Friday, March 11, 2005
Kofi Annan on Fighting Terrorism
At a conference on terrorism just concluding in Spain, Kofi Annan outlined in a few words a comprehensive strategy for fighting terrorism. In its simplicity, directness and balance his talk might be a useful starting point for all governments concerned with terrorism. The full text may be found here.
The Secretary-General organizes his talk around five D's: dissuading groups from choosing terrorism as a tactic; denying terrorists the means to carry out their attacks; deterring states from supporting terrorists; developing state capacities to deal with terrorism; and upholding human rights during the struggle against terrorism.
Dissuasion involves attempts to show any group that has taken up or is thinking of taking up terrorism that it is wrong under any circumstances. Deliberately killing civilians cannot be justified in any way, even as a defense against so-called "state terrorism". Civilian and religious leaders must clearly denounce terrorism.
Denying terrorists the means includes measures against money laundering and denying access to nuclear materials and other WMDs. States can be deterred by maintaining a firm line against all states that harbor or support terrorists. State capacity to counter terrorism, especially in poor states, must be strengthened with international assistance. Among the capacities for effective governance that Annan especially emphasizes is strengthening public health capacities everywhere, which he regards is the first line of defense against the possibilities of biological terrorism.
Finally, the Secretary General emphasizes the importance of upholding the principles of human rights during the war against terrorism. He strongly supports a recent proposal to create a special rapporteur to report to the human rights commission on the "compatibility of counter-terrorism measures with international human rights laws".
We should note that the approach is notably hard-headed. He does not begin, as too many analysts have, with proposing to treat the so-called "causes of terrorism". Although well aware of the crying needs of Africans and others, he does not consider "want" or "state terrorism" as a justification for terrorism. His argument is that we have to be clear. No group is justified in attacking civilians to advance its cause.
The Secretary-General organizes his talk around five D's: dissuading groups from choosing terrorism as a tactic; denying terrorists the means to carry out their attacks; deterring states from supporting terrorists; developing state capacities to deal with terrorism; and upholding human rights during the struggle against terrorism.
Dissuasion involves attempts to show any group that has taken up or is thinking of taking up terrorism that it is wrong under any circumstances. Deliberately killing civilians cannot be justified in any way, even as a defense against so-called "state terrorism". Civilian and religious leaders must clearly denounce terrorism.
Denying terrorists the means includes measures against money laundering and denying access to nuclear materials and other WMDs. States can be deterred by maintaining a firm line against all states that harbor or support terrorists. State capacity to counter terrorism, especially in poor states, must be strengthened with international assistance. Among the capacities for effective governance that Annan especially emphasizes is strengthening public health capacities everywhere, which he regards is the first line of defense against the possibilities of biological terrorism.
Finally, the Secretary General emphasizes the importance of upholding the principles of human rights during the war against terrorism. He strongly supports a recent proposal to create a special rapporteur to report to the human rights commission on the "compatibility of counter-terrorism measures with international human rights laws".
We should note that the approach is notably hard-headed. He does not begin, as too many analysts have, with proposing to treat the so-called "causes of terrorism". Although well aware of the crying needs of Africans and others, he does not consider "want" or "state terrorism" as a justification for terrorism. His argument is that we have to be clear. No group is justified in attacking civilians to advance its cause.
Thursday, March 10, 2005
The China Trade and World Order
Today's paper reports that in the first month after the end of quotas on apparel and textiles (January), China managed to flood the world market in an alarming manner. Imports of these items nearly doubled compared with the previous January. Meanwhile 12,000 jobs were lost in the American textile industry in January. Last year, America's trade deficit with China was $162 billion, the largest deficit ever run by the United States with any one country. (The European Union countries was affected similarly with the end of quotas, showing an increase of 46% in imports in this area in January.) Even before this latest information, the flood of inexpensive goods into the United States, both legitimate and fraudulent, has been remarkable. The trend has been hastened by the decision of big marketers such as Wal-Mart to make China their major source of goods. For many kinds of goods, the American consumer has often found that he is either unable to buy what he is looking for that is not "made in China" or that he must pay a prohibitively higher price for the non-Chinese goods. Some discussion of these issues is available here.
The American government has done little to stem this trend. It has talked to China about revaluing its money to increase the relative cost of its products to importers. But China has made little response to this and other suggestions. It is well known that working conditions in China are very poor, wages are very low, environmental considerations are routinely ignored, and the government subsidizes many industries to get ever larger shares of the market.
It is past time the wealthier countries realized that the dream of a world unencumbered with trade barriers of any kind is not a world that they can live with if they are to maintain the standards they have managed to attain over the last half century.
Referring back to another recent posting, unless the economy and financial strength of America and its allies are maintained, the country will neither be able to afford to defend its interests nor undertake efforts to right the wrongs of the world, expand the boundaries of liberty, and improve the health and well being of the poorest sections of the globe. These latter may be responsibilities eventually accepted by China as it climbs to the top of the pyramid of economic and later military power. But recent experience suggests that taking on such responsibilities is unlikely to be high on the Chinese agenda for some time. Meanwhile, it is up to us.
The American government has done little to stem this trend. It has talked to China about revaluing its money to increase the relative cost of its products to importers. But China has made little response to this and other suggestions. It is well known that working conditions in China are very poor, wages are very low, environmental considerations are routinely ignored, and the government subsidizes many industries to get ever larger shares of the market.
It is past time the wealthier countries realized that the dream of a world unencumbered with trade barriers of any kind is not a world that they can live with if they are to maintain the standards they have managed to attain over the last half century.
Referring back to another recent posting, unless the economy and financial strength of America and its allies are maintained, the country will neither be able to afford to defend its interests nor undertake efforts to right the wrongs of the world, expand the boundaries of liberty, and improve the health and well being of the poorest sections of the globe. These latter may be responsibilities eventually accepted by China as it climbs to the top of the pyramid of economic and later military power. But recent experience suggests that taking on such responsibilities is unlikely to be high on the Chinese agenda for some time. Meanwhile, it is up to us.
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
Not fit for Prime Time
The sad story in Monday's paper of the inability of the Pentagon's procurement system to provide adequate body armor to the soldiers in Iraq and the equally sorry performances in the provision of armored humvees or even in the retrofitting with armor of humvees and other vehicles, or in the provision of already tested devices to make it the electronics in roadside bombs inoperable is complemented in recent media by the story of the enhanced use of torture by the CIA and the Pentagon after 9/11. In this latest chapter, the torture has been an integral part of a policy called "rendition", that is the sending of suspects, often not charged with anything, to foreign countries where they will be made to talk. The countries chosen for such visits may not even be allies (for example, Syria), but they have the distinction of being known for the use of methods of torture that American officials feel they should avoid themselves because of American law and international commitments. Then there is today's article in the Times about the inability of the government to stop the sale of guns, including high-powered automatic guns, to known or suspected terrorists in the United States. Most of the people who applied for such guns lately were cleared for purchase. My friends also tell me of a recent talk they heard on the Plum Island center for the study of exotic viruses and bacteria. The speaker detailed many ways in which Plum Island, a small government owned island laboratory that harbors such friends as the Ebola, is actually less secure today that it was years ago. Extremely hazardous materials are regularly brought in an out by truck, with little securing along the way, and there is little protection on the island against a raid by terrorists.
These sad stories tell us many things about our government. When combined with the inability of the government to rationally address the deficit while insisting on cutting taxes while ignoring a decline in the dollar, this suggests that our political leaders and perhaps even our political system are not up to the challenge of leading the world while protecting the country against the inevitable blowback from our foreign adventures. Yes, as the only superpower we do have responsibilities. But in the long run we can only fulfill these responsibilities if our leaders are willing to tell the American people, and especially the wealthier taxpayers among them, that playing our role in the world requires sacrifices by all Americans. To be sustained, military and police actions require a strong economy to back them up. Handling the inevitable load of prisoners produced by our actions and by the terrorists, domestic and foreign, requires procedures and arrangements that can be sustained in terms of the body of national and international law on which our leadership depends. Fighting effectively in difficult environments requires the streamlining of procurement procedures that go beyond the "business as usual" approach that the Pentagon too often accepts. Controlling terrorists in the United States requires a new understanding of the requirements of security at sensitive facilities; it requires setting aside support for NRA positions long enough to enforce new controls on the availability of arms to suspected terrorists.
These sad stories tell us many things about our government. When combined with the inability of the government to rationally address the deficit while insisting on cutting taxes while ignoring a decline in the dollar, this suggests that our political leaders and perhaps even our political system are not up to the challenge of leading the world while protecting the country against the inevitable blowback from our foreign adventures. Yes, as the only superpower we do have responsibilities. But in the long run we can only fulfill these responsibilities if our leaders are willing to tell the American people, and especially the wealthier taxpayers among them, that playing our role in the world requires sacrifices by all Americans. To be sustained, military and police actions require a strong economy to back them up. Handling the inevitable load of prisoners produced by our actions and by the terrorists, domestic and foreign, requires procedures and arrangements that can be sustained in terms of the body of national and international law on which our leadership depends. Fighting effectively in difficult environments requires the streamlining of procurement procedures that go beyond the "business as usual" approach that the Pentagon too often accepts. Controlling terrorists in the United States requires a new understanding of the requirements of security at sensitive facilities; it requires setting aside support for NRA positions long enough to enforce new controls on the availability of arms to suspected terrorists.
Sunday, March 06, 2005
The American Campaign for Democracy: Prospects and Issues
For some years now the world has been moving toward more widely practiced freedoms. There has been and always will be some backsliding among those countries that achieve for a time a high "freedom rating". Right now we are interested most directly in what is happening and has happened in Afghanistan and Iraq.
The critical problem for Afghanistan is the increasing dependence of the economy on the growing, processing, and overseas distribution of opium. Opium is now over fifty percent of the economy and represents nearly all of the nation's exports. This dependence of the farmers is reflected in a growing ability of the warlords to maintain their armies and control in much of the country. There is no easy way out of the box in which the country finds itself. I suppose the country could have a fully functioning democratic narcostate, but experience in Colombia and elsewhere casts doubt on this outcome. The end result may be a state pressured by the United States to act forcibly against opium in ways that neither the people nor the warlords will accept. This would seem to give an opening for a Taliban comeback.
The critical problem in Iraq is that of often hostile communities that are likely to find it even more difficult to live together under democracy than they were under authoritarian rule. The country could either split up or relapse into a prolonged state of violence between ins and outs, Sunni Arab and Shi'a, Kurds and the rest, Fundamentalists and secularists — and within each of these groups many subgroups struggling for a place in the sun.
The more general problem with democratic transition, and one reason why we now notice some "backsliders" is that the measures of freedom or democracy are faulty. (Freedom and democracy are not the same thing, but this is a difficult discussion that I do not want to enter into here.) One free and fair election accompanied by several independent newspapers are sometimes enough to get a rating of "free". But the real test of democracy is bound to come later. Remember that nearly every former colony in the post-colonial world came to independence after a free and fair election. The first post-colonial government was, then, "democratic". But too often there was either a coup or political and social conditions that did not allow for the first generation of leaders to be displaced through democratic processes, and sometimes both. The most recent example may be what happened in Zimbabwe after it finally became free of British control, direct and later indirect, and Mugabe was elected. Democracy has been on a downhill trajectory in the country ever since. The test of democracy must, then, be at least a minimal degree of democratic continuity. A country should not really be considered a democracy until there is an election (and accompanying campaigning, free media etc.) that allows for a change in leadership to a new party, or to something approximating a new party.
These comments suggest that the road to democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, or elsewhere in the Middle East, may run into boulders that we have not yet noticed. We should be looking out for them as we press forward. But this does not mean that real possibilities are not opening up, that there may, in fact, be a democracy coming back to Lebanon and developing in Palestine. We should also not undervalue the "partly free" or controlled democracies that may come first. These can represent real progress for the people concerned, just as we have seen in Malaysia and Singapore. For the near future, such democracy may be an attainable and desirable way station on the road to freedom for many peoples.
The critical problem for Afghanistan is the increasing dependence of the economy on the growing, processing, and overseas distribution of opium. Opium is now over fifty percent of the economy and represents nearly all of the nation's exports. This dependence of the farmers is reflected in a growing ability of the warlords to maintain their armies and control in much of the country. There is no easy way out of the box in which the country finds itself. I suppose the country could have a fully functioning democratic narcostate, but experience in Colombia and elsewhere casts doubt on this outcome. The end result may be a state pressured by the United States to act forcibly against opium in ways that neither the people nor the warlords will accept. This would seem to give an opening for a Taliban comeback.
The critical problem in Iraq is that of often hostile communities that are likely to find it even more difficult to live together under democracy than they were under authoritarian rule. The country could either split up or relapse into a prolonged state of violence between ins and outs, Sunni Arab and Shi'a, Kurds and the rest, Fundamentalists and secularists — and within each of these groups many subgroups struggling for a place in the sun.
The more general problem with democratic transition, and one reason why we now notice some "backsliders" is that the measures of freedom or democracy are faulty. (Freedom and democracy are not the same thing, but this is a difficult discussion that I do not want to enter into here.) One free and fair election accompanied by several independent newspapers are sometimes enough to get a rating of "free". But the real test of democracy is bound to come later. Remember that nearly every former colony in the post-colonial world came to independence after a free and fair election. The first post-colonial government was, then, "democratic". But too often there was either a coup or political and social conditions that did not allow for the first generation of leaders to be displaced through democratic processes, and sometimes both. The most recent example may be what happened in Zimbabwe after it finally became free of British control, direct and later indirect, and Mugabe was elected. Democracy has been on a downhill trajectory in the country ever since. The test of democracy must, then, be at least a minimal degree of democratic continuity. A country should not really be considered a democracy until there is an election (and accompanying campaigning, free media etc.) that allows for a change in leadership to a new party, or to something approximating a new party.
These comments suggest that the road to democracy in Iraq and Afghanistan, or elsewhere in the Middle East, may run into boulders that we have not yet noticed. We should be looking out for them as we press forward. But this does not mean that real possibilities are not opening up, that there may, in fact, be a democracy coming back to Lebanon and developing in Palestine. We should also not undervalue the "partly free" or controlled democracies that may come first. These can represent real progress for the people concerned, just as we have seen in Malaysia and Singapore. For the near future, such democracy may be an attainable and desirable way station on the road to freedom for many peoples.
