Just Foreign Policy News
March 23, 2011
*Action: Pressure Congress to Debate Libya
Whatever one thinks of the ongoing U.S. military intervention in Libya, President Obama has set a dangerous precedent by embarking on a major military operation in Libya without Congressional authorization. Eight Members of the House have brought forward H. Con. Res. 31, a bi-partisan resolution affirming that the President must obtain specific statutory authorization for the use of U.S. armed forces in Libya. Ask your Representative to join them in affirming that U.S. military action in Libya must have Congressional authorization.
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/debatelibya
If Obama can bomb Libya, a President Palin can bomb Iran, without Congress’s OK
President Obama’s bombing of Libya without congressional authorization or debate puts us on a dangerous path. A minimum standard for transparency in government is that the House and the Senate go on the record for or against a new war.
http://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/Opinion/2011/0323/If-Obama-can-bomb-Libya-a-President-Palin-can-bomb-Iran-without-Congress-s-OK
The War Powers Resolution: What Does It Say?
Some folks are under the impression that under the War Powers Resolution, Congress does not have to authorize the initial use of force. This is false. Under the WPR, the only exception to the need for explicit Congressional authorization is an attack on the US or its armed forces. See the 2004 CRS report, "The War Powers Resolution: After Thirty Years,"
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/crs/rl32267.htm
*Action: Afghan Women’s Mission: State Dept Should Issue Malalai Joya Visa
http://www.afghanwomensmission.org/?p=1258
Amnesty International: Egyptian women protesters forced to take ‘virginity tests’
Women protesters cleared from Tahrir Square say they were beaten, given electric shocks, subjected to strip searches while being photographed by male soldiers, then forced to submit to "virginity checks" and threatened with prostitution charges.
http://www.amnestyusa.org/document.php?id=ENGNAU2011032322499&lang=e
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Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) Much of the argumentation in favor of the Libya war repeats arguments that were made in 2003 for the invasion of Iraq, writes Glenn Greenwald in Salon. Those opposed to the war in Iraq were deemed pro-Saddam: indifferent to the repression and brutalities suffered by the Iraqi people at his hands and willing to protect his power. Now, those opposed to U.S. involvement in the civil war in Libya are deemed indifferent to the repression and brutalities suffered by the Libyan people from Gadaffi and willing to protect his power. Why didn’t this same moral calculus justify the attack on Iraq? Greenwald asks. Saddam Hussein really was a murderous, repressive monster: at least Gadaffi’s equal when it came to psychotic blood-spilling.
If failure to support US military intervention in Libya is evidence of indifference to the Libyan government’s crimes, Greenwald notes, then logically, those who fail to support US military intervention in Bahrain, Yemen and Saudi Arabia are guilty of indifference to the crimes of those governments.
2) America is now at war to protect a Libyan province that’s been an epicenter of anti-American jihad, writes Tim Dickinson in Rolling Stone. A 2008 West Point analysis of a cache of al Qaeda records discovered that nearly 20 percent of foreign fighters in Iraq were Libyans, and that on a per-capita basis Libya nearly doubled Saudi Arabia as the top source of foreign fighters. Among those whose "work" was detailed in the al Qaeda records, 85 percent of the Libyans were listed as suicide bombers. Overwhelmingly, these militants came "from cities in North-East Libya, an area long known for Jihadi – linked militancy."
3) The U.S. military is spending upward of $1 billion in the Libya war, AP reports. Zack Cooper, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said Wednesday that the initial cost of the operation was between $400 million and $800 million and the weekly expense was likely $30 million to $100 million. "The real question looking ahead is what the length of the operation is going to be and who is going to bear the burden of maintaining the no-fly zone," he said.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich said he would offer an amendment to the next budget resolution that would prohibit taxpayer dollars from being used to fund U.S. military operations in Libya. His effort could gain significant congressional support, including the backing of tea partiers, if the U.S. military operation is going full-bore when lawmakers return from their recess next week, AP says.
4) U.S. military operations in Libya could wipe out a significant chunk of the budget cuts won by congressional Republicans in recent weeks, The Hill reports. GOP leaders have trumpeted enacted spending reductions that amount to more than $285 million per day since the beginning of March. But defense analysts say the Pentagon could be burning through more than $100 million per day in Libya. The Pentagon likely will eventually send Congress a supplemental spending request to cover its Libya costs, said Gordon Adams, who oversaw defense budgeting at OMB under Clinton.
5) The stalemate in Afghanistan can be resolved only with a negotiated political settlement involving Karzai’s government and its allies, the Taliban and its supporters in Pakistan, and other regional and international parties, write Lakhdar Brahimi and Thomas Pickering in the New York Times. The US has been holding back from direct negotiations, hoping the ground war will shift decisively in its favor. But Brahimi and Pickering argue the best moment to start the process toward reconciliation is now, while force levels are near their peak. A guaranteed withdrawal of foreign forces, as the insurgency has demanded, would almost certainly be part of a deal, they write.
A neutral international facilitator is needed to begin explorations with all potential parties toward negotiation, they say. The international community has confronted equally intractable conflicts in Cambodia, Bosnia and elsewhere and resolved them, they note.
6) In a letter to the Wall Street Journal, American University professor David Vine disputes a Journal story that repeated State Department claims that Kevin Maher, recently forced to step down as head of the State Department’s Japan section for controversial remarks about Okinawans, made the remarks in an off-the-record talk to students. Vine, who organized the meeting with the students, says he has no recollection of any indication that the meeting was off-the-record; moreover, his detailed notes of Maher’s remarks match the students’.
Israel/Palestine
7) One woman was killed and at least three dozen people were injured when a bomb exploded in central Jerusalem, JTA reports. President Obama in condemning the Jerusalem bombing stressed that "Israel, like all other nations, has a right to self-defense" and "in the strongest possible terms." In the same statement, Obama offered condolences for the deaths Tuesday of Palestinian civilians in Gaza that were caused by Israeli tank fire. "There is never any possible justification for terrorism," Obama said. "We stress the importance of calm and urge all parties to do everything in their power to prevent further violence and civilian casualties."
Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom threatened to launch a new operation against Gaza in the wake of increased shelling on Israel’s South. "The period of restraint is over," Shalom said. "I hope it won’t come to another Operation Cast Lead, but if there is no other choice we will launch another operation."
Yemen
8) President Saleh escalated his confrontation with a rapidly expanding uprising and took on emergency powers that give him a freer hand to quell protests, AP reports. The state of emergency declaration appeared to signal that Saleh intends to dig in and try to crush his opponents, AP says. The decree allows media censorship, gives wide powers to censor mail, tap phone lines, search homes and arrest and detain suspects without judicial process. Al-Jazeera said Yemeni authorities closed its office in Sanaa on Wednesday after 20 armed men ransacked the bureau the day before.
Youth leaders dismissed the state of emergency as irrelevant.
El Salvador
9) President Obama appears to have reneged on his campaign pledge to protect public interest laws from trade agreements, writes Kevin Gallagher for Triple Crisis. At negotiations in Chile, the administration tabled investment text that leaves investor-state dispute resolution intact. Using such provisions in CAFTA, a trade deal Obama voted against on environmental grounds, Pacific Rim, a Canadian gold mining company, is suing El Salvador in a private World Bank court because El Salvador has attempted to take environmental impact assessments of gold mining seriously.
10) President Obama made a pilgrimage Tuesday to the crypt of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero, the Los Angeles Times reports. A UN commission found that Romero’s assassination was ordered by Roberto D’Aubuisson, whose Arena political party subsequently led the Salvadoran government, backed by the US with billions of dollars in aid, military supplies and advisors during the civil war, the LAT notes.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) The manipulative pro-war argument in Libya
Glenn Greenwald, Salon, Tuesday, Mar 22, 2011
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/03/22/libya/index.html
Advocating for the U.S.’s military action in Libya, The New Republic’s John Judis lays out the argument which many of his fellow war advocates are making: that those who oppose the intervention are guilty of indifference to the plight of the rebels and to Gadaffi’s tyranny:
[…] Note how, in Judis’ moral world, there are only two possibilities: one can either support the American military action in Libya or be guilty of a "who cares?" attitude toward Gadaffi’s butchery. At least as far as this specific line of pro-war argumentation goes, this is just 2003 all over again. Back then, those opposed to the war in Iraq were deemed pro-Saddam: indifferent to the repression and brutalities suffered by the Iraqi people at his hands and willing to protect his power. Now, those opposed to U.S. involvement in the civil war in Libya are deemed indifferent to the repression and brutalities suffered by the Libyan people from Gadaffi and willing to protect his power. This rationale is as flawed logically as it is morally.
Why didn’t this same moral calculus justify the attack on Iraq? Saddam Hussein really was a murderous, repressive monster: at least Gadaffi’s equal when it came to psychotic blood-spilling. Those who favored regime change there made exactly the same arguments as Judis (and many others) make now for Libya: it’s humane and noble to topple a brutal dictator; using force is the only way to protect parts of the population from slaughter (in Iraq, the Kurds and Shiites; in Libya, the rebels); it’s not in America’s interests to allow a deranged despot (or his deranged sons) to control a vital oil-rich nation; and removing the tyrant will aid the spread of freedom and democracy in the Middle East. Why does that reasoning justify war in Libya but not Iraq?
In Foreign Policy, Stephen Walt argues that "liberal interventionists" and neocons share most of the same premises about America’s foreign policy and its role in the world, with the sole exception being that the former seek to act through international institutions to legitimize their military actions while the latter don’t. Strongly bolstering Walt’s view is this morning’s pro-war New York Times Editorial, which ends this way: "Libya is a specific case: Muammar el-Qaddafi is erratic, widely reviled, armed with mustard gas and has a history of supporting terrorism. If he is allowed to crush the opposition, it would chill pro-democracy movements across the Arab world."
Wasn’t all of that at least as true of Saddam Hussein? Wasn’t that exactly the "humanitarian" case made to justify that invasion? And wasn’t that exactly the basis for the accusation against Iraq war opponents that they were indifferent to Saddam’s tyranny – i.e., if you oppose the war to remove Saddam, it means you are ensuring that he and his sons will stay in power, which in turn means you are indifferent to his rape rooms and mass graves and are willing to stand by while the Iraqi people suffer under his despotism? How can the "indifference-to-suffering" accusation be fair when made against opponents of the Libya war but not when made against Iraq war opponents?
But my real question for Judis (and those who voice the same accusations against Libya intervention opponents) is this: do you support military intervention to protect protesters in Yemen, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and other U.S. allies from suppression, or to stop the still-horrendous suffering in the Sudan, or to prevent the worsening humanitarian crisis in the Ivory Coast? Did you advocate military intervention to protect protesters in Iran and Egypt, or to stop the Israeli slaughter of hundreds of trapped innocent civilians in Gaza and Lebanon or its brutal and growing occupation of the West Bank?
If not, doesn’t that necessarily mean – using this same reasoning – that you’re indifferent to the suffering of all of those people, willing to stand idly by while innocents are slaughtered, to leave in place brutal tyrants who terrorize their own population or those in neighboring countries? Or, in those instances where you oppose military intervention despite widespread suffering, do you grant yourself the prerogative of weighing other factors: such as the finitude of resources, doubt about whether U.S. military action will hurt rather than help the situation, cynicism about the true motives of the U.S. government in intervening, how intervention will affect other priorities, the civilian deaths that will inevitably occur at our hands, the precedents that such intervention will set for future crises, and the moral justification of invading foreign countries? For those places where you know there is widespread violence and suffering yet do not advocate for U.S. military action to stop it, is it fair to assume that you are simply indifferent to the suffering you refuse to act to prevent, or do you recognize there might be other reasons why you oppose the intervention?
In the very same Editorial where it advocates for the Libya intervention on the grounds of stopping government violence and tyranny, The New York Times acknowledges about its pro-intervention view: "not in Bahrain or Yemen, even though we condemn the violence against protesters in both countries." Are those who merely "condemn" the violence by those two U.S. allies but who do not want to intervene to stop it guilty of indifference to the killings there? What rationale is there for intervening in Libya but not in those places? In a very well-argued column, The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson today provides the only plausible answer:
"Anyone looking for principle and logic in the attack on Moammar Gaddafi’s tyrannical regime will be disappointed. . . . Why is Libya so different? Basically, because the dictators of Yemen, Bahrain and Saudi Arabia – also Jordan and the Persian Gulf sheikdoms, for that matter – are friendly, cooperative and useful. Gaddafi is not … Gaddafi is crazy and evil; obviously, he wasn’t going to listen to our advice about democracy. The world would be fortunate to be rid of him. But war in Libya is justifiable only if we are going to hold compliant dictators to the same standard we set for defiant ones. If not, then please spare us all the homilies about universal rights and freedoms. We’ll know this isn’t about justice, it’s about power.
[…]
2) U.S. Bombs Libya, Helps… Jihadists?!
Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone, March 21, 2011
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/national-affairs/u-s-bombs-libya-helps-jihadists-20110321
America is now at war to protect a Libyan province that’s been an epicenter of anti-American jihad.
In recent years, at mosques throughout eastern Libya, radical imams have been "urging worshippers to support jihad in Iraq and elsewhere," according to WikiLeaked cables. More troubling: The city of Derna, east of Benghazi, was a "wellspring" of suicide bombers that targeted U.S. troops in Iraq.
By imposing a no-fly zone over Eastern Libya, the U.S. and its coalition partners have effectively embraced the breakaway republic of Cyrenaica. As you can see on the map [at link], Libya is a mashup of three historically distinct provinces. As recently as the 1940s, Cyrenaica was an independent emirate, with its capital in Benghazi.
The emnity between Cyrenaica and Tripolitania runs deep. The Emir of Cyrenaica awkwardly cobbled together modern Libya and ruled as its monarch. This is the same king that Qaddafi deposed in his coup of 1969. And the Qaddafi regime has seen the former king’s homeland as a threat ever since, as this Wikileaked cable from our Tripoli embassy explains: "Eastern Libya had suffered … from a lack of investment and government resources, part of a campaign by the al-Qadhafi regime to keep the area poor and, theoretically, less likely to develop as a viable alternative locus of power to Tripoli."
Another cable reports that the disrespect is mutual: "Residents of eastern Libya … view the al-Qadhafa clan [Qaddafi’s tribe] as uneducated, uncouth interlopers from an inconsequential part of the country who have "stolen" the right to rule in Libya."
That’s the background. Flash forward to 2008: A West Point analysis of a cache of al Qaeda records discovered that nearly 20 percent of foreign fighters in Iraq were Libyans, and that on a per-capita basis Libya nearly doubled Saudi Arabia as the top source of foreign fighters.
The word "fighter" here is misleading. For the most part, Libyans didn’t go to Iraq to fight; they went to blow themselves up – along with American G.I.’s. (Among those whose "work" was detailed in the al Qaeda records, 85 percent of the Libyans were listed as suicide bombers.) Overwhelmingly, these militants came "from cities in North-East Libya, an area long known for Jihadi – linked militancy."
[…] A surprisingly readable cable titled "Die Hard in Derna" makes clear that the city "takes great pride" in having sent so many of its sons to kill American soldiers in Iraq, quoting one resident as saying: "It’s jihad – it’s our duty, and you’re talking about people who don’t have much else to be proud of."
3) US military operation in Libya costs hundreds of millions and price tag could rise
Associated Press, Wednesday, March 23, 3:38 PM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/us-military-operation-in-libya-costs-hundreds-of-millions-and-price-tag-could-rise/2011/03/23/ABkfHzGB_story.html
Washington – Stretched thin by two wars, the U.S. military is spending upward of $1 billion in an international assault to destroy Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s air defenses and save rebels from likely defeat, according to analysts and a rough calculation of the military operation so far.
Missiles fired from submarines in the Mediterranean, bombs dropped by B-2 stealth bombers and an array of warplanes launching airstrikes over the northern portion of Libya easily total hundreds of millions of dollars. The campaign entered its fifth day on Wednesday.
The Obama administration isn’t talking overall cost, but the magnitude of the military campaign, the warships and aircraft deployed and the munitions used provide some information to estimate the growing price tag.
As of Tuesday, the coalition had fired at least 162 sea-launched Tomahawk missiles priced at $1 million to $1.5 million apiece and dispatched B-2 stealth bombers – round-trip from Missouri – to drop 2,000-pound bombs on Libyan sites.
Total flying time: 25 hours. Operating cost for one hour: at least $10,000.
Yet those numbers only provide part of the costs. The B-2 bombers require expensive fuel – and rely on air tankers to refuel in flight – and probably needed parts replaced upon their return to Whiteman Air Force Base. The pilots most certainly will get combat pay.
A contingent of U.S. warplanes; 11 ships steaming in the Mediterranean, including three submarines, two destroyers and two amphibious ships; and one F-15 fighter jet that crashed, costing $75 million or more – it all adds up to numbers that unnerve budget-conscious lawmakers.
"Every six hours we have another billion-dollar deficit," said Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md., a member of the House Armed Services Committee. "This could cost us a billion dollars there, which means simply another billion-dollar debt that our kids, our grandkids and our great-grandkids are going to have to pay back."
[…] Zack Cooper, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, said Wednesday that the initial cost of the operation was between $400 million and $800 million and the weekly expense was likely $30 million to $100 million.
Cooper said missiles and bombs represent the significant first-time cost. As the campaign progresses, fuel will be a major expense. "The real question looking ahead is what the length of the operation is going to be and who is going to bear the burden of maintaining the no-fly zone," he said.
President Barack Obama has insisted that the United States will turn control of the operation over to other countries within days. Defense Secretary Robert Gates suggested it could be as early as Saturday.
The Pentagon is expected to cover the cost of the no-fly zone in its current budget. In a classified briefing for congressional staff Tuesday, officials from the State Department, Pentagon and Treasury were pressed on the cost. They declined to address the issue.
Rep. Dennis Kucinich, D-Ohio, said he would offer an amendment to the next budget resolution that would prohibit taxpayer dollars from being used to fund U.S. military operations in Libya. His effort could gain significant congressional support, including the backing of tea partiers, if the U.S. military operation is going full-bore when lawmakers return from their recess next week.
"We have already spent trillions of dollars on the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, both of which descended into unwinnable quagmires," Kucinich wrote his colleagues. "Now, the president is plunging the United States into yet another war we cannot afford."
[…]
4) Cost of military campaign in Libya could wipe out GOP’s spending cuts
Russell Berman and John T. Bennett, The Hill, 03/21/11
http://thehill.com/news-by-subject/defense-homeland-security/151147-cost-of-libya-campaign-could-wipe-out-gop-budget-cuts
U.S. military operations in Libya could wipe out a significant chunk of the budget cuts won by congressional Republicans in recent weeks, defense analysts say.
GOP leaders have trumpeted enacted spending reductions that amount to more than $285 million per day since the beginning of March. But defense analysts say the Pentagon could be burning through more than $100 million per day in Libya, putting those budget savings at risk.
[…] A no-fly zone like the one military officials described Monday, covering just the northern portion of Libya, likely will cost between $30 million and $100 million per week, CSBA said. But because it required coalition forces to deal with Libyan air defense systems, there are one-time bills that could cost between $400 million and $800 million, the think tank concluded.
Defense officials are examining the costs of the Libyan operations and will determine "later this fiscal year what action might be necessary to cover those costs," Irwin said.
Pentagon officials say it is too soon to even discuss other funding sources, such as a second 2011 emergency Defense spending bill designed exclusively for Libya.
The department likely will eventually send Congress a supplemental spending request to cover its Libya costs, said Gordon Adams, who oversaw defense budgeting at the Office of Management and Budget during the Clinton era. "Yeah, sure it will come," Adams said. "Any opportunity to raise money inside the Department of Defense will be seized."
The Libya no-fly zone mission "could get to $1 [billion] or $1.5 billion, if it goes on for a year," said Adams, now with American University and the Stimson Center.
The military maintained no-fly zones over southern and northern Iraq during Adams’s OMB tenure, and the Clinton administration paid for them with supplemental spending measures.
Adams said the "long poles in the tent" that will drive the total costs of the mission are the price of jet fuel and the duration of the campaign.
[…] A senior Democratic aide on the House Appropriations Committee downplayed the possibility of a new supplemental spending bill. Citing the contingency funding already built into the Pentagon budget, the aide said the Libya operation "does not seem likely to require a supplemental."
The Defense Department can also put off some planned activities and programs, allowing officials to funnel monies away to pay for Libyan operations, analysts said.
But there is a ticking budgetary clock. "In March, [the department] won’t be worried about that – yet," Adams said. "If we get to June, then yes, all bets would be off."
5) Settling the Afghan War
Lakhdar Brahimi and Thomas R. Pickering, New York Times, March 22, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/23/opinion/23brahimi.html
[Brahimi is a former UN special representative for Afghanistan. Pickering is a former ambassador and under secretary of state.]
Despite the American-led counterinsurgency in Afghanistan, the Taliban resistance endures. It is not realistic to think it can be eradicated. Efforts by the Afghan government, the United States and their allies to win over insurgents and co-opt Taliban leaders into joining the Kabul regime are unlikely to end the conflict.
The current strategy of "reintegration" may peel away some fighters and small units, but it does not provide the political resolution that peace will require.
Neither side of the conflict can hope to vanquish the other through force. Meanwhile, public support in Western countries for keeping troops in Afghanistan has fallen. The Afghan people are weary of a long and debilitating war.
For their part, the Taliban have encountered resistance from Afghans who are not part of their dedicated base when they have tried to impose their stern moral code. International aid has improved living standards among Afghans in areas not under Taliban control. That has placed new pressure on the Taliban, as has an increasing ambivalence toward the Taliban in Pakistan.
The stalemate can be resolved only with a negotiated political settlement involving President Hamid Karzai’s government and its allies, the Taliban and its supporters in Pakistan, and other regional and international parties. The United States has been holding back from direct negotiations, hoping the ground war will shift decisively in its favor. But we believe the best moment to start the process toward reconciliation is now, while force levels are near their peak.
[…] A peace settlement would require a domestic element – a political order broadly acceptable to Afghans – and an international element: severing Taliban ties to Al Qaeda and containing rampant drug production and trafficking in Afghanistan. Both elements would need to be negotiated along parallel tracks.
None of it will be easy: Afghans will have to allow for fair representation of the Taliban in central and provincial governments; get the Taliban to abide by election results; determine the proper role of Islamic law in regulating dress, behavior and the administration of justice; protect human rights and women’s rights; decide whether and how to bring perpetrators of war atrocities to justice; and incorporate some Taliban fighters into police and security forces. A guaranteed withdrawal of foreign forces, as the insurgency has demanded, would almost certainly be part of a deal.
[…] The insurgency is not as fragmented as the old anti-Soviet mujahedeen alliance was, but it is hardly monolithic, as we learned from conversations with Taliban field commanders and individuals close to the Quetta Shura, which is made up of Taliban leaders loyal to Mullah Muhammad Omar; the Haqqani network, an insurgent group allied with the Taliban; and the Hezb-i-Islami group, which is led by the longtime mujahedeen warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
Some of the people we interviewed stuck to hard-line positions: "There is nothing to negotiate," "Foreigners just need to leave Afghanistan," "This is our country," and so on. But others engaged in a give-and-take, making clear they wanted to see an end to violence and a start toward serious talks for peace.
For example, an adviser to the Haqqani network told us it was operationally independent but recognized the authority of Mullah Omar – and therefore could not negotiate separately with the Karzai government and the American-led coalition. Yet we were also told that the network was eager to engage in "friendly" dialogue.
[…] A neutral international facilitator is needed to begin explorations with all potential parties toward negotiation. The United Nations could appoint a facilitator. Or a facilitator could be a group, an international organization, a neutral state or a group of states. A settlement would require international guarantees, aid, peacekeeping and enforcement of the agreement.
The international community has confronted equally intractable conflicts in Cambodia, Bosnia and elsewhere and, with unity of purpose, resolved them. Afghanistan is a particularly challenging case, but it is not hopeless.
6) The Session Was Not Off-the-Record
David Vine, Letter to the Editor, Wall Street Journal, March 21, 2011
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704164204576203300422182340.html
Your article "U.S. Replaces Diplomat, Apologizes Over Alleged Remarks on Okinawa" (World News, March 10) refers to the remarks of Kevin Maher, the U.S. official recently forced to step down as head of the State Department’s Japan section, as coming in an "off-the-record lecture." I am the professor who scheduled the meeting with Mr. Maher for my students in preparation for a study trip to Okinawa and Tokyo, and I have no recollection of Mr. Maher or any other State Department employee ever saying at any time before, during or after our meeting that the proceedings were off the record.
In your article and elsewhere, Mr. Maher and other State Department officials have cast doubt on the accuracy of the students’ account of the meeting, although no one seems to have denied what Mr. Maher said. In the interest of setting the record straight and based on my own detailed notes from the meeting, I can confirm the accuracy of the substance of the students’ report as well as the specific language that has been attributed to Mr. Maher.
Israel/Palestine
7) Bomb explodes in central Jerusalem amid rocket attacks on South
JTA, March 23, 2011
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/03/23/3086527/bomb-explodes-in-central-jerusalem-amid-rocket-attacks-on-south
Jerusalem – One woman was killed and at least three dozen people were injured when a bomb exploded in central Jerusalem.
Two of the injuries in the attack, which took place shortly before 3 p.m. Wednesday, were considered serious, according to news reports citing Magen David Adom, Israel’s version of the Red Cross. One of the injured went straight to surgery at Hadassah Hospital; five others are reported in moderate condition, injured by shrapnel packed into the 2- to 4-pound bomb.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who delayed by several hours leaving on a planned trip to Moscow, said following the attack that his government has had a clear and successful policy on security, including "a vigorous response to any attempt to harm Israeli citizens, and systematic and assertive preventive measures against terrorism," which have led to two years of relative quiet.
"Recently, there have been elements that have tried to violate this quiet," Netanyahu said in a statement. "They are trying to test our resolve and the fortitude of our people. They will learn that the government, the IDF and the Israeli public have an iron will to defend the state and its citizens. We will act vigorously, responsibly and prudently in order to maintain the quiet and the security that have prevailed here over the past two years."
President Obama in condemning the Jerusalem bombing stressed that "Israel, like all other nations, has a right to self-defense" and "in the strongest possible terms." In the same statement, Obama offered condolences for the deaths Tuesday of Palestinian civilians in Gaza that were caused by Israeli tank fire.
"There is never any possible justification for terrorism," Obama said. "We stress the importance of calm and urge all parties to do everything in their power to prevent further violence and civilian casualties."
Similarly, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in a statement issued from Russia, where he is on an official visit, condemned the attack as well as the Israeli military’s attacks in Gaza that killed eight Palestinians, including four civilians.
[…] Meanwhile, Deputy Prime Minister Silvan Shalom threatened to launch a new operation against Gaza in the wake of increased shelling on Israel’s South.
"The period of restraint is over; we must do everything we can to strike out against those who wish to hurt the innocent," said Shalom on a visit to a site in Beersheba struck by two long-range Grad rockets on Wednesday. "I hope it won’t come to another Operation Cast Lead, but if there is no other choice we will launch another operation."
[…]
Yemen
8) Yemen’s embattled leader takes emergency powers
Ahmed al-Haj and Hamza Hendawi, Associated Press, March 23, 2011
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110323/ap_on_re_mi_ea/ml_yemen
Sanaa, Yemen – Struggling to hold power after many of his allies abandoned him, Yemen’s longtime leader on Wednesday escalated his confrontation with a rapidly expanding uprising and took on emergency powers that give him a freer hand to quell protests.
A legislature full of his supporters granted President Ali Abdullah Saleh’s request for a 30-day state of emergency, which suspends the constitution, bars protests and gives security forces far-reaching powers of arrest.
The opposition called the vote illegal and vowed to press on with its campaign to topple Saleh’s regime.
The move underlined Saleh’s desperation in the face of month-old protests that have attracted tens of thousands across his impoverished nation in the southern corner of the Arabian Peninsula. This week, Saleh’s regime was hit by a wave of defections by military commanders, ruling party members and others, swelling the ranks of the opposition and leaving the president isolated.
[…] The state of emergency declaration appeared to signal that Saleh intends to dig in and try to crush his opponents. The decree allows media censorship, gives wide powers to censor mail, tap phone lines, search homes and arrest and detain suspects without judicial process. Al-Jazeera said Yemeni authorities closed its office in Sanaa on Wednesday after 20 armed men ransacked the bureau the day before.
[…] Opposition parties allied with the youth groups in the protests said Saleh in part wanted the state of emergency as a legal cover for further crackdowns on the protests. Opposition and independent legislators stayed away from Wednesday’s parliamentary session along with dozens of lawmakers from Saleh’s own ruling party.
Parliament officials said more than 160 of the legislature’s 301 lawmakers were present for the vote, which was done by a show of hands amid chaotic scenes. But the opposition insisted only about 130 attended, short of quorum, making the vote illegal. "The vote is illegitimate," said independent lawmaker Abdul-Razzak al-Hijri.
Youth leaders at the Sanaa square that has become the epicenter of the protests dismissed the state of emergency as irrelevant. "It is the revolution that now decides the future of the nation," said Jamal Anaam, one of the protests’ leaders. "We pay no attention to the measures."
El Salvador
9) U.S. Trade Policy: Obama’s Tricky Trip to El Salvador
Kevin Gallagher, Triple Crisis, March 22, 2011
http://triplecrisis.com/obamas-tricky-trip-to-el-salvador/
United States President Barack Obama will travel to El Salvador this week. Coming into office, Obama seemed to be more in tune with Latin America in terms of economic policy than his predecessor. In recent weeks, however, Obama has done an about-face and his economic policy toward Latin America is now worse than the draconian policies of George Bush.
The Bush-era was marked by attempts to push NAFTA-style trade treaties in Latin America, despite NAFTA’s poor record in Mexico and the rejection of the Washington Consensus in Latin America. Many nations rejected this push-with Brazil shutting down negotiations for a Free Trade Area of the Americas, and Ecuador, Uruquay, and Bolivia pulling out of negotiations with the US.
One deal that did get through was the Central American Free Trace Agreement (CAFTA), passing in the US Congress by just one vote. Barack Obama voted against CAFTA because, among other things, it did "little to address enforcement of basic environmental standards in the Central American countries." Obama was right that things wouldn’t work out so well under CAFTA.
Since CAFTA went into effect, Central American exports of clothing (CAFTA countries’ signature export) to the US have fallen by 25%. How could this happen? Clothing exports to the US from Central America in 2009 were down from $7.5bn in 2004 to $5.6bn on 2009, but China’s were up to $24.3bn – a 127% increase for China since 2004. The Central American share of US clothing imports has declined to 8.7% (down from 12 percent in 2004). China now holds 38% of the US import market for clothing.
CAFTA also allows private investors to directly sue Central American governments for what multinational firms see as violations of the agreement. Pacific Rim, a Canadian based gold mining company is suing El Salvador in a private World Bank court because El Salvador has attempted to take environmental impact assessments of gold mining seriously.
Canada is not a party to CAFTA, so Pacific Rim shouldn’t even be able to use this lever in the first place. Yet under the deal a foreign firm can just set up shop in a CAFTA country and use CAFTA’s levers. So, Pacific Rim filed its lawsuit via its US subsidiary. Pacific Rim seeks damages of approximately $100m from El Salvador. The claim is almost double the amount of US foreign aid to El Salvador, a country where 34.6% of the population lives on less than $2 per day.
The lawsuit has accentuated conflicts over mining in El Salvador. Since it was filed, three anti-mining activists have been killed, including Dora Sorto Recinos – who was eight months pregnant and holding her two-year old child when she was shot.
On the campaign trail Obama said "I will ensure that foreign investor rights are strictly limited and will fully exempt any law or regulation written to protect public safety or promote the public interest." As a step toward that pledge, when he took office he set up an advisory committee at the State Department to redo the template for investment provisions in trade treaties.
Recently, however, the Administration appears to have abandoned those pledges. At negotiations in Chile for the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement-Obama’s "alternative" "21st Century Trade Deal" with Pacific Rim nations, the administration tabled investment text that solidifies and deepens the Bush-era approach to trade and investment. Not only does the US offer leave investor-state dispute resolution intact, it will also require that nations strip their ability to innovate and develop their own flagship firms to compete in the global economy.
Because CAFTA hasn’t lived up to its expectations, all Central American nations except the coup leaders in Honduras rejected Canada’s recent request to sign a trade treaty like CAFTA with Canada.
Obama could have been on real high ground on this trip, saying "I told you so." He voted against CAFTA and pledged to reform the template from which CAFTA was made. Instead he is behind the curve on Latin America once again and side-stepping the fact that he was once on the right side of these issues.
10) Obama visits grave of slain Salvadoran archbishop
President Obama’s trip to El Salvador is cut short amid the developments in Libya. But his visit and tribute to Archbishop Oscar Romero is hailed as recognition of the nation’s democratic transition.
Tracy Wilkinson and Peter Nicholas, Los Angeles Times, March 23, 2011
http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-fg-obama-salvador-20110323,0,5060159.story
San Salvador – El Salvador, the tiniest nation in Central America, has plenty of its own problems. Violent gangs. Drug traffickers. An addiction to monies sent from roughly a third of its population living in the United States. Sky-high murder rates.
All of that, however, was overshadowed by other faraway trouble as President Obama spent his first day in El Salvador, the last stop on his five-day, three-nation Latin America tour – which, the White House announced Tuesday, he was cutting short to attend to the crisis in Libya.
Still, Obama completed here (after much delay and out of view of the public) what could arguably have been the most dramatic gesture of his swing through Brazil, Chile and El Salvador: The U.S. leader Tuesday evening made a pilgrimage to the crypt of Salvadoran Archbishop Oscar Romero.
Revered in much of the region, the cleric was slain in 1980 by death squads working for the side in El Salvador’s civil war that the U.S. government came to support against leftist guerrillas.
On the first visit by a U.S. president to Romero’s tomb, Obama was accompanied by Salvadoran President Mauricio Funes, elected in 2009 as the candidate representing those guerrillas, now recast as a political party.
Housed in a rather austere lower chamber of the Metropolitan Cathedral, Romero’s tomb is a frequent shrine of prayer and supplication for Salvadorans and other faithful from around the world.
Obama appeared solemn and lighted a candle alongside the tomb, as did Funes, who paused and crossed himself.
[…] Romero, at the time his nation’s most senior religious figure, was assassinated by a sniper as he said Mass at a chapel in Divine Providence Hospital in San Salvador on March 24, 1980. He did not support the guerrillas and condemned violence from all sides.
But increasingly his sermons demanding justice for the poor and an end to the military repression of the day were seen as a threat by powerful right-wing forces.
Romero’s murder was ordered by former army Maj. Roberto D’Aubuisson, considered the father of death squads that terrorized dissidents and leftist sympathizers, according to the 1993 Truth Commission, assigned by the U.N. to get to the bottom of some of the most egregious atrocities committed by both sides during the war.
D’Aubuisson, who died of cancer in 1992, also founded the Arena political party, which ruled El Salvador uninterrupted from the late 1980s until the election in 2009 of Funes and the Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front of former guerrillas.
Through the war, U.S. administrations staunchly supported Salvadoran governments, including that of Arena, in the fight against the guerrillas, pouring in billions of dollars in aid, military supplies and advisors.
[…]
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