Iraq and Afghanistan

The United States has decided to more directly interfere militarily with the growing, refining, and shipment of opium in Afghanistan. Before now, American forces were supposed to only interfere when they came across drugs in the course of other work. Now they will specifically target the problem. The current consensus is that 85% of the world's opium now originates in the country (seems doubtful, but the figure is repeated often). The U. S. government feels that its intervention will be judged a failure if it ultimately leaves with the country effectively in the hands of narcotics lords.

The problem is that we have tried this approach before against the growers and distributors of opium and its derivatives (such as heroin), as well as other drugs such as cocaine. Success has been difficult in every case. But to the extent that we have succeeded, the growing, refining, and distribution of the drug simply shifts to new countries and new routes. As long as we do not make a significant dent in the market in the developed world, prices will stay high, and some people, somewhere, will supply the needs.

Meanwhile, what is happening in the country? The poorest countries turn to opium or other drugs because they are so much more profitable than alternatives. As long as such countries were really composed of autochthonous villages that produced the food and clothes they consumed, there was no market and drug income was unnecessary. If the crops failed, the people starved. But today everyone is a consumer, even the peasant in a distant Afghan valley. The people feel they need some income both to cover the shortfall in local production of foodstuffs and to buy the "necessities" of the outside world, whether these be new medicines or Nikes. Once they enter this world, they find that they can both assure their food supply and obtain more goods from the outside world if they drop their subsistence crops and take up a cash crop. In Afghanistan, this has led to a very large percent of the people changing from the culture of wheat to that of opium.

The only ways the government and the United States know to change the equation are to kill the opium crops, punish people for growing opium, and arrest opium dealers and refineries, thereby reducing the chance for farmers to gain from their illicit crops. Whether in Colombia, Peru, or Bolivia, the end result is that large parts of the rural population become estranged from the government, seeing it as the enemy. When the United States takes a more direct part, then the United States becomes the enemy, with the local government being seen as the tool of the United States. This problem is exacerbated when the inevitable happens: people are killed in the course of anti-drug missions in the country, and people claim (sometimes with justification) that the destruction of crops has poisoned their fields, sickened their animals, contaminated their foodstuffs, and even killed their children.

It is true that we do not wish to leave behind another Colombia. But it is also true that we do not want to undermine democracy in Afghanistan by making it seem that the supporters of democracy (local and foreign) are the enemies of the people. Nor do we want to simply drive the drug problem elsewhere in the developing world.

The solution, as many have said, lies in giving the people viable alternatives to growing opium. But except on a very small scale, these viable alternatives have not really worked out. It seems to me that before we start to tighten the screws militarily on the production of opium in Afghanistan, we should do more than we have to develop these alternatives, whether they be new crops (and ways to market them) or new ways to make a living, such as expanding light industry. I realize that this is all easier said than done. But the emphasis of the antidrug effort simply must be changed.

Kofi Annan has publicized the results of a report he commissioned on reforming the United Nations. Three issues are especially important in my view. The first is the definition of terrorism. Annan wants a definition that defines all attacks on civilians as terrorism. The problem with this is that it still does not deal with the idea of state terrorism and/ or terrorism in wartime. I do not see important progress being made on this. The second is the proposal to replace the present UN Commission on Human Rights with a smaller Human Rights Council that is elected by the General Assembly by a two-thirds vote. This would replace the current system in which member states are selected on a regional basis, with the unfortunate result that some notable human rights violators, such as Sudan, have ended up on the Commission. This would be an important change if doable. (His proposal to change dramatically the amount of money the wealthy countries devote to development and other third world problems is unlikely to fly, although on the margins he might be able to make a difference.)

Annan's most important proposal is for change in the makeup of the Security Council. This is important because of the international importance of the Security Council and because this is the proposal that seems to have the most general backing among major states. He wishes to either change the number of permanent members or establish a semi-permanent member category that would allow a greater range of countries to expand their role on the Council. Greatest interest is in the first alternative. Here the proposal seems to be that there should be six new permanent members. Most agree that four of these should be Germany, Japan, Brazil, and India. These four are now actively lobbying for this change (they have been pushing something similar for a long time). Then there is the thought that two African states should be added. Possible choices would be South Africa, Egypt, and Nigeria. (Kenya appears to also want to throw its hat in this ring.)

There are several problems with this approach. The first is there seems to be little discussion of taking away the veto from the permanent members. Therefore, increasing the number of permanent members would add to opportunities for blocking UN action in crises, because blocking typically occurs when the interests of permanent members are directly or at least politically involved. The organization's paralysis would not be cured by such a change. There is the problem that no African candidate is stable or developed enough to play its part beyond a regional role (South Africa has about half the GDP of Switzerland, Egypt considerably less than that, Nigeria a third of Egypt's.)Given recent history, none of them are likely to be able to perform at a high level in regard to human rights. The same can be said of China, but this choice for a permanent member is one the UN is saddled with. It is already the case that at least two African states are represented in the Security Council at all times (on a revolving basis, with two year terms). Perhaps the need to improve representation for Africa could be addressed at least temporarily by making the OAU a permanent member.

One way to reduce these and other difficulties would be to revise the charter so that the veto powers of permanent members were reduced, with the reductions greater for the new members than the old. For example, before India can made a permanent member, Pakistan will have to be mollified. This might be accomplished if the veto power of India were lessened. India could be granted the veto except where its interests and those of its neighbors were directly involved (for example in regard to Kashmir). Without these and many other compromises, I do not see the suggested reformations going very far.

Sunday's Times magazine carries an extensive discussion of the case of a former member of the PKK, Ibrahim Parlak. He had settled in Michigan, had a dearly loved daughter of seven, opened a restaurant and become a well liked member of the community. Suddenly he was picked up, declared to be a terrorist, and now faces deportation for his "crimes". There is no doubt that as a young man in Turkey's Kurdistan, he joined the resistance movement, then know as the PKK. He worked for them in Germany and then tried to reenter Turkey to assist them on the ground. Captured after six months, he was tortured for weeks. He finally caved in, leading the Turkish authorities to a store of weapons. After serving his sentence, he escaped the country, believing that both the Turkish authorities would continue to mistrust him while the PKK would treat him severely if they caught him. He sought and received asylum in this country on this basis. One reason for our reopening of his case is that in the interim the PKK was put on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations.

The PKK is a tough, guerilla movement that has campaigned for many years for Kurdish rights. It was impossible in the near past and is still difficult for Turkish Kurds to legally and nonviolently struggle for their rights. This means that Kurds, like many separatists before them (Minutemen?), have taken up arms against the government, fighting in endless skirmishes with casualties on both sides. Terrorist actions have characterized many such movements throughout history. According to the State Department's current standards, the Stern Gang and the Irgun that fought for Israel's independence in the 1940s would have been put on today's list of terrorist organizations.

If we look at how and why the State Department puts groups on its list, we will find that the ostensible standards are quite unobjectionable if unrealistic. But what is most critical here is the third criterion for inclusion on the list. This reads: "The organization’s terrorist activity or terrorism must threaten the security of U.S. nationals or the national security (national defense, foreign relations, or the economic interests) of the United States." Not too bad if observed in a commonsense manner. However, in many cases actions against individuals are based on a warped reading of this criterion. The PKK has never had any interest in attacking the interests of the United States, unless we define the interests of the Turkish government as necessarily also the interests of our own. We are not only partial to Turkey. In 2002, the ETIM, a Uighur resistance movement in China was added to the State Department's list of terrorist organizations. (It was already on the UN's terrorist organization list; the UN simply adds any group that a UN member state submits to it.) Again, the Uighurs have no legitimate means of actually improving their status in northwest China. The fact is that the interest of the United States in better relations with China and Turkey is decisive in these designations, not whether the group is actually working against our interests.

The prosecutor Parlak's hearing declared, "He's not a freedom fighter. He's a terrorist. Parlak is not a freedom fighter. He's a terrorist." This repetition seemed to satisfy the judge. She declared his stay at an end (now on appeal — Turkey will not take him). The ignorance Americans involved in the INS, Homeland Security, and the FBI (the bureaucracies involved in this case) of the struggles for independence of peoples everywhere is astounding. From a more reasonable perspective, they would understand Parlak's story to be as follows: "He took up arms against the Turkish government because as a Kurd that was the only way to struggle for the rights of his people. He carried arms at times, engaged in fire fights, was captured, tortured, served his time and was released. He and his family decided he better get out. He did. He made a new life in the United States." We have now destroyed his life and the faith of an entire community (largely American by the way; he avoided Kurds) that because of an inability to understand that the whole world is not like Peoria. As the defense attorneys said, soon we will be jailing those who fought the apartheid government in South Africa. (Actually we won't: they are generally not Muslims, and the American government is friendly with the winners in that struggle.)

Sometimes we tire of definitions. But this time it is important. We must know what a terrorist is, and why he or she is a terrorist. We must know what an enemy of the United States is, and know the difference between being an enemy and being a terrorist. We must know what a struggle for independence is, and know when other than violent means are closed to a people it will turn to violence, however unfortunate that may seem. We must know how to distinguish between pasts that make a person's existence among us dangerous and pasts that can be counterbalanced by changes in behavior and situation. Parlak and many others picked up in the post 9/11 hysteria were making a contribution to their communities. Some were not, some were spreading hate or at least too open to messages of hate. These should be separated from the community or carefully monitored. But we are a long way from being able to make these distinctions. Until we seriously make this effort, we may lose as much from our officious diligence as we gain.