Deja vu - Judith Apter Klinghoffer
Dr. Judith Apter Klinghoffer taught history and International relations at Rowan University, Rutgers University, the Foreign Affairs College in Beijing as well as at Aarhus University in Denmark where she was a senior Fulbright professor. She is an affiliate professor at Haifa University. Her books include Israel and the Soviet Union, Vietnam, Jews and the Middle East: Unintended Consequences and , International Citizens' Tribunals: Mobilizing Public Opinion to Advance Human Rights
In an interview with Al Hunt, Janine Zacharia and Matt Winkler of Bloomberg News on May 26, 2005, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made some interesting observations on India and China.
I am sure foreign policy analysts in all the three countries will be carefully weighing the significance of every word of what she said.
ON INDIA and CHINA:
MR. HUNT: Can I just interrupt for a second? I want to go back to one question. You said India is a growing global power and that is largely positive.
SECRETARY RICE: Yes.
MR. HUNT: China is also a growing global power. Is that also largely positive?
SECRETARY RICE: It could be.
MR. HUNT: Is it?
SECRETARY RICE: The advantage in India is its democracy. And it is a quite remarkable democracy. Think of over a billion people and that kind of multi-ethnicity of that place, the multi-religiosity of that place, and that it repeatedly manages to have democratic elections, had a peaceful change of parliament. It's a remarkable story. And because our view is that democracies tend to be stabilizing in their activities and behaviors, obviously it's a good thing that India is a democracy.
Now, China is in transition in terms of its domestic systems. And we will continue to make clear that the democratization, the human rights issues, the religious freedom issues, the transparency and openness in politics -- these are issues concerning China. It's also the case that China is a big and growing and, you know, economic influence. In fact, that goes without saying. If it is big and growing economic influence outside the rules of the international economy, that's going to be a huge problem. And that's why everybody backed WTO accession for China so that it could be within a rules-based system. And now the goal has to be make sure that China, whether you're talking about agricultural policy or financial services access -- or access for financial services or you're talking about IPR protection or the currency, that an economy that big has simply got to be within the rules of the international economy or it will be disruptive to the international economy.
ON INDIA:
Q: There seems to be a growing dependence [of India] on outsourcing of U.S. services there and has that -- that seems to have benefited India, for sure. But what's the benefit for the United States?
A: When this issue came up several months ago, I think that the answer that rings truest is that in order for the United States to be competitive and to make certain that jobs are here, you have to have an environment in which this is the very best place to do business. And that's what I think the President and his economic advisors spend a lot of time doing. And the President has talked about dealing not just with our near-term problems, but with our long-term liabilities, like Social Security, which depressed the capacity for the United States to be over the long term the very best place to do business. Tort reform and all of the things that they're pursuing.
But India is a rising economic influence of power in the international system. It's a great multiethnic democracy. I think it's a natural friend for the United States. The Indians are emerging from a philosophy of heavy statist involvement in the economy. They are emerging similarly from policies that were -- that were not aligned, but had a strong -- I won't call it anti-America, but tended to juxtaposed India to the United States in most of its policies -- and instead, I think, emerging as a potentially very stabilizing and positive force in international politics, which is why we're spending a lot of time on that relationship. We're spending a lot of time on South Asia.
And if you could imagine a circumstance in which what was once called the "Arc of Crisis" is instead an Afghanistan that is democratic and has a strong defense relationship with the United States, as the President -- and a strong strategic relationship with the United States, as the President and President Karzai just announced when he was here this week. A Pakistan that is democratizing and doing that in a way that roots out extremism because I think you have to say that Pakistan was very far along the road of extremism and Musharraf has made a strategic choice to turn that around.
And then in India, which is democratic, multiethnic, reforming in terms of the economy, entering the world economy in a major way, and that the United States can retain good and -- good relations with all of those and deepening relations with all of those, it's a very good strategic position for the United States in terms of security, in the fight against terrorism, as well as when you look to the West, what it means for the Middle East, and when you look to the East, what it means for East Asia more broadly.
So India is a very key relationship here and we're spending a lot of time on it. When I went out there, we talked about a stronger economic relationship, stronger energy cooperation, stronger defense cooperation and becoming a reliable partner for India as it makes its move as a global power. And we used the words that we're fully willing and ready to assist in that growth of India's global power and the implications of that, which we see as largely positive.
ON CHINA:
1) I would say that we have really strengthened the relationship on a number of fronts so it's in the overall relationship that I think we've seen the relationship strengthened......I think we have strengthened our cooperation in the counterterrorism field quite a lot and we've developed a relationship which we can talk pretty honestly and bluntly just about anything. So that's how I would see it.
2) I think there is no doubt in anyone's mind that we have some rocky seas on the economic front. We've wanted the Chinese to do more on intellectual property rights than they have thus far been able to do. The currency issue is sitting there.
3) At the same time, we've had very good cooperation with the Chinese on a number of Security Council issues where I think you might not have expected us to be able to do that; for instance, on the Sudan where the Chinese, for a long time, resisted having a sanctions resolution against the Sudanese.
4) China is a rising factor in international politics. It's a new factor in international politics. And that can be for good or for bad and the goal of the United States has to be to try and make that for good because it is going to be a factor. There is no doubt about that. Our policies are designed to try and make sure that it's a positive factor.
Cheers,
Ram Narayanan
US India Friendship
http://www.usindiafriendship.net
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/46826.htm
US DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Interview With Al Hunt, Janine Zacharia and Matt Winkler of Bloomberg News
Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Washington, DC
May 26, 2005
(9:00 a.m. EDT)
MR. HUNT: I just returned from China, Madame Secretary, and we would like to know, what is the single most important achievement this year for the U.S. and China, in your opinion? What will it be?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I would say that we have really strengthened the relationship on a number of fronts so it's in the overall relationship that I think we've seen the relationship strengthened. And they have a new president who has since consolidated his power with the final retirement of Jiang Zemin from a number of different military commissions and so the President and Hu Jintao established a very good relationship. But we have maintained our coordination and cooperation on the nuclear issue of North Korea. It hasn't been resolved yet, but to have a situation in which the United States and China have continued commitment to a non-nuclear Korean Peninsula and trying to do this with diplomatic means, I think is quite an achievement given all the pressures from that issue particularly for the Chinese, who live next to the North Koreans.
I think we have strengthened our cooperation in the counterterrorism field quite a lot and we've developed a relationship which we can talk pretty honestly and bluntly just about anything. So that's how I would see it.
MR. HUNT: So six months from now, if you could point to one thing that you think would be the most significant for this year --
SECRETARY RICE: I don't tend -- you know, I don't tend to think of the relationship in that way. I'm a believer that you build relationships along multiple fronts. Particularly when you're dealing with big, complicated places like China or Russia or India, you're building along multiple fronts and there will be puts and takes in the relationship. I think there is no doubt in anyone's mind that we have some rocky seas on the economic front. We've wanted the Chinese to do more on intellectual property rights than they have thus far been able to do. The currency issue is sitting there.
At the same time, we've had very good cooperation with the Chinese on a number of Security Council issues where I think you might not have expected us to be able to do that; for instance, on the Sudan where the Chinese, for a long time, resisted having a sanctions resolution against the Sudanese.
So I tend to look at the health of the relationship six months from now and say, "Is this a relationship that is providing benefit in the sense that we can work together on the many complicated problems before us?" And that's how I tend to think of it instead of a single issue that’s going well or badly because in a relationship that's that complicated you're going to have a range of issues.
MR. HUNT: There are reports that the Deputy Secretary of State is going to make a trip soon to Beijing. Is their purpose, is their prime purpose of those multiple issues that he's going to be dealing with now, is that principally economic? Is it --
SECRETARY RICE: No, it won't be principally anything. When I went, I spent probably 30-40 percent of my time on economic issues and the rest on other kinds of issues.
MR. HUNT: And that will be the same with this trip?
SECRETARY RICE: And I think it will probably be the same with this trip. Bob is -- you know, he's a former Trade Representative so probably by instinct, nature and interest he may spend a little bit more time on the Joint Economic Committee issues, but he is doing the Global Strategic Dialogue with the Chinese and it truly means Global Strategic Dialogue.
China is a rising factor in international politics. It's a new factor in international politics. And that can be for good or for bad and the goal of the United States has to be to try and make that for good because it is going to be a factor. There is no doubt about that. Our policies are designed to try and make sure that it's a positive factor.
MR. HUNT: You mentioned earlier North Korea and you've said before that China has been helpful in the six-party talks. But China has also made clear that they would like the United States to engage in more substantive bilateral talks. Why don't we?
SECRETARY RICE: Because we've been down that road before and signed an agreement with the North Koreans in 1994, which practically before the ink was dry they started to violate by finding an alternative route to a nuclear weapon.
Because when the United States is engaged in bilateral talks with the North Koreans outside the context of a multilateral framework, the North Koreans can cherry-pick and try and make it about the United States and North Korea -- and it's not. It's not about the United States and North Korea. This is about what the neighborhood is going to be like and is there going to be a North Korea that is nuclear on the Korean Peninsula, and what does that mean for the security interests of Japan and South Korea and China and Russia and the United States.
And I think the real achievement of the six-party talks, even though it has obviously not resolved the North Korean problem, is that it has made clear that a non -- that a nuclear North Korea is not a problem for the United States alone, it is a problem for all of North Korea's neighbors as well. And we simply have to keep that framework. Now, we do talk to them. We have a New York channel that we use for communication, not for negotiation. We talk to them within the context of the six-party talks. It's not that we are somehow afraid to directly talk to them, but it's a question of what is the structure of those conversations, and if the structure of those conversations is about bilateral relations between the United States and North Korea, we don't have that much to say.
MR. HUNT: Yet they have steadily acquired a greater nuclear capacity over the last five years and they've seemed to have paid a minimal price for that. Why is there any reason to think they won't continue?
SECRETARY RICE: I'm not sure they've paid a minimal price. They've certainly paid a lot of opportunity costs. If you look back to 1999, 2000, 2001, they were talking about expanded relations with Russia. There was a visit between Putin and Kim Jong-il. If you look at the subsequent years, there was talk about the normalization of relations with Japan. The South Korean-North Korean dialogue was sprinting ahead and we were in the process in 2002 of presenting what we called "a bold approach" to North Korea that I think you could associate with something more like the Libya approach, where you had a pathway to better relations with the United States and more normal relations with the entire region.
And while, yes, people are willing to give them fertilizer or trying to deal with their oil needs or trying to deal with new food concerns or to try to deal with the smaller issues, I think these large-scale improvements in relations with their neighbors and therefore with the international community have been off the table because people don't want a nuclear-armed North Korea. So the opportunity costs to this regime have been pretty great, particularly if you take them at their word that they do believe that they need to improve their economic situation and that they do need help in reforming their economy.
MR. HUNT: Trade and economics have been two components in the U.S.-Japan relationship. With the U.S. automakers on the ropes and the Japanese automakers, by contrast, selling more automobiles in the U.S. or making more automobiles here, is that an issue that you should be involved in?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I consider our foreign policy to have a strong economic component. I have never understood the argument that we have foreign policy considerations and we have economic policy considerations and they're somehow separable, which is why the point is that the relationship with China, for instance, is in its totality.
Similarly, the relationship with Japan. Now, the goal, I think, of American international policy has to be to make sure that our partners are playing by the rules of the international economy. That means that there's a level playing field, that people are not taking advantage of a subsidy or dumping or all of the various ways to create unfair trade advantage.
And the President has been, across the board, very intent on enforcing the rules of the international economy. The WTO is helpful in that regard. And -- but the President has made very clear, too, that the other way to make certain that the United States is competitive on that level playing field is to make the United States the best place to do business, lower regulation, dealing with the business of our society, making certain that our workers are well-trained, that there is an environment here in which business can prosper. And so those two halves, I think, are -- that's where the federal government, both in its economic policies and its foreign policies, can improve the prospects for American business to be competitive. That's the role.
MS. ZACHARIA: With that goal in mind, shifting a bit to India, where relations seem to have improved, there seems to be a growing dependence of their country on outsourcing of U.S. services there and has that -- that seems to have benefited India, for sure. But what's the benefit for the United States?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, again, when this issue came up several months ago, I think that the answer that rings truest is that in order for the United States to be competitive and to make certain that jobs are here, you have to have an environment in which this is the very best place to do business. And that's what I think the President and his economic advisors spend a lot of time doing. And the President has talked about dealing not just with our near-term problems, but with our long-term liabilities, like Social Security, which depressed the capacity for the United States to be over the long term the very best place to do business. Tort reform and all of the things that they're pursuing.
But India is a rising economic influence of power in the international system. It's a great multiethnic democracy. I think it's a natural friend for the United States. The Indians are emerging from a philosophy of heavy statist involvement in the economy. They are emerging similarly from policies that were -- that were not aligned, but had a strong -- I won't call it anti-America, but tended to juxtaposed India to the United States in most of its policies -- and instead, I think, emerging as a potentially very stabilizing and positive force in international politics, which is why we're spending a lot of time on that relationship. We're spending a lot of time on South Asia.
And if you could imagine a circumstance in which what was once called the "Arc of Crisis" is instead an Afghanistan that is democratic and has a strong defense relationship with the United States, as the President -- and a strong strategic relationship with the United States, as the President and President Karzai just announced when he was here this week. A Pakistan that is democratizing and doing that in a way that roots out extremism because I think you have to say that Pakistan was very far along the road of extremism and Musharraf has made a strategic choice to turn that around.
And then in India, which is democratic, multiethnic, reforming in terms of the economy, entering the world economy in a major way, and that the United States can retain good and -- good relations with all of those and deepening relations with all of those, it's a very good strategic position for the United States in terms of security, in the fight against terrorism, as well as when you look to the West, what it means for the Middle East, and when you look to the East, what it means for East Asia more broadly.
So India is a very key relationship here and we're spending a lot of time on it. When I went out there, we talked about a stronger economic relationship, stronger energy cooperation, stronger defense cooperation and becoming a reliable partner for India as it makes its move as a global power. And we used the words that we're fully willing and ready to assist in that growth of India's global power and the implications of that, which we see as largely positive.
MS. ZACHARIA: I want to shift to Iran. The EU-3 talks yesterday and Mr. Rowhani. They seem to want a temporary pledge again, kicking the can down the road, to all of this. How concerned are you about sort of these minor steps, sort of giving Iran actually more time to cheat to pursue its program?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, the Iranians are in a state of suspension right now, which is a good thing. They are also under the spotlight of the international community, which is a good thing. The United States and our European colleagues have the closest possible coordination on what is being done there and what is going on there. And I think that what the EU-3 did in holding to the Paris agreement, of holding to the insistence on a suspension, on holding to objective guarantees as the outcome, which we believe has got to be a permanent cessation of the sensitive activities associated with the nuclear fuel cycle, is a very positive development.
And the Iranians, some months ago, I think, believed that they had a split between the United States and Europe. When I first went to Europe just after becoming Secretary, I was really quite surprised at the intensity of feeling that the United States was not somehow supportive of the negotiations, that we were saying we were, but that we were standing on the sidelines. And I think we intensified our cooperation with the Europeans. We made some moves in terms of WTO application, WTO accession for Iran and spare parts and therefore reunited the Europeans and ourselves, and to a certain extent the Russians, who have handled Bushehr in a way that reduces proliferation concerns. And I think now the Iranians realize that they would be quite isolated if they, in fact, walked out of those talks.
MS. ZACHARIA: Will the United States go beyond the spare parts and the WTO pledge? The Europeans are urging the U.S., I understand, to put -- to give something else, perhaps.
SECRETARY RICE: I'm in touch with the Europeans practically every day on this and nobody is urging us to do anything more than we've done. Not on the level that matters.
MR. HUNT: Can I just interrupt for a second? I want to go back to one question. You said India is a growing global power and that is largely positive.
SECRETARY RICE: Yes.
MR. HUNT: China is also a growing global power. Is that also largely positive?
SECRETARY RICE: It could be.
MR. HUNT: Is it?
SECRETARY RICE: The advantage in India is its democracy. And it is a quite remarkable democracy. Think of over a billion people and that kind of multi-ethnicity of that place, the multi-religiosity of that place, and that it repeatedly manages to have democratic elections, had a peaceful change of parliament. It's a remarkable story. And because our view is that democracies tend to be stabilizing in their activities and behaviors, obviously it's a good thing that India is a democracy.
Now, China is in transition in terms of its domestic systems. And we will continue to make clear that the democratization, the human rights issues, the religious freedom issues, the transparency and openness in politics -- these are issues concerning China. It's also the case that China is a big and growing and, you know, economic influence. In fact, that goes without saying. If it is big and growing economic influence outside the rules of the international economy, that's going to be a huge problem. And that's why everybody backed WTO accession for China so that it could be within a rules-based system. And now the goal has to be make sure that China, whether you're talking about agricultural policy or financial services access -- or access for financial services or you're talking about IPR protection or the currency, that an economy that big has simply got to be within the rules of the international economy or it will be disruptive to the international economy.
MS. ZACHARIA: You met with President Abbas for dinner last night and you're going (inaudible).
SECRETARY RICE: That's right.
MS. ZACHARIA: Shortly. And he's writing in the Wall Street Journal this morning and talking about the needs of the President to support Palestinian statehood now. The administration is saying withdraw first. What is it that you're looking for specifically that the U.S. can provide on this trip?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, we had a very good talk last night and he's doing something very difficult. First of all, we think that this is a very different Palestinian leadership than the one that we didn't deal with before. It's somebody who has made a commitment to finding a peaceful resolution of the conflict with Israel. And we want to be supportive of that. We want to be supportive with -- as part of the international economic assistance, we want be supportive through the Ward mission and restructuring of the security forces. We have worked with the Quartet, with Jim Wolfensohn, who is going to try to work on the Gaza disengagement, make sure that that goes well.
The President has made clear that his long-term goal, or his goal, is the establishment of a democratic Palestinian state that is contiguous and viable and all of those things. The roadmap is a reliable guide to getting there and the reason that we concentrate on the Gaza disengagement -- and, by the way, the Palestinians understand they need to concentrate on that -- is that if it is successful, the Gaza disengagement, then you will have accelerated the -- you would have reinforced the confidence between the parties that this can be done, that they can work together, and you will have accelerated then the progress on the roadmap.
Now, what we mean by success in disengagement, we mean that there is obviously a smooth path for the Israelis to leave, which is going to be a complicated -- by any stretch of the imagination -- complicated operation. But also that when the Israelis do leave, the Palestinians have developed institutions and practices on the security side and on the government side that allow them to govern not just in the Gaza but, again, to establish the foundations for a state. It's also the case that if the economic reconstruction of the Gaza can take place, the Palestinian people will begin to see something worthwhile out of all this.
So that's why we concentrate on the Gaza. You know, the Middle East has been a place where people are very focused on what's out there and have a lot of discussions on what is going to be the -- what are going to be the borders and what will happen to right of return, what about Jerusalem -- and miss the opportunities right in front of you. And so what we're saying this time is don't miss the opportunity that's right in front of you.
MR. HUNT: He called on you in that piece this morning to pressure Sharon more. Is that --
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I'm spending a good deal of time saying to both parties it's time for you to do the maximum that is possible, not the minimum, because we haven't had an opportunity like this in many years and we may not have another opportunity like this for a lot more years.
So one of the discussions, conversations that I always have with the Israelis and when I talk to the Palestinians on the other side is why don't we worry about what you need to do. Instead of Israel worrying about what the Palestinians need to do and the Palestinians worrying about what the Israelis need to do, how about if the Palestinians worry about what they need to do and the Israelis worry about what they need to do? And if everybody makes a maximum effort, we are going to actually achieve something.
MS. ZACHARIA: Do we have time for one more?
MR. BOUCHER: One or two more.
MS. ZACHARIA: Can you talk about the FBI documents this morning with revelations that there actually had been desecration of the Koran?
SECRETARY RICE: As I understand it, there are -- there were -- this was alleged and the FBI is looking into it. I don't know more than that.
But I want to say something about the treatment and the treatment of the Muslim religion in Guantanamo. I can't speak to cases here or there. Obviously, if anything happened, they'll be investigated and people would be punished for it. But there has been -- people have gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure that the detainees are able to practice their religious faith. This is a country that respects religious faith, religious differences. This is a country in which Muslims are growing in numbers and practicing their faith every day, all over this country, in towns big and small.
At Guantanamo, they made prayer mats available to the people. They did arrows pointing toward Mecca so people knew which direction to pray. They had instructions for how to handle the Koran sensitively. And that story needs to be told, too.
I was asked in Germany, during the Abu Ghraib events, how can you say that, you know, you're a democracy that observes human rights when something like Abu Ghraib happens? And I said to people, democracy doesn't mean bad things won't happen. They do. Bad things happen. But people are held accountable for them. Democracies are transparent about those problems. And the case here has been one in which a country that is known for respecting the Islamic faith, because Muslims flock here to practice their faith freely, that somehow that never gets expressed, when, yes, there are problems here or problems there.
I mean, I will not doubt that there have been problems. I don't know the exact nature of them.
But the United States of America is a place in which people -- first of all, which people founded because they wanted to worship freely and which now people worship freely across the board in just about any religious tradition that you can imagine.
MR. HUNT: Madame Secretary, we wouldn't be Bloomberg if we didn't ask you one question about oil before we go. The Saudis have promised that they will increase production into 2009, I think it is, which is terribly helpful over the long run.
SECRETARY RICE: Yes, right.
MR. HUNT: There's a huge clamor, as you know, in this country about rising gasoline prices. That doesn't do anything initially on it. Is there anything that Saudi Arabia or any of the other oil producers can do to help us in the short run?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, you know, they have announced from time to time that they're going to try to go to as close to capacity as they can. But we haven’t licked the problem, we have a long-term problem. And, you know, it's a problem that the President tried to address with an energy -- a comprehensive energy policy some years ago now -- when he first came in, one of the first policies that he put in place was a comprehensive energy policy legislation on the Hill that didn't get passed -- because we do need to diversify our sources of energy. We need to take advantage of our own American-based possibilities in places like ANWR. We need to -- we've obviously had measures that deal with technology. The President was a big supporter of, you know, of cars that are not going to be dependent on hydrocarbons to run.
And so what is needed here is a comprehensive policy. Now, I would think that it is helpful that the Saudis have made clear that they'll do whatever they can to exploit what reserves are there and that's a good commitment. But in the long run, this isn't going to be resolved by just looking for more hydrocarbons. You know, nuclear energy has to be looked at. And if you look at the growing --
MR. HUNT: But nothing in the short term that anybody can do, really?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, you know, sometimes -- I remember the President saying to me when we launched the energy policy, you know, we have to get started because there is going to be a crunch and if you have a world economy that is growing, and particularly growing with big, new entrants like China and India and others -- everywhere I go, people talk about their energy needs and they're all trying to find some way to deal with their energy needs. So this is a structural issue and you can't really deal with structural issues in a short-term way.
MR. HUNT: You got back from Iraq just a week ago, that secret trip, which I gather was a great trip.
SECRETARY RICE: Yeah, it was a great trip.
MR. HUNT: Did it make you feel that it's realistic to believe we can bring home a significant number of troops next year?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, look, I don't know about how many troops we'll bring home when. The goal -- the President has said very often, you know, we don't have an exit strategy, we have a success strategy. And we --
MR. HUNT: Is (inaudible) always talking about bringing home a fair number of troops --
SECRETARY RICE: The military has to plan for different contingencies, but this is all based on what's happening on the ground and it's especially based on how the Iraqis are doing. And I know that there have been questions about how well the Iraqis are doing, but they are certainly doing it a lot better. They have been involved in a lot of joint operations with us recently. They protected the elections pretty much on their own. I mean, General Casey said that he didn't have a single case where the Polish forces had to intervene.
What Iraq really convinced me of -- because I had never been to Baghdad -- I had been with the President on the Thanksgiving trip, but I had never been into Baghdad. It's a remarkable city and this is going to be a great country. It's got a lot of challenges, but, you know, the political process is moving forward and they are coming to terms with the difficulties and the splits that have been there in that society. And the way that you defeat an insurgency is politically, not just militarily. And so as Iraqis see their interests as represented in the political process, the insurgency will lose steam.
Now, a few people can do a lot of very violent things and they obviously are at a kind of peak in their violence at this point, the willingness to kill innocent Iraqis to make a point. But you do see Iraqis more and more turning to the political process. And what happened with the Sunnis was a big step, because I think the Sunnis now acknowledge that they made a mistake in not fully engaging in the political process. Some of that was not their fault; you know, a lot of intimidation, areas where voting was difficult. But to the degree that they, by choice, did not engage in the vote, I think they realized they made a mistake. They're now organizing themselves to be more involved in the constitution and be more involved next time. That's a very good sign.
MR. HUNT: Okay, thank you.
SECRETARY RICE: Thank you.
2005/558
Released on May 26, 2005
I am sure foreign policy analysts in all the three countries will be carefully weighing the significance of every word of what she said.
ON INDIA and CHINA:
MR. HUNT: Can I just interrupt for a second? I want to go back to one question. You said India is a growing global power and that is largely positive.
SECRETARY RICE: Yes.
MR. HUNT: China is also a growing global power. Is that also largely positive?
SECRETARY RICE: It could be.
MR. HUNT: Is it?
SECRETARY RICE: The advantage in India is its democracy. And it is a quite remarkable democracy. Think of over a billion people and that kind of multi-ethnicity of that place, the multi-religiosity of that place, and that it repeatedly manages to have democratic elections, had a peaceful change of parliament. It's a remarkable story. And because our view is that democracies tend to be stabilizing in their activities and behaviors, obviously it's a good thing that India is a democracy.
Now, China is in transition in terms of its domestic systems. And we will continue to make clear that the democratization, the human rights issues, the religious freedom issues, the transparency and openness in politics -- these are issues concerning China. It's also the case that China is a big and growing and, you know, economic influence. In fact, that goes without saying. If it is big and growing economic influence outside the rules of the international economy, that's going to be a huge problem. And that's why everybody backed WTO accession for China so that it could be within a rules-based system. And now the goal has to be make sure that China, whether you're talking about agricultural policy or financial services access -- or access for financial services or you're talking about IPR protection or the currency, that an economy that big has simply got to be within the rules of the international economy or it will be disruptive to the international economy.
ON INDIA:
Q: There seems to be a growing dependence [of India] on outsourcing of U.S. services there and has that -- that seems to have benefited India, for sure. But what's the benefit for the United States?
A: When this issue came up several months ago, I think that the answer that rings truest is that in order for the United States to be competitive and to make certain that jobs are here, you have to have an environment in which this is the very best place to do business. And that's what I think the President and his economic advisors spend a lot of time doing. And the President has talked about dealing not just with our near-term problems, but with our long-term liabilities, like Social Security, which depressed the capacity for the United States to be over the long term the very best place to do business. Tort reform and all of the things that they're pursuing.
But India is a rising economic influence of power in the international system. It's a great multiethnic democracy. I think it's a natural friend for the United States. The Indians are emerging from a philosophy of heavy statist involvement in the economy. They are emerging similarly from policies that were -- that were not aligned, but had a strong -- I won't call it anti-America, but tended to juxtaposed India to the United States in most of its policies -- and instead, I think, emerging as a potentially very stabilizing and positive force in international politics, which is why we're spending a lot of time on that relationship. We're spending a lot of time on South Asia.
And if you could imagine a circumstance in which what was once called the "Arc of Crisis" is instead an Afghanistan that is democratic and has a strong defense relationship with the United States, as the President -- and a strong strategic relationship with the United States, as the President and President Karzai just announced when he was here this week. A Pakistan that is democratizing and doing that in a way that roots out extremism because I think you have to say that Pakistan was very far along the road of extremism and Musharraf has made a strategic choice to turn that around.
And then in India, which is democratic, multiethnic, reforming in terms of the economy, entering the world economy in a major way, and that the United States can retain good and -- good relations with all of those and deepening relations with all of those, it's a very good strategic position for the United States in terms of security, in the fight against terrorism, as well as when you look to the West, what it means for the Middle East, and when you look to the East, what it means for East Asia more broadly.
So India is a very key relationship here and we're spending a lot of time on it. When I went out there, we talked about a stronger economic relationship, stronger energy cooperation, stronger defense cooperation and becoming a reliable partner for India as it makes its move as a global power. And we used the words that we're fully willing and ready to assist in that growth of India's global power and the implications of that, which we see as largely positive.
ON CHINA:
1) I would say that we have really strengthened the relationship on a number of fronts so it's in the overall relationship that I think we've seen the relationship strengthened......I think we have strengthened our cooperation in the counterterrorism field quite a lot and we've developed a relationship which we can talk pretty honestly and bluntly just about anything. So that's how I would see it.
2) I think there is no doubt in anyone's mind that we have some rocky seas on the economic front. We've wanted the Chinese to do more on intellectual property rights than they have thus far been able to do. The currency issue is sitting there.
3) At the same time, we've had very good cooperation with the Chinese on a number of Security Council issues where I think you might not have expected us to be able to do that; for instance, on the Sudan where the Chinese, for a long time, resisted having a sanctions resolution against the Sudanese.
4) China is a rising factor in international politics. It's a new factor in international politics. And that can be for good or for bad and the goal of the United States has to be to try and make that for good because it is going to be a factor. There is no doubt about that. Our policies are designed to try and make sure that it's a positive factor.
Cheers,
Ram Narayanan
US India Friendship
http://www.usindiafriendship.net
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/46826.htm
US DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Interview With Al Hunt, Janine Zacharia and Matt Winkler of Bloomberg News
Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Washington, DC
May 26, 2005
(9:00 a.m. EDT)
MR. HUNT: I just returned from China, Madame Secretary, and we would like to know, what is the single most important achievement this year for the U.S. and China, in your opinion? What will it be?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I would say that we have really strengthened the relationship on a number of fronts so it's in the overall relationship that I think we've seen the relationship strengthened. And they have a new president who has since consolidated his power with the final retirement of Jiang Zemin from a number of different military commissions and so the President and Hu Jintao established a very good relationship. But we have maintained our coordination and cooperation on the nuclear issue of North Korea. It hasn't been resolved yet, but to have a situation in which the United States and China have continued commitment to a non-nuclear Korean Peninsula and trying to do this with diplomatic means, I think is quite an achievement given all the pressures from that issue particularly for the Chinese, who live next to the North Koreans.
I think we have strengthened our cooperation in the counterterrorism field quite a lot and we've developed a relationship which we can talk pretty honestly and bluntly just about anything. So that's how I would see it.
MR. HUNT: So six months from now, if you could point to one thing that you think would be the most significant for this year --
SECRETARY RICE: I don't tend -- you know, I don't tend to think of the relationship in that way. I'm a believer that you build relationships along multiple fronts. Particularly when you're dealing with big, complicated places like China or Russia or India, you're building along multiple fronts and there will be puts and takes in the relationship. I think there is no doubt in anyone's mind that we have some rocky seas on the economic front. We've wanted the Chinese to do more on intellectual property rights than they have thus far been able to do. The currency issue is sitting there.
At the same time, we've had very good cooperation with the Chinese on a number of Security Council issues where I think you might not have expected us to be able to do that; for instance, on the Sudan where the Chinese, for a long time, resisted having a sanctions resolution against the Sudanese.
So I tend to look at the health of the relationship six months from now and say, "Is this a relationship that is providing benefit in the sense that we can work together on the many complicated problems before us?" And that's how I tend to think of it instead of a single issue that’s going well or badly because in a relationship that's that complicated you're going to have a range of issues.
MR. HUNT: There are reports that the Deputy Secretary of State is going to make a trip soon to Beijing. Is their purpose, is their prime purpose of those multiple issues that he's going to be dealing with now, is that principally economic? Is it --
SECRETARY RICE: No, it won't be principally anything. When I went, I spent probably 30-40 percent of my time on economic issues and the rest on other kinds of issues.
MR. HUNT: And that will be the same with this trip?
SECRETARY RICE: And I think it will probably be the same with this trip. Bob is -- you know, he's a former Trade Representative so probably by instinct, nature and interest he may spend a little bit more time on the Joint Economic Committee issues, but he is doing the Global Strategic Dialogue with the Chinese and it truly means Global Strategic Dialogue.
China is a rising factor in international politics. It's a new factor in international politics. And that can be for good or for bad and the goal of the United States has to be to try and make that for good because it is going to be a factor. There is no doubt about that. Our policies are designed to try and make sure that it's a positive factor.
MR. HUNT: You mentioned earlier North Korea and you've said before that China has been helpful in the six-party talks. But China has also made clear that they would like the United States to engage in more substantive bilateral talks. Why don't we?
SECRETARY RICE: Because we've been down that road before and signed an agreement with the North Koreans in 1994, which practically before the ink was dry they started to violate by finding an alternative route to a nuclear weapon.
Because when the United States is engaged in bilateral talks with the North Koreans outside the context of a multilateral framework, the North Koreans can cherry-pick and try and make it about the United States and North Korea -- and it's not. It's not about the United States and North Korea. This is about what the neighborhood is going to be like and is there going to be a North Korea that is nuclear on the Korean Peninsula, and what does that mean for the security interests of Japan and South Korea and China and Russia and the United States.
And I think the real achievement of the six-party talks, even though it has obviously not resolved the North Korean problem, is that it has made clear that a non -- that a nuclear North Korea is not a problem for the United States alone, it is a problem for all of North Korea's neighbors as well. And we simply have to keep that framework. Now, we do talk to them. We have a New York channel that we use for communication, not for negotiation. We talk to them within the context of the six-party talks. It's not that we are somehow afraid to directly talk to them, but it's a question of what is the structure of those conversations, and if the structure of those conversations is about bilateral relations between the United States and North Korea, we don't have that much to say.
MR. HUNT: Yet they have steadily acquired a greater nuclear capacity over the last five years and they've seemed to have paid a minimal price for that. Why is there any reason to think they won't continue?
SECRETARY RICE: I'm not sure they've paid a minimal price. They've certainly paid a lot of opportunity costs. If you look back to 1999, 2000, 2001, they were talking about expanded relations with Russia. There was a visit between Putin and Kim Jong-il. If you look at the subsequent years, there was talk about the normalization of relations with Japan. The South Korean-North Korean dialogue was sprinting ahead and we were in the process in 2002 of presenting what we called "a bold approach" to North Korea that I think you could associate with something more like the Libya approach, where you had a pathway to better relations with the United States and more normal relations with the entire region.
And while, yes, people are willing to give them fertilizer or trying to deal with their oil needs or trying to deal with new food concerns or to try to deal with the smaller issues, I think these large-scale improvements in relations with their neighbors and therefore with the international community have been off the table because people don't want a nuclear-armed North Korea. So the opportunity costs to this regime have been pretty great, particularly if you take them at their word that they do believe that they need to improve their economic situation and that they do need help in reforming their economy.
MR. HUNT: Trade and economics have been two components in the U.S.-Japan relationship. With the U.S. automakers on the ropes and the Japanese automakers, by contrast, selling more automobiles in the U.S. or making more automobiles here, is that an issue that you should be involved in?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I consider our foreign policy to have a strong economic component. I have never understood the argument that we have foreign policy considerations and we have economic policy considerations and they're somehow separable, which is why the point is that the relationship with China, for instance, is in its totality.
Similarly, the relationship with Japan. Now, the goal, I think, of American international policy has to be to make sure that our partners are playing by the rules of the international economy. That means that there's a level playing field, that people are not taking advantage of a subsidy or dumping or all of the various ways to create unfair trade advantage.
And the President has been, across the board, very intent on enforcing the rules of the international economy. The WTO is helpful in that regard. And -- but the President has made very clear, too, that the other way to make certain that the United States is competitive on that level playing field is to make the United States the best place to do business, lower regulation, dealing with the business of our society, making certain that our workers are well-trained, that there is an environment here in which business can prosper. And so those two halves, I think, are -- that's where the federal government, both in its economic policies and its foreign policies, can improve the prospects for American business to be competitive. That's the role.
MS. ZACHARIA: With that goal in mind, shifting a bit to India, where relations seem to have improved, there seems to be a growing dependence of their country on outsourcing of U.S. services there and has that -- that seems to have benefited India, for sure. But what's the benefit for the United States?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, again, when this issue came up several months ago, I think that the answer that rings truest is that in order for the United States to be competitive and to make certain that jobs are here, you have to have an environment in which this is the very best place to do business. And that's what I think the President and his economic advisors spend a lot of time doing. And the President has talked about dealing not just with our near-term problems, but with our long-term liabilities, like Social Security, which depressed the capacity for the United States to be over the long term the very best place to do business. Tort reform and all of the things that they're pursuing.
But India is a rising economic influence of power in the international system. It's a great multiethnic democracy. I think it's a natural friend for the United States. The Indians are emerging from a philosophy of heavy statist involvement in the economy. They are emerging similarly from policies that were -- that were not aligned, but had a strong -- I won't call it anti-America, but tended to juxtaposed India to the United States in most of its policies -- and instead, I think, emerging as a potentially very stabilizing and positive force in international politics, which is why we're spending a lot of time on that relationship. We're spending a lot of time on South Asia.
And if you could imagine a circumstance in which what was once called the "Arc of Crisis" is instead an Afghanistan that is democratic and has a strong defense relationship with the United States, as the President -- and a strong strategic relationship with the United States, as the President and President Karzai just announced when he was here this week. A Pakistan that is democratizing and doing that in a way that roots out extremism because I think you have to say that Pakistan was very far along the road of extremism and Musharraf has made a strategic choice to turn that around.
And then in India, which is democratic, multiethnic, reforming in terms of the economy, entering the world economy in a major way, and that the United States can retain good and -- good relations with all of those and deepening relations with all of those, it's a very good strategic position for the United States in terms of security, in the fight against terrorism, as well as when you look to the West, what it means for the Middle East, and when you look to the East, what it means for East Asia more broadly.
So India is a very key relationship here and we're spending a lot of time on it. When I went out there, we talked about a stronger economic relationship, stronger energy cooperation, stronger defense cooperation and becoming a reliable partner for India as it makes its move as a global power. And we used the words that we're fully willing and ready to assist in that growth of India's global power and the implications of that, which we see as largely positive.
MS. ZACHARIA: I want to shift to Iran. The EU-3 talks yesterday and Mr. Rowhani. They seem to want a temporary pledge again, kicking the can down the road, to all of this. How concerned are you about sort of these minor steps, sort of giving Iran actually more time to cheat to pursue its program?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, the Iranians are in a state of suspension right now, which is a good thing. They are also under the spotlight of the international community, which is a good thing. The United States and our European colleagues have the closest possible coordination on what is being done there and what is going on there. And I think that what the EU-3 did in holding to the Paris agreement, of holding to the insistence on a suspension, on holding to objective guarantees as the outcome, which we believe has got to be a permanent cessation of the sensitive activities associated with the nuclear fuel cycle, is a very positive development.
And the Iranians, some months ago, I think, believed that they had a split between the United States and Europe. When I first went to Europe just after becoming Secretary, I was really quite surprised at the intensity of feeling that the United States was not somehow supportive of the negotiations, that we were saying we were, but that we were standing on the sidelines. And I think we intensified our cooperation with the Europeans. We made some moves in terms of WTO application, WTO accession for Iran and spare parts and therefore reunited the Europeans and ourselves, and to a certain extent the Russians, who have handled Bushehr in a way that reduces proliferation concerns. And I think now the Iranians realize that they would be quite isolated if they, in fact, walked out of those talks.
MS. ZACHARIA: Will the United States go beyond the spare parts and the WTO pledge? The Europeans are urging the U.S., I understand, to put -- to give something else, perhaps.
SECRETARY RICE: I'm in touch with the Europeans practically every day on this and nobody is urging us to do anything more than we've done. Not on the level that matters.
MR. HUNT: Can I just interrupt for a second? I want to go back to one question. You said India is a growing global power and that is largely positive.
SECRETARY RICE: Yes.
MR. HUNT: China is also a growing global power. Is that also largely positive?
SECRETARY RICE: It could be.
MR. HUNT: Is it?
SECRETARY RICE: The advantage in India is its democracy. And it is a quite remarkable democracy. Think of over a billion people and that kind of multi-ethnicity of that place, the multi-religiosity of that place, and that it repeatedly manages to have democratic elections, had a peaceful change of parliament. It's a remarkable story. And because our view is that democracies tend to be stabilizing in their activities and behaviors, obviously it's a good thing that India is a democracy.
Now, China is in transition in terms of its domestic systems. And we will continue to make clear that the democratization, the human rights issues, the religious freedom issues, the transparency and openness in politics -- these are issues concerning China. It's also the case that China is a big and growing and, you know, economic influence. In fact, that goes without saying. If it is big and growing economic influence outside the rules of the international economy, that's going to be a huge problem. And that's why everybody backed WTO accession for China so that it could be within a rules-based system. And now the goal has to be make sure that China, whether you're talking about agricultural policy or financial services access -- or access for financial services or you're talking about IPR protection or the currency, that an economy that big has simply got to be within the rules of the international economy or it will be disruptive to the international economy.
MS. ZACHARIA: You met with President Abbas for dinner last night and you're going (inaudible).
SECRETARY RICE: That's right.
MS. ZACHARIA: Shortly. And he's writing in the Wall Street Journal this morning and talking about the needs of the President to support Palestinian statehood now. The administration is saying withdraw first. What is it that you're looking for specifically that the U.S. can provide on this trip?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, we had a very good talk last night and he's doing something very difficult. First of all, we think that this is a very different Palestinian leadership than the one that we didn't deal with before. It's somebody who has made a commitment to finding a peaceful resolution of the conflict with Israel. And we want to be supportive of that. We want to be supportive with -- as part of the international economic assistance, we want be supportive through the Ward mission and restructuring of the security forces. We have worked with the Quartet, with Jim Wolfensohn, who is going to try to work on the Gaza disengagement, make sure that that goes well.
The President has made clear that his long-term goal, or his goal, is the establishment of a democratic Palestinian state that is contiguous and viable and all of those things. The roadmap is a reliable guide to getting there and the reason that we concentrate on the Gaza disengagement -- and, by the way, the Palestinians understand they need to concentrate on that -- is that if it is successful, the Gaza disengagement, then you will have accelerated the -- you would have reinforced the confidence between the parties that this can be done, that they can work together, and you will have accelerated then the progress on the roadmap.
Now, what we mean by success in disengagement, we mean that there is obviously a smooth path for the Israelis to leave, which is going to be a complicated -- by any stretch of the imagination -- complicated operation. But also that when the Israelis do leave, the Palestinians have developed institutions and practices on the security side and on the government side that allow them to govern not just in the Gaza but, again, to establish the foundations for a state. It's also the case that if the economic reconstruction of the Gaza can take place, the Palestinian people will begin to see something worthwhile out of all this.
So that's why we concentrate on the Gaza. You know, the Middle East has been a place where people are very focused on what's out there and have a lot of discussions on what is going to be the -- what are going to be the borders and what will happen to right of return, what about Jerusalem -- and miss the opportunities right in front of you. And so what we're saying this time is don't miss the opportunity that's right in front of you.
MR. HUNT: He called on you in that piece this morning to pressure Sharon more. Is that --
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I'm spending a good deal of time saying to both parties it's time for you to do the maximum that is possible, not the minimum, because we haven't had an opportunity like this in many years and we may not have another opportunity like this for a lot more years.
So one of the discussions, conversations that I always have with the Israelis and when I talk to the Palestinians on the other side is why don't we worry about what you need to do. Instead of Israel worrying about what the Palestinians need to do and the Palestinians worrying about what the Israelis need to do, how about if the Palestinians worry about what they need to do and the Israelis worry about what they need to do? And if everybody makes a maximum effort, we are going to actually achieve something.
MS. ZACHARIA: Do we have time for one more?
MR. BOUCHER: One or two more.
MS. ZACHARIA: Can you talk about the FBI documents this morning with revelations that there actually had been desecration of the Koran?
SECRETARY RICE: As I understand it, there are -- there were -- this was alleged and the FBI is looking into it. I don't know more than that.
But I want to say something about the treatment and the treatment of the Muslim religion in Guantanamo. I can't speak to cases here or there. Obviously, if anything happened, they'll be investigated and people would be punished for it. But there has been -- people have gone to extraordinary lengths to make sure that the detainees are able to practice their religious faith. This is a country that respects religious faith, religious differences. This is a country in which Muslims are growing in numbers and practicing their faith every day, all over this country, in towns big and small.
At Guantanamo, they made prayer mats available to the people. They did arrows pointing toward Mecca so people knew which direction to pray. They had instructions for how to handle the Koran sensitively. And that story needs to be told, too.
I was asked in Germany, during the Abu Ghraib events, how can you say that, you know, you're a democracy that observes human rights when something like Abu Ghraib happens? And I said to people, democracy doesn't mean bad things won't happen. They do. Bad things happen. But people are held accountable for them. Democracies are transparent about those problems. And the case here has been one in which a country that is known for respecting the Islamic faith, because Muslims flock here to practice their faith freely, that somehow that never gets expressed, when, yes, there are problems here or problems there.
I mean, I will not doubt that there have been problems. I don't know the exact nature of them.
But the United States of America is a place in which people -- first of all, which people founded because they wanted to worship freely and which now people worship freely across the board in just about any religious tradition that you can imagine.
MR. HUNT: Madame Secretary, we wouldn't be Bloomberg if we didn't ask you one question about oil before we go. The Saudis have promised that they will increase production into 2009, I think it is, which is terribly helpful over the long run.
SECRETARY RICE: Yes, right.
MR. HUNT: There's a huge clamor, as you know, in this country about rising gasoline prices. That doesn't do anything initially on it. Is there anything that Saudi Arabia or any of the other oil producers can do to help us in the short run?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, you know, they have announced from time to time that they're going to try to go to as close to capacity as they can. But we haven’t licked the problem, we have a long-term problem. And, you know, it's a problem that the President tried to address with an energy -- a comprehensive energy policy some years ago now -- when he first came in, one of the first policies that he put in place was a comprehensive energy policy legislation on the Hill that didn't get passed -- because we do need to diversify our sources of energy. We need to take advantage of our own American-based possibilities in places like ANWR. We need to -- we've obviously had measures that deal with technology. The President was a big supporter of, you know, of cars that are not going to be dependent on hydrocarbons to run.
And so what is needed here is a comprehensive policy. Now, I would think that it is helpful that the Saudis have made clear that they'll do whatever they can to exploit what reserves are there and that's a good commitment. But in the long run, this isn't going to be resolved by just looking for more hydrocarbons. You know, nuclear energy has to be looked at. And if you look at the growing --
MR. HUNT: But nothing in the short term that anybody can do, really?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, you know, sometimes -- I remember the President saying to me when we launched the energy policy, you know, we have to get started because there is going to be a crunch and if you have a world economy that is growing, and particularly growing with big, new entrants like China and India and others -- everywhere I go, people talk about their energy needs and they're all trying to find some way to deal with their energy needs. So this is a structural issue and you can't really deal with structural issues in a short-term way.
MR. HUNT: You got back from Iraq just a week ago, that secret trip, which I gather was a great trip.
SECRETARY RICE: Yeah, it was a great trip.
MR. HUNT: Did it make you feel that it's realistic to believe we can bring home a significant number of troops next year?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, look, I don't know about how many troops we'll bring home when. The goal -- the President has said very often, you know, we don't have an exit strategy, we have a success strategy. And we --
MR. HUNT: Is (inaudible) always talking about bringing home a fair number of troops --
SECRETARY RICE: The military has to plan for different contingencies, but this is all based on what's happening on the ground and it's especially based on how the Iraqis are doing. And I know that there have been questions about how well the Iraqis are doing, but they are certainly doing it a lot better. They have been involved in a lot of joint operations with us recently. They protected the elections pretty much on their own. I mean, General Casey said that he didn't have a single case where the Polish forces had to intervene.
What Iraq really convinced me of -- because I had never been to Baghdad -- I had been with the President on the Thanksgiving trip, but I had never been into Baghdad. It's a remarkable city and this is going to be a great country. It's got a lot of challenges, but, you know, the political process is moving forward and they are coming to terms with the difficulties and the splits that have been there in that society. And the way that you defeat an insurgency is politically, not just militarily. And so as Iraqis see their interests as represented in the political process, the insurgency will lose steam.
Now, a few people can do a lot of very violent things and they obviously are at a kind of peak in their violence at this point, the willingness to kill innocent Iraqis to make a point. But you do see Iraqis more and more turning to the political process. And what happened with the Sunnis was a big step, because I think the Sunnis now acknowledge that they made a mistake in not fully engaging in the political process. Some of that was not their fault; you know, a lot of intimidation, areas where voting was difficult. But to the degree that they, by choice, did not engage in the vote, I think they realized they made a mistake. They're now organizing themselves to be more involved in the constitution and be more involved next time. That's a very good sign.
MR. HUNT: Okay, thank you.
SECRETARY RICE: Thank you.
2005/558
Released on May 26, 2005
Posted on Tuesday, May 31, 2005 - 12:31
Comments
Review May Shift Terror Policies
U.S. Is Expected to Look Beyond Al Qaeda
By Susan B. Glasser
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, May 29, 2005; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/28/AR2005052801171.html
The Bush administration has launched a high-level internal review of its efforts to battle international terrorism, aimed at moving away from a policy that has stressed efforts to capture and kill al Qaeda leaders since Sept. 11, 2001, and toward what a senior official called a broader "strategy against violent extremism."
The shift is meant to recognize the transformation of al Qaeda over the past three years into a far more amorphous, diffuse and difficult-to-target organization than the group that struck the United States in 2001. But critics say the policy review comes only after months of delay and lost opportunities while the administration left key counterterrorism jobs unfilled and argued internally over how best to confront the rapid spread of the pro-al Qaeda global Islamic jihad.
President Bush's top adviser on terrorism, Frances Fragos Townsend, said in an interview that the review is needed to take into account the "ripple effect" from years of operations targeting al Qaeda leaders such as Khalid Sheik Mohammed, arrested for planning the Sept. 11 attacks, and his recently detained deputy. "Naturally, the enemy has adapted," she said. "As you capture a Khalid Sheik Mohammed, an Abu Faraj al-Libbi raises up. Nature abhors a vacuum."
The review marks the first ambitious effort since the immediate aftermath of the 2001 attacks to take stock of what the administration has called the "global war on terrorism" -- or GWOT -- but is now considering changing to recognize the evolution of its fight. "What we really want now is a strategic approach to defeat violent extremism," said a senior administration official who described the review on the condition of anonymity because it is not finished. "GWOT is catchy, but there may be a better way to describe it, and those are things that ought to be incumbent on us to look at."
In many ways, this is the culmination of a heated debate that has been taking place inside and outside the government about how to target not only the remnants of al Qaeda but also broader support in the Muslim world for radical Islam. Administration officials refused to describe in detail what new policies are under consideration, and several sources familiar with the discussions said some issues remain sticking points, such as how central the ongoing war in Iraq is to the anti-terrorist effort, and how to accommodate State Department desires to normalize a foreign policy that has stressed terrorism to the exclusion of other priorities in recent years.
"There's been a perception, a sense of drift in overall terrorism policy. People have not figured out what we do next, so we just continue to pick 'em off one at a time," said Roger W. Cressey, who served as a counterterrorism official at the National Security Council under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. "We haven't gone to a new level to figure out how things have changed since 9/11."
"No question this is the next stage, the phase two," another senior counterterrorism official said. "We are coming to the point of decisions."
Much of the discussion has focused on how to deal with the rise of a new generation of terrorists, schooled in Iraq over the past couple years. Top government officials are increasingly turning their attention to anticipate what one called "the bleed out" of hundreds or thousands of Iraq-trained jihadists back to their home countries throughout the Middle East and Western Europe. "It's a new piece of a new equation," a former senior Bush administration official said. "If you don't know who they are in Iraq, how are you going to locate them in Istanbul or London?"
Another key aspect is likely to be the addition of public diplomacy efforts aimed at winning over Arab public sentiment, and State Department official Paul Simons said at a congressional hearing earlier this month that the "internal deliberative process" was broadly conceived to encompass everything from further crackdowns on terrorist financing networks to policies aimed at curbing the teaching of holy war against the West and other "tools with respect to the global war on terrorism."
The policy review was initiated this spring by the NSC and is being led by Townsend, several administration officials said. They confirmed that the review may lead to a new national security presidential directive, superseding the October 2001 document signed by Bush that pledged the "elimination of terrorism as a threat to our way of life."
The review may have been slowed somewhat by the fact that many of the key counterterrorism jobs in the administration have been empty for months, including the top post at the State Department for combating terrorism, vacant since November, and the directorship of the new National Counterterrorism Center. "We're five months into the next term, and still a number of spots have yet to be filled," Cressey said. "You end up losing valuable time."
The counterterrorism center was created nearly a year ago by Bush to serve as the main clearinghouse for terrorism-related intelligence but is not yet fully operational, and has been run by an acting director and caught up in the broader wave of bureaucratic reorganization that resulted in the creation of the new directorate of national intelligence, whose fiefdom the center will join.
As part of the reorganization, a new office of strategic and operational planning is slated to become the focal point for operations aimed at terrorists, but that, too, has yet to start working fully, the senior counterterrorism official said.
Townsend just hired a deputy last week, Treasury official Juan Carlos Zarate, to take on the terrorism portfolio at the NSC; Townsend had been doing that as well as serving as the president's top homeland security aide for the past year. Several counterterrorism sources said the State job will soon be filled by CIA veteran Hank Crumpton and the counterterrorism center post is slated to go to Air Force Gen. Charles F. Wald, current deputy commander of U.S. forces in Europe.
"They recognize there's been a vacuum of leadership," said a former top counterterrorism official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. "There has been a dearth of senior leadership directing this day to day. No one knows who's running this on a day-to-day basis."
In general, current and former officials familiar with the discussions said, the challenge is to reorient U.S. efforts when the immediate threat from al Qaeda seems to have receded, though it is still far from disappearing. Osama bin Laden and other top lieutenants remain at large, but many U.S. experts appear to now agree with the assessment of Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf, who told a reporter recently that "we have broken the back of al Qaeda."
"No doubt al Qaeda as an organization has been destroyed," Afghan President Hamid Karzai told Washington Post reporters and editors last week. "No doubt it is no longer capable to launch the kind of attacks that they did on all of us a few years ago. Their capability is limited only to sporadic individual acts, suiciders and things like that."
Until recently, the Bush administration resisted any broadening of its mission against al Qaeda, insisting on what Townsend once called a "decapitation" strategy. The policy review marks what many experts regard as a belated shift. "The administration has appropriately taken the broad view," said an intelligence official who had urged the review. "It's not going to be a matter of just trying to roll up more al Qaeda guys. What we still know as the al Qaeda organization -- they've taken a terrible beating."
But even that notion remains controversial when assessing the continuing threat from al Qaeda will shape the policy against it. "I just don't accept the idea that the whole organization is completely gone and morphed into an amorphous global jihad movement," said Kenneth Katzman, a terrorism analyst at the Congressional Research Service. "They could still try to reconstitute the centralized structure of before 9/11."
A new campaign targeting "violent extremism" could also prove controversial, given disputes in the Middle East about how to categorize groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the West Bank that act as political parties while also supporting what the United States calls terrorist activities. "You can't start drawing very precise lines -- security/counterterrorism versus the broader efforts to deal with the roots of terrorism," the intelligence official said.
Staff writers Peter Baker and Dana Priest contributed to this report.
Posted on Tuesday, May 31, 2005 - 12:34
http://en.chinabroadcast.cn/2239/2005-5-31/158@242161.htm
Iran Boosts Islam to Counteract US
2005-5-31 11:37:42 CRIENGLISH.com
President Seyyed Mohammed Khatemi is working to boost Islam to counteract US advocated democracy in the Middle East.
An Iranian newspaper says President Seyyed Mohammed Khatemi is working to boost Islam to counteract US advocated democracy in the Middle East.
Iran's Keihan newspaper reported Monday that Khatemi proposed in a Sunday speech that Middle East nations should protect democracy, liberty and development by adopting widely recognized political systems in the Middle East and that any reliance on external power should be discarded.
His proposal is an obvious objection to US President George W. Bush, who put forward the Democracy in the Middle East plan last year with an aim to spread democracy and capitalism in the region.
Iran Boosts Islam to Counteract US
2005-5-31 11:37:42 CRIENGLISH.com
President Seyyed Mohammed Khatemi is working to boost Islam to counteract US advocated democracy in the Middle East.
An Iranian newspaper says President Seyyed Mohammed Khatemi is working to boost Islam to counteract US advocated democracy in the Middle East.
Iran's Keihan newspaper reported Monday that Khatemi proposed in a Sunday speech that Middle East nations should protect democracy, liberty and development by adopting widely recognized political systems in the Middle East and that any reliance on external power should be discarded.
His proposal is an obvious objection to US President George W. Bush, who put forward the Democracy in the Middle East plan last year with an aim to spread democracy and capitalism in the region.
Posted on Tuesday, May 31, 2005 - 12:47
Sisters take on scholars in battle for Islam
Simon Tisdall in Kuala Lumpur
Wednesday June 1, 2005
The Guardian
Zainah Anwar is a good Muslim. She is also an outspoken campaigner for women's rights. To many Muslim men in Malaysia and beyond, these two facts are barely compatible. Since helping to found the pressure group Sisters in Islam, Ms Anwar has challenged the country's exclusively male religious establishment on issues ranging from polygamy and domestic violence to women's rights to work, dress codes, and moral policing.
She has often won the argument, even if chauvinistic practices and prejudices remain deeply entrenched.
Article continues
<a> <img></a>
The group's main form of attack - letters printed in Malaysia's newspapers - began in 1990, causing fascination and outrage in equal measure. But the letters proved difficult for Islamic scholars to dismiss since the arguments were based on careful study of the Qur'an. Attempts to force Muslim women to adopt certain modes of dress, for example, contravened the Surah-an-Nur, they wrote.
"Some men have forced women to accept forms of veiling and seclusion. Women have been made responsible for limiting men's lustfulness," they said.
This broadside has had visible impact. While headscarves are still the norm for Muslim women in Malaysia, they are not obligatory and are often worn with trousers or skirts and high heels.
Turning their sights on a widespread belief that Muslim men can insist on arranged marriages and have a right to beat their wives, the women highlighted a passage in the Qur'an: "You are forbidden to inherit women against their will. Nor should you treat them with harshness ... on the contrary, live with them on a footing of kindness and equity."
Malaysia now has a domestic violence act that supersedes sharia law and applies to all Malaysians.
Pressure from the women and numerous NGOs and rights groups led to a constitutional amendment banning gender discrimination. Their current battlegrounds include gender bias, sexual harassment and marital rape.
Malaysia's prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, seems to have got the message, announcing a "comprehensive gender sensitisation programme".
"There's a lot more awareness, but the mindset about female obedience and submission hasn't really changed," said Fuziah Salleh of the opposition People's Justice Party's women's wing. "Women are very poorly represented at the higher levels of government."
Ms Anwar said the group's principal aim remained an enlarged "public space" within Islam where women could "challenge, criticise and change" social norms that were dictated not by the divine teachings of the Prophet but by infinitely fallible male mullahs.
Their other main concern was to ensure women's access to the rights so painstakingly attained. As elsewhere, enforcing maintenance, compensation, and protection orders was problematic and community pressures, especially in rape cases, meant women were often reluctant to come forward, she said.
"We are claiming a right for ordinary Muslims like us to speak and engage publicly on Islam, to say that Islam is not the monopoly of the mullahs or the Islamic activists," Ms Anwar said. "We as citizens of a democratic country and we as believers have a right to speak on Islamic matters."
Hostility to the Sisters in Islam remained strong in conservative religious and government circles, she said. She was called an infidel, disrespectful and un-Islamic. Some of the faithful had sent her pornography by email.
But their reputation is spreading. They are involved in training and educational projects throughout south Asia, including Afghanistan - a region where Amnesty International's latest annual report says violence against women is "all-pervasive".
The advent of a regressive Islamic state in Malaysia was unlikely, said Ms Anwar, although it remained a worry. To conservatives still seeking to force their values on others, Ms Anwar offered the robust riposte of a good Muslim: "Faith that does not come from the heart is not faith. It's merely fear of punishment."
Special report
Religion in the UK
Related articles
Guide to British religions
Full coverage - Muslim Britain
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1496345,00.html
Simon Tisdall in Kuala Lumpur
Wednesday June 1, 2005
The Guardian
Zainah Anwar is a good Muslim. She is also an outspoken campaigner for women's rights. To many Muslim men in Malaysia and beyond, these two facts are barely compatible. Since helping to found the pressure group Sisters in Islam, Ms Anwar has challenged the country's exclusively male religious establishment on issues ranging from polygamy and domestic violence to women's rights to work, dress codes, and moral policing.
She has often won the argument, even if chauvinistic practices and prejudices remain deeply entrenched.
Article continues
<a> <img></a>
The group's main form of attack - letters printed in Malaysia's newspapers - began in 1990, causing fascination and outrage in equal measure. But the letters proved difficult for Islamic scholars to dismiss since the arguments were based on careful study of the Qur'an. Attempts to force Muslim women to adopt certain modes of dress, for example, contravened the Surah-an-Nur, they wrote.
"Some men have forced women to accept forms of veiling and seclusion. Women have been made responsible for limiting men's lustfulness," they said.
This broadside has had visible impact. While headscarves are still the norm for Muslim women in Malaysia, they are not obligatory and are often worn with trousers or skirts and high heels.
Turning their sights on a widespread belief that Muslim men can insist on arranged marriages and have a right to beat their wives, the women highlighted a passage in the Qur'an: "You are forbidden to inherit women against their will. Nor should you treat them with harshness ... on the contrary, live with them on a footing of kindness and equity."
Malaysia now has a domestic violence act that supersedes sharia law and applies to all Malaysians.
Pressure from the women and numerous NGOs and rights groups led to a constitutional amendment banning gender discrimination. Their current battlegrounds include gender bias, sexual harassment and marital rape.
Malaysia's prime minister, Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, seems to have got the message, announcing a "comprehensive gender sensitisation programme".
"There's a lot more awareness, but the mindset about female obedience and submission hasn't really changed," said Fuziah Salleh of the opposition People's Justice Party's women's wing. "Women are very poorly represented at the higher levels of government."
Ms Anwar said the group's principal aim remained an enlarged "public space" within Islam where women could "challenge, criticise and change" social norms that were dictated not by the divine teachings of the Prophet but by infinitely fallible male mullahs.
Their other main concern was to ensure women's access to the rights so painstakingly attained. As elsewhere, enforcing maintenance, compensation, and protection orders was problematic and community pressures, especially in rape cases, meant women were often reluctant to come forward, she said.
"We are claiming a right for ordinary Muslims like us to speak and engage publicly on Islam, to say that Islam is not the monopoly of the mullahs or the Islamic activists," Ms Anwar said. "We as citizens of a democratic country and we as believers have a right to speak on Islamic matters."
Hostility to the Sisters in Islam remained strong in conservative religious and government circles, she said. She was called an infidel, disrespectful and un-Islamic. Some of the faithful had sent her pornography by email.
But their reputation is spreading. They are involved in training and educational projects throughout south Asia, including Afghanistan - a region where Amnesty International's latest annual report says violence against women is "all-pervasive".
The advent of a regressive Islamic state in Malaysia was unlikely, said Ms Anwar, although it remained a worry. To conservatives still seeking to force their values on others, Ms Anwar offered the robust riposte of a good Muslim: "Faith that does not come from the heart is not faith. It's merely fear of punishment."
Special report
Religion in the UK
Related articles
Guide to British religions
Full coverage - Muslim Britain
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1496345,00.html
Posted on Tuesday, May 31, 2005 - 23:59
Posted on Saturday, May 28, 2005 - 12:23
After a long period of try to appease and woe the Iraqi Sunnis, there are sighns that the Shia are beginnig to strike back. The Iraqi government naturally denies the phenomenon and journalists do a lot of hand wringing about "A Nation Divided." but I believe it is high time that they stopped being such patient victims.
Appeasement did not work. As ususal it merely invited more violence. As long as Sunnis had more to fear from the terrorists than from the authorities, survival mandated that they cooperate with the bombers.
Apparently, bombing a Shia shrine during a religious celebration is as acceptable to good Islamists as killing Jews during a Seder.
Will Iranian Shia Islamists ever care?
Posted on Saturday, May 28, 2005 - 12:48
"Saddam, who was stripped of humanity and mercy long ago, should not be offended to be stripped of his clothes." -- Ahmed Al-Rubie, Asharq Al-Awsat
"Saddam has always treated his people as laundry to be washed and ironed." -- Fahd Al-Bassem, Al-Rai Al-Aam
Posted on Saturday, May 28, 2005 - 12:43
No question, US - India relations are taking off. Relations with China will depend on China dealing with its people's inevitable demand for a greater voice. It's a worthwile read.
Posted on Saturday, May 28, 2005 - 12:59
TURKEY: ARMENIAN GENOCIDE CONFERENCE IS POSTPONED
Istanbul, 27 May (AKI) - A conference questioning Turkey's official policy that the 1915-21 mass killing of Armenians under Ottoman rule never took place has been postponed following pressure from the government. The conference, initially slated to be held at the Bhosphorus University on Wednesday, provoked outrage among nationalists, after participants said they would challenge the commonly held view in Turkey that the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians was due to the epidemics and other hardships suffered during deportations after separatist Armenian militants joined sides with Turkey's World War I enemy Russia and started killing Turkish civillians.
“How can this be a scientific conference? Some of the participants are even not historians” wrote Ruhat Mengi in the daily Vatan, apparently refering to one of the conference organisers, Prof. Murat Belge, Head of the Literature Department at Bilgi University, the only Turk who has joined the 90th anniversary commemorations of the genocide in the Armenian capital Yerevan on 24 April.
But the strongest criticism came from the Turkish justice minister and government spokesman, Cemil Cicek.
“The conference would be tantamount to stabbing Turkey in the back,” he said.
After Cicek’s remarks the Bosphorus University announced that the conference had been postponed.
The decision was welcomed by officials and others who refuse to even consider the Armenian allegations, but liberal columnists, conference participants and pro-democracy activists slammed the government's reaction.
"I am very sad and disappointed. It would have been a forum that showed that democracy worked in Turkey and that different voices can be heard" said Muge Gocek, a Turkish professor of sociology at Michigan University who traveled to Istanbul for the conference.
“The biggest mistake is criticising the conference as being one-sided. People like Cicek think that they have the authority to decide what is in the ‘national interest’ and they shape the society according to their decisions”, Belge wrote in his column in the Radikal daily on Friday.
The liberal paper’s headline on Thursday read: ‘Zero tolerance on thought’
The Human Rights Association (IHD) was also critical of Cicek.
"We strongly condemn the politicians and especially the justice minister who prevented the Armenian conference from taking place through pressure, threats and statements that make [organisers] targets" the IHD said in a statement on Wednesday.
Hans Jorg Kretschmer, the European Union Commission's representative to Turkey said that the government's did not fit in with ideas of democracy.
Organisers have said they intend to hold the conference, however a date has yet to be specified.
Istanbul, 27 May (AKI) - A conference questioning Turkey's official policy that the 1915-21 mass killing of Armenians under Ottoman rule never took place has been postponed following pressure from the government. The conference, initially slated to be held at the Bhosphorus University on Wednesday, provoked outrage among nationalists, after participants said they would challenge the commonly held view in Turkey that the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians was due to the epidemics and other hardships suffered during deportations after separatist Armenian militants joined sides with Turkey's World War I enemy Russia and started killing Turkish civillians.
“How can this be a scientific conference? Some of the participants are even not historians” wrote Ruhat Mengi in the daily Vatan, apparently refering to one of the conference organisers, Prof. Murat Belge, Head of the Literature Department at Bilgi University, the only Turk who has joined the 90th anniversary commemorations of the genocide in the Armenian capital Yerevan on 24 April.
But the strongest criticism came from the Turkish justice minister and government spokesman, Cemil Cicek.
“The conference would be tantamount to stabbing Turkey in the back,” he said.
After Cicek’s remarks the Bosphorus University announced that the conference had been postponed.
The decision was welcomed by officials and others who refuse to even consider the Armenian allegations, but liberal columnists, conference participants and pro-democracy activists slammed the government's reaction.
"I am very sad and disappointed. It would have been a forum that showed that democracy worked in Turkey and that different voices can be heard" said Muge Gocek, a Turkish professor of sociology at Michigan University who traveled to Istanbul for the conference.
“The biggest mistake is criticising the conference as being one-sided. People like Cicek think that they have the authority to decide what is in the ‘national interest’ and they shape the society according to their decisions”, Belge wrote in his column in the Radikal daily on Friday.
The liberal paper’s headline on Thursday read: ‘Zero tolerance on thought’
The Human Rights Association (IHD) was also critical of Cicek.
"We strongly condemn the politicians and especially the justice minister who prevented the Armenian conference from taking place through pressure, threats and statements that make [organisers] targets" the IHD said in a statement on Wednesday.
Hans Jorg Kretschmer, the European Union Commission's representative to Turkey said that the government's did not fit in with ideas of democracy.
Organisers have said they intend to hold the conference, however a date has yet to be specified.
Posted on Saturday, May 28, 2005 - 13:01
Good news! This time we did not remain silent and the reasonable center won.
Posted on Friday, May 27, 2005 - 01:37
Well, the lines in France are drawn and they are not all that different than those in the US. It's the pro" complex" unitelligeable EU constitution elite (including media) vs. the people. Everybody knows it.
"A French"non" will be a victory for the average Frenchman. The majority of French are conservative and do not agree with the Parisian career politicians who hunger for more economic power against America to the exclusion of all other issues". Natalie, Lyon, France
The ball is in the people's court and I, for one, hope the people win this one.
Posted on Friday, May 27, 2005 - 10:58
Now, Lord Ram is at your feet! A Hindu god is depicted on shoes in France. Apparently, some religious feelings are more worthy than others. Still, no deadly riots, please.
Posted on Friday, May 27, 2005 - 11:17
Teach Kids Peace reports that Israel has just arrested the FOURTEENTH Palestinian child with explosives tied to his body.
Riots anybody?
Posted on Friday, May 27, 2005 - 13:17
Amir Taheri knows Iran. He explains Why Europe Is Wrong on Iran first because delay is no policy. Note that this is the second delay, the first one was for parliamentary elections which led nowhere. Second, it is based on the European illusion that appeasement can work. Taheri is alway worth reading.
Posted on Friday, May 27, 2005 - 22:37
Jim Vaughan of was kind enough to forward to me (with the permission of the writer) a circular originating from his home institution at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth. The spirit of this circular, he adds, is much more representative of the views of academics working in British universities than the handful of activists behind the AUT motion...
Subject: AUT boycottI am writing to you express my dismay at the motion, passed at last week's AUT council meeting, to sever academic links with Haifa and Bar Ilan universities in Israel. This motion violates the very principles of professional academic enquiry; is intellectually shallow; and reeks of anti-Semitism.
Surely, one of the most elementary principles of academic enquiry is the questioning of prejudices and assumptions, including one's own. However, this boycott seeks to institutionalise a kind of thought police rarely seen outside totalitarian regimes: why should a marine biologist, for instance, an expert on late medieval German towns, or of Assyrian literature, have their participation at UK conferences decided on the basis of their political views, rather than the quality of their academic work ? If someone whom we regard highly for their intellectual abilities holds views we disagree with, should not our first reaction be to find out why he or she holds these views ? Where, moreover, was that critical engagement with the motion itself: ? It was, after all, passed without debate, and without Haifa or Bar Ilan being offered an opportunity to refute the accusations levelled against them. If we accuse others of violating basic standards of academic and scholarly integrity, it is paramount that we apply to our actions the very standards we are claiming to defend.
This motion is intellectually shallow, full of contradictions, and based on double standards. Assuming that the allegations made against Haifa and Bar Ilan are correct, this motion penalises academic staff for the dubious actions of their employers. Were this principle to be applied to British institutions, and judging from the number of motions passed against university management at Birmingham, anyone from the Birmingham AUT, from where that motion emanated, would have had to be barred from attending the AUT meeting, unless they had first explicitly and publicly declared their opposition to their management's actions, ideally, it seems, combined with a public show of contrition - sackcloth, ash and self-flagellation being, I guess, optional. If Haifa and Bar Ilan were guilty of dubious dealings, then it is the institutional management that should be boycotted, not academics employed at these institutions. If, as alleged, Haifa prevented its academics from engaging critically with the foundation of the modern state of Israel, then, surely, we should resist attempts to block their research agendas, not boycott victims of infringements of academic liberty. Moreover, if Haifa were guilty of suppressing criticism of Israeli policy, this motion would mean that we would only be able to work with those academics who were willing to have themselves sacked for the privilege. Surely, that's too high a price to pay for the approval of some self-righteous middle class Brits.
Which brings me to my final point. The way in which Israel has been singled out for criticism, the language of the boycott itself, and the degree to which Israeli academics have been victimised by those supporting the academic boycott, raises the question whether the vowedly progressive intentions of this motion are not merely a disguise for old-fashioned anti-Semitism. This impression may well be unfounded (and I hope it is), but it also one which that motion and its proponents have done little to dispel. Ultimately, this motion, rather than aiding, has seriously damaged the cause of those, in Israel and elsewhere, who are critical of Israel's policy in the occupied territories. There are many ways in which opposition to Israeli policy can and should be voiced, but this kind of shallow, uncritical, self-righteous and - in its undertones - racist motion is not one of them.
To read of the - universally hostile - response among our colleagues across the UK was heartening. The situation is such, however, that we cannot remain aloof from the debate any longer. I am therefore suggesting that we, in Aberystwyth, take a number of steps: first, we break this boycott; secondly, we should actively encourage engagement with Israeli and other Middle Eastern scholars; thirdly, we should support the efforts by John Pike at the Open University to call a special council meeting to revoke this meeting; and we should issue a formal motion of protest to the AUT.
I have taken the liberty of copying this e-mail to a number of colleagues in Aberystwyth and elsewhere, who, if they agree with me, are very much invited to write similar e-mails to you or to their local AUT branches. There already are too many colleagues leaving the AUT in protest at this motion. We owe it to them, and to our own claims of academic and intellectual integrity, that we do our best to have this shameful motion rescinded.
Posted on Thursday, May 26, 2005 - 17:39
We have already cut a few but we have further to go, argues Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely in his new book, End Game: The Blueprint for Victory in the War on Terror. Main points are summed up thus:
- Before the World Trade Towers and the Pentagon were attacked, there were eight countries supporting terrorism. Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, and North Korea were involved in shipments of arms to terrorists. Saudi Arabia provided sanctuary, training, and funding for terrorist organizations.
- This list has now been reduced to five countries, and some of these are in transformation as well, including Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.
- If we follow a strategy that takes the nation-states that continue to support terrorism out of play, the non-state terrorist organizations will fade. For example, Hizballah will fade if its umbilical cord with Iran can be cut.
- In November 2004, Fallujah was by far the most dangerous city in the world. Now it is the safest city in Iraq. We cannot permit sanctuaries to exist anywhere in the world that enable terrorist organizations to spread their terror. · There is only one war today and that is the global war on terror – there are no other wars. The rest are campaigns within the war on terror. The problem between Israel and the Palestinians will not be solved until we solve the greater regional problems.
Posted on Monday, May 23, 2005 - 15:51
Calls for Israel's destruction in London Whose calls? Galloway's and the AUT boycott instigator's.
A central London rally organized by the British Palestine Solidarity Campaign on Saturday heard Respect Party MP George Galloway advocate a general boycott of Israel, as well as other speeches calling for Israel's destruction.Dark gray clouds poured heavy rain on London's Trafalgar Square, as a crowd waving Palestine flags and anti-Israel banners filled the square to hear speakers shout vitriolic anti-Israel speeches. Demonstrators chanted Islamic slogans and flags calling for"victory to the intifada" were waved. Leading figures in Britain's anti-Israel coalition also lined up to attack Israel.
Andrew Birgin, of the Stop the War Coalition, urged the destruction of the State of Israel."Israel is a racist state! It is an apartheid state! With its Apache helicopters and its F-16 fighter jets! The South African apartheid state never inflicted the sort of repression that Israel is inflicting on the Palestinians," he said to loud applause. "When there is real democracy, there will be no more Israel!" concluded Birgin."Allahu Akbar!" yelled several men repeatedly in response. . . .
"This morning we've had a message from the Palestine General Federation of Trade Unions, saying they support the AUT boycott, and call for the May 26 AUT conference to boycott Haifa and Bar-Ilan University," said Corbyn, before introducing Sue Blackwell, the Birmingham lecturer who presented anti-Israel boycott motions passed by the Association of University Teachers last month.
Blackwell attacked opponents to the boycott of Israeli universities, listing the Board of Deputies, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Congress.
"We can't expel anyone from the union for breaking the boycott, so why is it that the whole world has gone completely hysterical?" she asked.
She bitterly criticized the upcoming emergency May 26 AUT meeting which will vote on a motion to overturn the boycotts."When the issue is Israel, suddenly the procedures of the union are undemocratic, and a special meeting of the council has to be called, in over to overturn the motion. Comrades, it's not us who are making a special case for Israel, it's the people who lost the vote who are," said Blackwell. . .
Speaking to the Post about links on her personal homepage to neo-Nazi Web sites, she described as"defamatory rubbish" the article that exposed them. Blackwell promised to"make a statement" to the Post about the links, which she has since removed, in the near future.
Not anti-Semitic?
Posted on Monday, May 23, 2005 - 15:07
Because Laura Bush talked about political freedom, women's rights and civil rights:
I'm reminded of what Vaclav Havel, the former President of the Czech Republic, once told me. Vaclav Havel -- playwright, intellectual, freedom fighter, political prisoner, then President of the Czech Republic -- said to me,"Laura, you know, democracy is hard because it requires the participation of all the people."
So she knew what to expect:"I think the protests were very expected. If you didn’t expect them, you didn’t know what it would be like when you got here," she said."Everyone knows how the tensions are and, believe me, I was very, very welcomed by most people."
The small crowd of about two dozen people at the Dome of the Rock who cried out at her:"You are not welcome here. Why are you hassling our Muslims? How dare you come in here?" or the old woman inside the mosque who shouted"Koran, Koran" at her were not representative. Nor were the few dozens of nationalist Jews demanding Washington free convicted Israeli spy Jonathan Pollard.
Bravo! Big mouths are NOT representive. They are extremists.
These big mouths had no need to heckle Hillary. She was their best friend. She did not trouble them with talk about elections or human rights. It's worth remembering the 1999 Hilary Clinton visit to Petra.It was far from edifying though the media put the best face on it:
Mrs. Arafat greeted her with a speech prepared by Yasser Arafat's office. It contained vicious, baseless and irrational charges against Israel that amounted to a blood libel. Suha Arafat said Israel used poison gas against the Palestinian population, which caused the death of women and children from cancer and other horrible diseases, and that Israel poisoned 80% of the water used by Palestinians. Clinton had her earphones on, listening to the simultaneous translation. As Arafat began reciting Israel's genocidal crimes, Clinton nodded in approval. Then her face froze into a polite smile. When Arafat finished, she hugged and kissed her, uttering not one word of criticism. Only after the White House alerted her to the unfavorable reaction to her conduct did she issue a statement. It did not refer to Suha Arafat but commended President Clinton's plea to all sides (including the US!) to refrain from provocative statements.Clinton later explained the delay by stating that the simultaneous translation was"unclear" and"incomplete." But most of the journalists present listened to the same translation, and they all heard Arafat's charges. Reuters correspondent Deborah Camiel was particularly accurate in her report, but most other reporters, too, seemed to have no trouble with the translation. Correspondents for CNN, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The New York Post, Knight Ridder and others got it right. TO BE SURE, some reporters tried to help Arafat by explaining that she probably meant tear gas, and others tried to help Clinton by reporting that she sharply rebuked Arafat when in fact she never referred to her by name.
There is much more and its worth reading the entire article to realize the role the mainstream media played in enabling the rise of radical Islam. Cal Thomas wrote at the time:
Clergy appointed by Arafat at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem regularly preach sermons calling for the"liberation'' of all the land, pre-1967 Israel included, in a Jihad that is"the responsibility of all Muslims.'' Various media controlled by the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) accuse Israel and the West of employing Nazi tactics against them, which is ironic given the Nazi-like rhetoric of many PLO leaders and Arab states against Jews and the West.Terrorists responsible for the deaths of innocent Israelis and visiting Jewish civilians are praised on PLO TV as saints and heroes. This year's Palestine Prize for Culture will go to Abu Daoud, mastermind of the 1972 Olympic bombing in Munich that killed 11 Israeli athletes.
This is not the behavior or language of people who want to make peace with their neighbors. This is the behavior and language of war, the objective of which is the complete annihilation of the Jews and eradication of the state of Israel. The only way"peace'' negotiators can continue with this sham is by ignoring the words and actions of those negotiating in bad faith. The PLO negotiators think they are carrying out Allah's will and that it is legitimate to lie about their intentions to the pagan and secular infidels on the Israeli and American side.
Islamic extremists are taking advantage of secularists in the Israeli and American governments and pragmatists like Bill Clinton who wants a"legacy'' in foreign affairs that he hopes will cover up his notorious domestic affairs. If the Jews have to die, who cares? They've died before. We'll just build them another museum.
We see Israeli soldiers yanking fellow Jews from"settlements'' and hear Barak speaking of a ghetto-type fence to keep Israel's enemies out. But neither evictions of Jews from land nor fences will protect Israel. Fences, in fact, have been used in the past to contain Jews in order to kill them more efficiently.
As for kissing the target for destruction, Judas wasn't the only one to employ the tactic. The Mafia has long done the same, kissing the one selected for death. With Mrs. Clinton and Mrs. Arafat smooching each other, we have a new scenario. The one who is about to die is not present.
Her name is Israel
Some things seem the same. But, then, no one talked about democratic states or an American commitment to Israel's existence as a Jewish State. So, no heckling.
Posted on Monday, May 23, 2005 - 17:48
Recently I noted the resemblence between Schroeder's anti-Capitalist rethoric and the Nazi one adding that after all, Nazi is an acronym of National Socialism. A reader responded that it was a cheap shot. This is an excerpt from Le Monde Diplomatique's article entitled, Germany: the division of the spoils written be Gotz Aly demonstrates that it was not!
I WANT to ask a simple question that has never really been answered: how could it have happened? How could the Germans have allowed and committed unprecedented mass crimes, particularly the genocide of Europe’s Jews? While the hatred the state whipped up against all “inferior” peoples - “Polacks”, “Bolsheviks” and “Jews” - no doubt prepared the ground, it is not an adequate answer.
In the years before Hitler came to power, the Germans harboured no greater feeling of resentment than did other Europeans; German nationalism was no more racist than that of other nations. There was no Sonderweg (special German path to modernity) that would lead logically to Auschwitz. There is no empirical basis for the idea that a specific form of xenophobia, a deadly anti-semitism, had developed early in Germany. It is wrong to assume that there must have been specific and long-standing causes for a mistake with such fatal consequences. A range of factors led to the National German Socialist Workers’ party (NSDAP) gaining and consolidating power, but the most important arose only after 1914.
At the heart of this study is the relationship between people and political elite under national socialism. We know that the edifice of Hitler’s power was fragile from the start. So how was it stabilised in a way that allowed it to last for 12 destructive years? We must clarify the general question: how could an enterprise which, in retrospect, appears as overtly deceitful, megalomaniac and criminal as Nazism have achieved political consensus on a scale we find it hard to explain today?
I consider the Nazi regime as a dictatorship in the service of the people. The war period, which brings out clearly the other features of Nazism, provides the best answer to the question. Hitler, the NSDAP Gauleiter (regional leaders), many of the ministers, state secretaries and advisers acted the part of traditional demagogues, constantly asking themselves how best to secure and consolidate general satisfaction and daily buying public approval or at least indifference. Giving and receiving was the basis on which they founded a consensual dictatorship consistently endorsed by the majority; an analysis of the internal collapse at the end of the first world war had revealed the pitfalls that their policy of popular beneficence would need to avoid.
During the second world war, the Nazi leadership tried to distribute food supplies in such a way that they were seen to be fairly allocated, particularly by poorer people. They did all they could to maintain the apparent stability of the Reichsmark (RM) to prevent any worrying reminder of the inflation of the 1914-18 war or the collapse of the German currency in 1923. And they saw to it - this had not happened during the first world war - that families of the military received enough money, nearly 85% of mobilised soldiers’ former net pay, compared with less than half for British and American families in the same position. It was not unusual for the wives and families of German soldiers to have more money than before the war; they also benefited from the presents brought back by soldiers on leave and parcels sent from occupied countries by military post.
To reinforce the illusion of benefits that were guaranteed and likely to increase, Hitler saw to it that the farming community, manual workers, white-collar workers and lower- or middle-rank civil servants were not significantly burdened by war taxes; the situation in Britain and the United States was crucially different. Exempting most German taxpayers meant considerably increasing the tax burden for those sections of society with large incomes. The exceptional tax of RM8bn that property owners were required to pay at the end of 1942 is a striking example of the policy of social justice ostensibly practised by the Third Reich. The same is true of the tax exemption for bonuses for working nights, Sundays and public holidays accorded after the defeat of France (and, until recently, considered by Germans as a social benefit).
While the Nazi regime was ruthless in its dealings with Jews and peoples it considered racially inferior or alien (fremdvölkisch), its class awareness led it to tax in a way that benefited the weakest Germans.
Taxing the moneyed classes (only 4% of German taxpayers were earning more than RM6,000 a year) could not provide the funds necessary to finance the second world war. So how was it possible to finance the most costly war in history with minimal impact on the majority of the population? Hitler spared middle-class Aryans at the expense of other population groups.
To curry favour with its own people, the government of the Third Reich ruined the currencies of Europe by exacting ever-higher occupation taxes. To secure the standard of living of its own people, it stole millions of tonnes of food to feed its soldiers, and had the rest sent back to Germany. German armies were supposed to feed themselves at the expense of the occupied countries and to settle their running costs in those countries’ currencies: they mostly succeeded. German soldiers deployed abroad, which was almost all of them; supplies provided to the Wehrmacht in occupied countries; the raw materials, industrial products and foodstuffs purchased on site for the Wehrmacht or to be sent back to Germany; all these were paid for in currencies other than the Reichsmark. The leadership applied simple principles: if someone has to die of hunger, it should not be a German; if wartime inflation is inevitable, it should affect any country except Germany.
Strategies were devised to achieve this. German coffers were filled with the billions acquired by despoiling Europe’s Jews, first in Germany, then in allied countries and those under Wehrmacht occupation.
Relying on large-scale predatory and racial war, national socialism was a source of real equality, largely based on a policy of social advancement on a scale unprecedented in Germany; that made it both popular and criminal. The material comforts, the benefits of mass criminality - indirect and with no sense of individual responsibility, but willingly accepted - left most Germans feeling that the regime was taking care of them. That drove the policy of extermination forward: the criterion was the people’s wellbeing. The absence of anything that could be described as real internal opposition and the subsequent lack of any feeling of guilt are a product of this historic combination of factors.
By answering the “how could this have happened?” question this way, we avoid resorting to anti-fascist formulas. This answer is hard to post up on walls and impossible to isolate from the national histories of postwar Germans in the German Democratic Republic (GDR), the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) or Austria. But it is essential to understand the Nazi regime as a form of national socialism so as to question the recurring tendency to blame individuals or clearly defined groups. Sometimes the mad dictator, a sick and charismatic figure, and his immediate entourage are blamed; sometimes the ideologists of racism. Others blame the bankers, the big bosses, the generals or the exterminators in the grip of killing fever. In the GDR, Austria and the FRG, a wide range of defence strategies have been adopted, but they have all gone in the same direction, allowing most of the population to enjoy a tranquil existence and a clear conscience.
Those who profited from the policy of Aryanisation are usually too quickly linked with big industrialists or bankers. The committees of inquiry into the Nazi period set up during the 1990s in many European states and big companies, made up of specialist historians, reinforced that impression, but it is misleading in the overall context. Historiographers are happy to add a number of middle- or high-ranking Nazis to the list of those who profited from Aryanisation. For some years the “man next door” has figured too: Germans, Poles, Czechs or Hungarians, whose questionable services to the occupying power were often rewarded with goods taken from Jews.
But any theory that focuses solely on individual beneficiaries fails to answer the question - what happened to the assets of Europe’s expropriated and murdered Jews?
The method of financing the war adopted in Germany in 1938, requiring that private assets be converted into government bonds, has been passed over by those who have considered the policy of Aryanisation from a legal, ethical or historiographical perspective. That viewpoint reflected the desire of the German leadership to hush up the material benefits of the pillage. Reference to the forced conversion of Jewish assets into government bonds was taboo, the actual figure kept secret. The persecution of the Jews had to be presented by the Nazis as purely ideological, and the defenceless victims of mass murder seen as despicable enemies.
In 1943 the Wehrmacht high command drew up a list of 19 political and military issues that were a source of concern to soldiers, which officers had to answer as uniformly as possible. It included: “Haven’t we gone too far on the Jewish question?” The answer was: “Bad question! National socialist principle forms part of our Weltanschauung [world view] - no debate” (1). But there is no reason to confuse the arguments available to Nazi indoctrinators with the historical facts.
Posted on Saturday, May 21, 2005 - 15:48
