider whether it was even wise to try to carry out work in such areas.
The report also found "indications of pervasive fraud" in Development Alternatives’ project office in Jalalabad.
[…]
5) Four suicides in a week stun Fort Hood
Ann Gerhart, Washington Post, Friday, October 1, 2010; 10:31 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/30/AR2010093006646_pf.html
Fort Hood’s leaders have tried nearly everything to stop the suicides. There are support groups and hotlines, counseling sessions and Reiki healing therapies, and strict assessment guidelines for commanders.
But the soldiers keep killing themselves. This past weekend, four more were dead at the Texas post, all of them decorated veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, three of them sergeants, two of them fathers of young children.
[…] So far, 104 Army troops have killed themselves this year, a rate that eclipses the one in the civilian world. The rate at Fort Hood, where 14 suicides already are confirmed this year and six other deaths are under investigation, is nearly four times that of the civilian population.
[…] A thick Army report on the crisis two months ago points to several causes, including troops being so busy fighting two wars in 10 years that they don’t take time to focus on their mental health and a rise in crime and substance abuse. The Army has concerns that the force is becoming "increasingly dependent on both legal and illegal drugs," according to the report.
[…]
Pakistan
6) NATO fuel tankers are torched in Pakistan
Karin Brulliard, Washington Post, Friday, October 1, 2010; 12:30 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/01/AR2010100102502.html
Islamabad, Pakistan – Armed men torched dozens of NATO fuel tankers in southern Pakistan on Friday, police said, as supply convoys remained blocked at a vital entry point to Afghanistan for a second consecutive day.
Police in the town of Shikarpur said 10 "extremists" shot and set fire to at least 30 NATO trucks stopped at a filling station, destroying the vehicles but injuring no one. Much of the fuel and other supplies bound for coalition forces in Afghanistan arrive at the southern port of Karachi, then are trucked north toward border points at Torkham or Chaman.
In the southwestern province of Baluchistan, a truck driver and his assistant were burned to death in a second attack when armed militants stopped a NATO fuel tanker outside Quetta and opened fire on it, setting it ablaze, according to a Quetta-based official of the paramilitary Frontier Corps. He said the tanker was bound for the Chaman border crossing.
A police officer, Mohammad Azam, said "anti-state elements" were behind the second attack, but he did not name any particular group, the Associated Press reported.
The Torkham pass, in the northwest, remained closed to NATO trucks Friday, one day after Pakistan blocked their passage in apparent retaliation for recent U.S. air incursions into Pakistan, including an airstrike Thursday that allegedly killed three Pakistani soldiers.
The incidents drew a strong rebuke from Pakistan and deepened tensions with the United States, an ally. Pakistan’s ambassador to Belgium lodged a protest over the incursions with NATO on Friday, while Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani told parliament that the government "will consider other options if there is interference in the sovereignty of our country."
[…] It is not uncommon for Islamist insurgents to attack NATO fuel trucks. But the incidents typically occur in the northwestern mountains, where several militant groups are based and wield influence. In the normally placid Chitral district near the Afghan border Thursday, police officials said 200 militants held a dozen policemen hostage and stole their weapons.
7) New Poll: Pakistanis Hate The Drones, Back Suicide Attacks On U.S. Troops
Spencer Ackerman, Wired/Danger Room, September 30, 2010
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/09/new-poll-pakistanis-hate-the-drones-back-suicide-attacks-on-u-s-troops/
The poll:
http://counterterrorism.newamerica.net/publications/policy/public_opinion_in_pakistan_s_tribal_regions
The CIA can kill militants all day long. If the drone war in Pakistan drives the local people into al Qaeda’s arms, it’ll be failure. A new poll of the Pakistani tribal areas, released this morning, suggests that could easily wind up happening. Chalk one up for drone skeptics like counterinsurgent emeritus David Kilcullen and ex-CIA Director Michael Hayden.
Only 16 percent of respondents to a new poll sponsored by the drone-watchers at the New America Foundation say that the drone strikes "accurately target militants." Three times that number say they "largely kill civilians."
CIA director Leon Panetta, by contrast, has staunchly defended the drone program as meticulously targeting terrorists. In a war that depends heavily on perceptions, it’s a big discrepancy.
There’s more bad news for Panetta and his boss in the White House. A plurality of respondents in the tribal areas say that the U.S. is primarily responsible for violence in the region. Nearly 90 percent want the U.S. to stop pursuing militants in their backyard and nearly 60 percent are fine with suicide bombings directed at the Americans. That comes as NATO accelerates incursions into Pakistan. Just this morning, it announced that a pursuit of insurgents in Afghanistan’s Paktiya Province led to a U.S. helicopter shooting at the militants from Pakistani airspace. Enraged Pakistani officials responded by shutting down a critical NATO supply line into Afghanistan.
Whatever NATO says, very few in the tribal regions are inclined to believe the U.S. is in Afghanistan and occasionally in Pakistan to fight terrorism. They think the U.S. is waging "larger war on Islam or… an effort to secure oil and minerals in the region."
[…]
Afghanistan
8) U.N. Reports Mixed Results On Afghan Poppy Crops
Alissa J. Rubin, New York Times, September 30, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/01/world/asia/01opium.html
Kabul, Afghanistan – With extraordinary effort, the Afghan government and Western aid programs have modestly reduced poppy cultivation in the country’s largest opium-producing province in the past year, but cultivation nationwide remained at last year’s levels and in two provinces increased sharply, according to the annual report released Thursday by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime.
Cultivation is a leading measure of farmers’ openness to growing alternative crops. Production, the other measure most frequently cited, was down sharply in the past year because of a blight that decreased the yield by 48 percent. Over all, that meant that Afghanistan produced almost 4,000 tons. The information in the United Nations report is gathered by a combination of aerial surveillance and on-the-ground interviews with farmers, security force members, prosecutors and others who track narcotics.
In Helmand Province, cultivation dropped 7 percent. In a swath of land along the Helmand River Valley, where there has been an enormous focus by NATO troops and international reconstruction workers, the acreage open for cultivation of vegetables and staple crops increased somewhat, according to a counternarcotics expert from the British Embassy, who was not authorized to speak publicly on the subject.
Yury Fedotov, executive director of the United Nations agency, said, "This is good news, but there is no room for false optimism."
The decrease in production appeared to be primarily the result of the blight, but it was a positive sign that the overall area under cultivation at least did not expand in the past year, according to Afghan and United Nations narcotics experts.
However, experts said they were worried that skyrocketing poppy prices could undercut the efforts to reduce cultivation in the coming year. The price farmers were paid by traffickers rose to about $58 per pound in 2010 from $22 per pound in 2009, making opium poppy a more attractive crop financially than alternatives like wheat in the impoverished rural areas of the country.
[…]
Iraq
9) Shiite bloc confirms Maliki as Iraq prime minister; election deadlock nears end
Leila Fadel, Washington Post, Friday, October 1, 2010; 12:01 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/01/AR2010100103712.html
Baghdad – A coalition of Shiite political blocs chose incumbent Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki as their candidate for Iraq’s top government job on Friday afternoon, breaking a months-long deadlock and pushing government formation forward.
The announcement comes on the day Iraq broke the record for the longest period of time between elections and government configuration in a parliamentary system. U.S. officials have been urging Iraq’s political leaders to hasten the process and form an inclusive government, amid fears that further delay could erode hard-earned security gains.
"The National Alliance urges the parliament to hold its session as soon as possible to fulfill its constitutional mission," said Faleh al Fayadh, a Shiite legislator from the coalition of Shiite blocs, at a news conference.
It was still unclear Friday afternoon if the entire Shiite coalition supported Maliki. Three smaller Shiite groups were rumored to be pulling out of the Shiite bloc and backing Maliki’s competitor, secular Shiite Ayad Allawi. Maliki’s aides insisted that they all were in agreement behind Maliki.
The new backing for Maliki’s bloc came from the followers of fiery Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, collectively known as Sadrists. They are the second largest Shiite party in Iraq’s next parliament.
[…]
Venezuela
10) Final results give Chavez slim Venezuela vote win.
Marianna Parraga, Reuters, Wed, Sep 29 2010
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE68P05V20100929
Caracas – President Hugo Chavez’s party just beat a newly united opposition bloc for the popular vote at a weekend parliamentary election that split the country down the middle, final official results showed on Wednesday.
The National Electoral Council said his ruling Socialist Party took 5.45 million votes or 48.9 percent of ballots cast in Sunday’s poll, compared with 5.33 million votes or 47.9 percent for the Democratic Unity umbrella group.
[…]
–
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org
Just Foreign Policy is a membership organization devoted to reforming US foreign policy so it reflects the values and interests of the majority of Americans.