Nureyev on PBS

Speaking of anti-communists, I hope readers had a chance to watch PBS' broadcast of the BBC documentary Nureyev: The Russian Years last night on Great Performances. The documentary was fascinating, and explained why the Soviet ballet star defected to the West--he faced 5 years in a Siberian prison camp for homosexual behavior, which just might have been his death sentence. Having just read David Caute's The Dancer Defects, with a chapter on Nureyev, the film seemed particularly vivid and compelling. The face-off between KGB and French police at Le Bourget airport at the moment of Nureyev's leap to freedom was dramatized beautifully in a first-person eyewitness account. Nice clips of Nureyev dancing both in Russia and the West, too.

You can read my review of The Dancer Defects at Amazon.com.

Humberto Fontova: Shame on the Washington Post!

Agustin Blazquez sent us this op-ed by Humberto Fontnova, author of Exposing the Real Che Guevara and the Useful Idiots Who Idolize Him, criticizing the Washington Post for running a recent Pat Oliphant cartoon advocating the deportation of Cuban-Americans:

Note that a smiling Uncle Sam insults an American ethnic group as “nuisances" while forcibly expelling them from the nation in a rickety boat titled "Cuban-Americans," while these scowling, elderly and Mafiosi-clad people scream “we demand a chance to interfere with the '08 election!”

By “interfere” we have to assume the cartoonist refers to the right, privilege and duty bestowed upon U.S. citizens known as "voting." It so happens that the cartoonist, Pat Oliphant, is himself an immigrant to this country. In an interview with Time magazine he admitted to “leaning Democratic” in his politics.

I now invite you to contemplate the reaction from the usual political-correctness police had any other U.S. ethnic group (except overwhelmingly Republican Cuban-Americans) inhabited that boat. Imagine the fire and brimstone (literal, perhaps) if instead of Fedoras (rarely worn by Cuban-Americans, by the way) the group had worn kuffiyeh's, burkha's and chadors!

Imagine the clamor and attempted extortions followed by craven apologies and grovelings if the boat's passengers had been "nappy-headed" and headed for Africa! Imagine the rallies in Los Angeles and the indignant blusterings by California politicians and Nancy Pelosi if they'd worn sombreros!

Such cartoons are indeed imaginable with other ethnic groups — but surely with Uncle Sam cast as the villain, wearing a white hood, a swastika or an Ann Coulter mask. Maybe all three. In this one Uncle Sam smiles benevolently while handing the boat's ethnic occupants their just desserts.

When earlier this year authorities in Virginia's Prince William County attempted to enforce U.S. laws against illegal immigration the Washington Post denounced it as “shameful," "hypocritical" and "ugly." "Hounding Immigrants" ran the editorial's title (no mention of "illegal" in the title, though it came up in the text.) "By singling out illegal immigrants, local politicians are contributing to what is becoming a poisonous, increasingly nativist atmosphere that will infect relations with Hispanics generally."

Nothing "poisonous" or "infectious," "shameful" or "nativist", mind you, about a cartoon gloating over the expulsion of U.S. citizens of Hispanic origin from America's shores in a manner identical to Ferdinand and Isabella's expulsion of Jews and Moors from Spain.

When U.S. Federal authorities attempted to enforce U.S. law against illegal immigration in New Bedford earlier this summer the Post once again stormed to its pulpit and denounced it as: "Cruel," "lurid" "hypocritical, "self- defeating" and "illogical." "Stop the Raids! Stop Hurting Children!" blared their editorial headline. "The New Bedford raid is an inelegant example of how badly this country needs a clear-eyed immigration policy, one that provides . . . a path to citizenship for immigrants who have put down roost and contributed to the national economy." ("As long as they don't go on to vote Republican" they forgot to add.)

The immigrant (actually, refugee) group the Post insults in a manner utterly inconceivable for any other, is in fact the very one that “implanted roots" and "contributed to the national economy” like few others. The 1998 census shows Americans of Cuban heritage to have income and educational levels higher — not just than other "Hispanic" (a meaningless term) groups, but higher than the U.S population in general. Lower crime rates than the national average complete the picture.

But these insufferable people consistently vote close to 80 percent Republican, you see. This sin instantly nullifies all of the Washington Posts usual hyper-sensitivity in these matters.

Attempting to enforce U.S. law as in potential expulsion, (with full due process) of, illegal immigrants is denounced by the Washington Post as "xenophobic," "shameful," "poisonous," "nativist," "cruel," "self defeating," "illogical," and "ugly."

But a cartoon celebrating the expulsion of Americans who happened to be foreign-born, who played by the rules, who became U.S. citizens, who then outpaced even the overall U.S. population in educational and income levels (in "Americanization" you might say) and who specialize in exercising their right and duty to vote, well, these vermin should be shoved off en masse to Stalinist prison camps by a smiling Uncle Sam. Unreal.

Senator Craig & Walter Jenkins

Another parallel comes to mind, between the predicaments of Republican Sen. Larry Craig and Democratic LBJ aide Walter Jenkins, the Karl Rove of the Johnson administration, whose career came to an end after he was arrested in a YMCA toilet. Here's a link to the Wikipedia version of the story:

Johnson's former aides have generally credited much of Johnson's political success to Jenkins. In 1975 journalist Bill Moyers, a former Johnson aide and press secretary, wrote in Newsweek, "When they came to canonize political aides, [Jenkins] will be the first summoned, for no man ever negotiated the shark-infested waters of the Potomac with more decency or charity or came out on the other side with his integrity less shaken. If Lyndon Johnson owed everything to one human being other than Lady Bird, he owed it to Walter Jenkins." Joseph Califano wrote, "Jenkins was the nicest White House aide I ever met in any administration. He was never overbearing. It was quite remarkable."

D.C. Scandal

His career with Johnson ended in October 1964, when Washington, D.C. police arrested Jenkins during a homosexual liaison at a YMCA and a reporter at the Washington Star learned of the incident. Johnson applied considerable pressure on the newspaper not to print the story and recruited his personal lawyer, Abe Fortas, to lobby the newspaper's editor. However, the story eventually appeared in the Star and Jenkins was forced to resign.

The arrest raised questions about whether Jenkins had been blackmailed. At this time gay men and lesbians were automatically denied clearance. Johnson's opponent in the 1964 presidential election, Barry Goldwater, who knew Jenkins from the Senate and served as commanding officer of his Air Force Reserve unit, chose not to make the incident a campaign issue. "It was a sad time for Jenkins' wife and children, and I was not about to add to their private sorrow," Goldwater later wrote in his autobiography. "Winning isn't everything. Some things, like loyalty to friends or lasting principle, are more important." Jenkins arrest was quickly overshadowed by international affairs -- the People's Republic of China successfully tested its first nuclear device and the politburo of the USSR overthrew Nikita Khrushchev.

Members of Congress called for the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to carry out an investigation into the case, citing concerns that the FBI had been unaware of Jenkins previous offence in the same Washington toilet six years earlier. Tapes of Johnson's Oval Office telephone calls later revealed that the President had orchestrated the FBI report that cleared Jenkins of any suspicions that he had compromised national security. However, investigations did reveal that Jenkins, a colonel in the Air Force Reserve, had tried to use his influence to reinstate a fellow officer dismissed for sex offences.

Johnson did not replace Jenkins, but instead divided his responsibilities among several staff members. "A great deal of the president's difficulties can be traced to the fact that Walter had to leave," Johnson's press secretary, George Reedy, once told an interviewer. "All of history might have been different if it hadn't been for that episode." Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark suggested that Jenkins' resignation "deprived the president of the single most effective and trusted aide that he had. The results would be enormous when the president came into his hard times. Walter's counsel on Vietnam might have been extremely helpful."

The LBJ library has tapes of conversations between Abe Fortas and the President about Jenkins. I think I may have heard this recording broadcast on C-SPAN. Here's the catalog listing, for readers who want to check out the original tape.

Citation No.: 5876
Speaker: ABE FORTAS
Tape: WH6410.08 Program No.: 6
Length: 15:03

Date: 10/14/64
Time: 3:56P
To/From: F
Transcribed: N
Restriction: OPEN

Comments: "NEW YORK C."; FORTAS IS MEETING WITH CLARK CLIFFORD AT TIME OF CALL; CLIFFORD IS LISTED ON SLIP BUT DOES NOT SPEAK; POOR SOUND QUALITY; LBJ HOARSE, FORTAS DIFFICULT TO HEAR; CONTINUES ON NEXT PNO

Topics: FORTAS TELLS LBJ THAT WALTER JENKINS HAS BEEN HOSPITALIZED FOR NERVOUS EXHAUSTION FOLLOWING HIS ARREST LAST WEEK ON MORALS CHARGE; FORTAS' AND CLIFFORD'S EFFORTS TO SUPPRESS NEWS STORIES OF ARREST; JENKINS' 1959 ARREST; POSSIBLE EFFECTS ON CAMPAIGN

Alberto Gonzales & Webster Hubbell

The departure of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General recalled the saga of former Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell in the Clinton Administration. This reminder, from Wikipedia:

Webster Lee Hubbell (born 1949), known as Webster L. Hubbell and Webb Hubbell, was an Arkansas lawyer and politician. He was a lawyer in Pulaski County before serving as Mayor of Little Rock from 1979 until he resigned in 1981. He was appointed by Bill Clinton as chief justice of Arkansas State Supreme Court in 1983. When Clinton became President, Hubbell was appointed as associate attorney general; he was generally considered the third most powerful person in the Justice Department. His wife is Suzanna "Suzy" Hubbell.

In December 1994, Hubbell pleaded guilty to federal mail fraud and tax evasion charges connection with his handling of billing at the Rose Law Firm, a firm with partners that once included Hillary Clinton and Vince Foster. Hubbell admitted he had defrauded former clients and former partners out of $482,410.83. On June 28, 1995, Judge George Howard sentenced Hubbell to 21 months' imprisonment.

On the other hand, Ann Coulter compares Gonzales with Janet Reno.

Gordon Hahn: The West Has Lost Russia

From the Moscow Times (ht Johnson's Russia List):

Now Moscow's bitter disappointment with the West has taken the form of harsh anti-Americanism. It has also translated into a burning desire among the Russian elite and public to finally show the West that it would regret its policies once Russia "got up from its knees." That time has surely come.

Some analysts warned that this would be the inevitable result of NATO expansion and other flawed U.S. and Western policies. Only a partnership with Russia and a firm policy of drawing it into the West would prevent Moscow's turn to the East. This also would have prevented the revival of traditional Russian suspicion -- if not outright antagonism -- toward the West. Finally, a closer cooperation with Russia may have prevented Moscow's disenchantment with democracy, which it has interpreted as being no more than an insidious and cynical Western ploy to weaken Russia.

The cost of NATO expansion is that Russia has been lost in the medium term -- and perhaps in the long term as well -- as a powerful, committed democracy and Western ally. Moreover, the West has pushed Russia closer to China and Iran.

If these are the costs of NATO expansion, what are the advantages? Few, if any. The alliance received from its new member states: a few thousand additional troops that are stationed in Afghanistan and Iraq, a three-jet Latvian air force and five Estonian nurses. Compare these benefits to Russia's vast military and intelligence resources and experience -- particularly in Afghanistan. Moreover, Moscow has helped to track down global jihadists, prevent the proliferation of weapons and materials of mass destruction and reconstruct Afghanistan. As a true ally, Russia could contribute much more to the Western alliance than the small new NATO members.

All opinion polls now show that a plurality or majority of Russians regard the United States as the greatest threat to Russia and the world. Putin has repeatedly decried the U.S. impetus for a "unipolar" international structure -- which is to say, global hegemony.

The Russian elite's consensus is even harsher. Alexander Solzhenitsyn recently said the United States seeks to encircle and weaken Russia. This statement is highly symbolic, coming from the esteemed writer who once took refuge in the United States as a political refugee from the Soviet state. It also underscores how cold U.S.-Russian relations have become.

John Danforth for Attorney General

Here's who I would like to see President Bush nominate for Attorney General of the United States: John Danforth. The former Ambassador to the UN and Senator from Missouri might be able to restore respect to the Justice Department among the American public, Congress, and the rest of the world. I bet he would not give a green-light to torture, either--since he's an ordained Episcopal priest, in addition to everything else.

He resigned in a hurry from his UN job in 2005, no doubt passed over for a cabinet job like Secretary of State. Now's Bush's chance to bring him--and mainstream thinking--back into the administration. I think he'd get confirmed without too much trouble by the Senate, especially since Danforth used to serve on the Judiciary Committee...and according to CNN, he told Bush that he would be available for "short-term assignments". With only 18 months left in the administration, sounds like a perfect match.

Here's a link to Danforth's Wikipedia entry.

Alex De Waal: Darfur Problem Not Genocide

In the Washington Post today, De Waal and co-author Julie Flint say the real problem in Darfur is "anarchy:"

While the script of many rights campaigners and activists has remained stuck in the groove of "genocide," Darfur faces something that can be just as deadly in the long term: anarchy. The government is a dictatorship, but its writ doesn't run beyond the first checkpoints outside the towns. The army has a fearsome arsenal, but two much-heralded offensives last year were smartly and bloodily annihilated by rebels. The air force is rarely used, except when targets of opportunity arise -- or the rebels have the army on the run. There have been no large-scale offensives by the government in 2007.

The Sudanese government relies on its Arab militias for a semblance of control, but increasingly these militias pursue their own agendas. The largest loss of life this year occurred in clashes between two Arab militias, most recently at the end of July, when 100 militia members and Arab civilians died. The other big ongoing crisis, and the major cause of more than 100,000 people being displaced this year, is a multisided conflict in Southern Darfur involving warring Arab militias; rebel commanders from the Sudan Liberation Army who are now allied with the government, though other commanders are fighting it; a militia drawn from West African immigrants; and a rebel commander from the Justice and Equality Movement who answers to no one but himself. Simple, it isn't.

More on Darfur by De Waal at the CSIS website and on his Social Science Research Council blog.

As Seen At Victoria Airport Bookshop

On our return from summer vacation in British Columbia--my cousin Daniel Kalla's novel Resistance displayed on the sales shelf next to The Da Vinci Code...

Russia Blames Berezovsky for Politkovskaya Murder

According to the Daily Telegraph (UK), the arrest of 10 suspects in Moscow for the murder of journalist Anna Politkovskaya is adding to Russian-UK tensions:

When asked by Russian journalists if he believed that Mr Berezovsky, a former oil tycoon, was behind the murder, he smiled and said: "Our investigation has led us to conclude that only people living abroad could be interested in killing Politkovskaya.

"Forces interested in de-stabilising the country, in stoking crisis, in a return to the old system where money and oligarchs ruled, in discrediting national leadership, provoking external pressure on the country, could be interested in this crime.

"Anna Politkovskaya knew who ordered her killing. She met him more than once."

The thinly veiled accusation will raise the pressure on Mr Berezovsky, who met Miss Politkovskaya several times and has made no secret of his wish to overthrow Mr Putin.

It will also worsen relations with London, which expelled four Russian diplomats after Moscow refused to extradite the chief suspect in the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, the former KGB agent, in London last year.

USAID Defers Terror Screening

That didn't take long. Just days after newspapers reported protests from InterAction.org, the Bush administration caved. According to today's Washington Post: "The Bush administration has decided to defer the start of a new security screening program for thousands of officials of organizations seeking funds from the Agency for International Development..."

Score: Terrorists, 1-Bush, 0.

Inside the Al Haramain Charity Case

From Zombietime (ht lgf):

Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, Inc. was the Ashland, Oregon-based American branch of Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a huge international Islamic charity founded and headquartered in Saudi Arabia, with subsidiaries in countries around the world. After 9/11, several governments (including the U.S., the U.K., and even the United Nations) began investigating the terror funding network, and found evidence that money from Al-Haramain was used not just for charity projects but also to finance Al Qaeda and specific terrorist plots. Various foreign branches of Al-Haramain were broken up or shut down, but it was not apparently until 2004 that the U.S. branch of Al-Haramain came under intense investigation.

In early 2004, government intelligence services supposedly (or has been alleged) began electronic surveillance of phone calls connected to the Ashland Al-Haramain office. It is not known if warrants were obtained, or if the calls were domestic or international. Partly based on intelligence gathered during this surveillance, The U.S. government declared the Oregon branch of Al-Haramain a "specially designated global terrorist."

Unexpectedly, Al-Haramain fought back. They contacted lawyers and sued to have the "terrorist" designation revoked. During what is called "discovery" (a legal term in which each side in a civil case must reveal its evidence to the other side), an employee of the U.S. government accidentally included in a stack of documents given to Al-Haramain a Top Secret record of the surveillance logs.

Al-Haramain's lawyers brought in more anti-government lawyers, who recognized a golden opportunity: since this Top Secret document proved that surveillance of specific individuals had taken place, they now had "standing" (the legal right) to challenge the entire underlying lawfulness of government surveillance in principle. And so the case went into overdrive, and suddenly took on much greater significance than just an individual organization fighting for its reputation: legal activists saw a chance to use the courts to stop the Bush administration from surveilling anybody. If they could get the courts to rule that Al-Haramain had been surveilled illegally, then it would set a precedent and prevent any similar surveillance in the future, and also would render unusable any evidence gathered by surveillance in the past. In other words: a very big deal.

The government's legal team sought to forestall this by recalling the document, insisting that its Top Secret status made it unusable in court because revealing its contents would endanger national security.

From here onward, things became bizarre, a dizzying tug-of-war over surrealistic legal technicalities. Both sides were put into completely impossible positions: The government had to suppress a document which revealed Top Secret surveillance without actually admitting that it had conducted any surveillance; whereas Al-Haramain sought to revoke its designation as a terrorist organization by citing the very evidence (the information gathered during the surveillance) that suggested it was a terrorist organization.

In a word: farcical.

Read the whole thing.

KinoKultura

Just finished an interview with film critic Oleg Sul'kin of Novoye Ruskoye Slovo about the 25th anniversary release of Who Shall Live and Who Shall Die on DVD by Kino International Corporation (Kino distributes a lot of Russian films). We had a very interesting discussion about a lot of things--including New Russian Cinema. This led to a google search, which led in turn to KinoKultura, a website devoted to Russian film--and this review of Kirill Serebrennikov's Playing the Victim.

Antonio de la Cova: An Open Letter to the Washington Post

Agustin Blazquez sent along this complaint about the racist depiction of Cuban-Americans in a cartoon by Pat Oliphant:

The racist, anti-immigrant spirit of 19th century cartoonist Thomas
Nast lives on today in the pages of The Washington Post.
In your August 22 edition, you published a Pat Oliphant syndicated
cartoon ( http://www.uclick.com/client/wpc/po/) of Cuban Americans
being shoved back to their homeland in a crowded
small boat by a grinning Uncle Sam, who refers to them as “nuisances.”

A figure on the shore approvingly waves farewell. The outcasts are being
told to “Say hello to Batista,” implying that they are all supporters of
the Cuban strongman who died in 1973. Oliphant depicts the Cuban
Americans as demanding “a chance to interfere with the ‘08 election.”
The cartoonist mimics Cuban Communist propaganda stereotypical
depictions of Cuban Americans as elderly, cantankerous people, with
mustachoed men wearing Mafia-style fedora hats, dark eyeglasses, and
smoking cigars. In contrast, when Fidel Castro announced last year that
he was relinquishing power, most of the Cuban Americans who appeared in
the newsmedia celebrating and dancing in the streets of Miami were young
people.

I am honestly grateful that you have published this cartoon, as it gives
me the opportunity to show my students that a leading U.S. newspaper
like The Washington Postis insensitive toward a politically-active
Hispanic minority, which has four representatives and two senators
elected to Congress in one generation, and turned Miami into a major
American city. My students will now be able to have class discussion on
how they would feel if Mr. Oliphant had drawn a similar scenario with
African Americans being sent back to Africa by boat, American Jews being
shipped off to Israel, or Mexican Americans being deported south of the
border, while demanding to “interfere” in the upcoming American
political process. As a class assignment, we will compare this cartoon
with those made by Thomas Nast, showing the Irish as violent, ape-like,
drunken creatures who “corrupted” U.S. elections
(http://www.latinamericanstudies.org/nast.htm).

My students will also be able to determine if The Washington Post is a
truly liberal newspaper by publishing this inconsiderate cartoon and how
Mr. Oliphant does not need to hide behind a white hood to express his
racist views.

Sincerely,
Antonio de la Cova, Ph.D.

Gonzales Goes

According to Bloomberg, US Attorney General Alberto Gonzales resigned today. Long overdue. He was an embarrassment to the nation, from his "torture memo" to the US attorneys scandal.

Now, what about Dick Cheney?

Leonard Maltin's Movie Crazy

Just came across this blog, by film critic Leonard Maltin. His new 2008 movie guide has just come out. Take a look a the website to find out more...

Natan Sharansky on Iraq and Vietnam

Cokie Roberts mentioned Natan Sharansky's Washington Post oped as the source for President Bush's comparison of Iraq to Vietnam, so here's a link:

No one can know for sure whether President Bush's "surge" of U.S. troops in Iraq will succeed. But those who believe that human rights should play a central role in international affairs should be doing everything in their power to maximize the chances that it will. For one of the consequences of failure could well be catastrophe.

A precipitous withdrawal of U.S. forces could lead to a bloodbath that would make the current carnage pale by comparison. Without U.S. troops in place to quell some of the violence, Iranian-backed Shiite militias would dramatically increase their attacks on Sunnis; Sunni militias, backed by the Saudis or others, would retaliate in kind, drawing more and more of Iraq into a vicious cycle of violence. If Iraq descended into full-blown civil war, the chaos could trigger similar clashes throughout the region as Sunni-Shiite tensions spill across Iraq's borders. The death toll and the displacement of civilians could climb exponentially.

Perhaps the greatest irony of the political debate over Iraq is that many of Bush's critics, who accused his administration of going blindly to war without considering what would happen once Hussein's regime was toppled, now blindly support a policy of withdrawing from Iraq without considering what might follow.

In this respect, the debate over Iraq is beginning to look a lot like the debate about the Vietnam War in the 1960s and '70s. Then, too, the argument in the United States focused primarily on whether U.S. forces should pull out. But many who supported that withdrawal in the name of human rights did not foresee the calamity that followed, which included genocide in Cambodia, tens of thousands slaughtered in Vietnam by the North Vietnamese and the tragedy of hundreds of thousands of "boat people."

In the final analysis, U.S. leaders will pursue a course in Iraq that they believe best serves U.S. interests. My hope is that as they do, they will make the human rights dimension a central part of any decision. The consequences of not doing so might prove catastrophic to Iraqis, to regional peace and, ultimately, to U.S. security.

Amil Imani on Iran's Next Move

From Amil Imani.com:

As for the “Great Satan”, going after the mullahs seems completely out of the question. We have no stomach for it; the Ayatollahs know it. Even Bush’s most loyal sidekick, ex-UK-PM Tony Blair, was opposed to it. The Iraq misadventure has hopefully taught them an old lesson they seem to have had difficulty learning. The lesson is that it is a terrible mistake to go half way across the world and invade a country, unless you are able and willing to bulldoze the whole thing from one end to the other, with all the people bar none buried under the rubble. The reason this rule is so important for us to learn is that having and displaying overwhelming power usually means you will not have to use it. But because the West has forgotten how to overwhelm the enemy, the war of attrition persists, and the people of the West become disheartened. They can’t even interrogate presumed terrorists; they have to send them to Egypt to get the job done!

It’s no wonder that recent military undertakings have been by-and-large busts— in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and even Afghanistan. This same policy of weakness has been successfully replicated in Israel, where the West ties Israeli hands behind their back so they don’t “over-react” to missiles hitting their towns and cities, tunnels dug under their borders, and soldiers being captured by terrorists! The Mullahs know this game very, very well. They persist, and we pretend the worst can’t happen. Whose opiate is the more effective, theirs or ours?

In the meantime, Iran’s illegitimate regime will, with ever greater peace of mind, pursue their quest for the nuclear bomb, by hook or by crook, and the Mullahs of mass destruction will keep the corrupt, yawning, toothless UN “watchdog” content and distracted by throwing it a bone or two from time to time. Eventually, these suicidal, homicidal followers of Muhammad will have their WMD. In time, they will use it. Future historians will ask: how could the entire world have seen it coming and done nothing about it? What kind of opiate were these people on?

InterAction.org--America's Terrorism Lobby?

While I was on vacation, newpapers reported that InterAction.org, an NGO representing NGOs receiving USAID funding from the American taxpayers, has objected to proposed USAID guidelines designed to insure that aid money doesn't go to terrorists.

Even if not the intention of the USAID proposal, the controversy has served to reveal that NGOs belonging to InterAction may indeed have possible links to terrorists they don't want to disclose. Otherwise, why object to disclosure on principle? Qui bono?

Although The NY Times reported that InterAction members receive some $4 billion a year from Uncle Sam, they apparently object to telling Uncle Sam exactly who is getting the dough. A more reasonable position would be only to demand that USAID allows a right to appeal any finding that aid money is going to terrorists, through some sort of public administrative law procedure. But that's not the InterAction position. They demand "privacy." Last time I checked, public programs paid for by public funds were not private--even if contracted out to NGOs. US taxpayer dollars remain accountable to Congress. Which is a good thing, in principle and in practice.

Among the InterAction board members is former Congressman Lee Hamilton, vice-chairman of the 9/11 Commission which reported that Al Qaeda used charities in order to funnel money to terrorists. Now Lee Hamilton's organization objects to tracing the recipients of such charity funds...

What ever happened to calls for open government, transparency, accountability and "the public's right to know?"

Given the clout of InterAction's board, I'm pretty confident the Bush administration will cave under pressure--further emboldening America's enemies. To see why, take a look at the list of InterAction board members on their website:

InterAction Board Members
(as of April 2007)

Charlie MacCormack, Chair
Save the Children

Lelei Lelaulu
Counterpart International

Ritu Sharma, Vice Chair
Women's Edge

Jo Luck
Heifer International

Amy Coen, Treasurer
Population Action International

John McCullough
Church World Service

Nancy Aossey
International Medical Corps

Steve Moseley
Academy for Educational Development

Ken Bacon
Refugees International

Dan Pellegrom
Pathfinder International

David Beckmann
Bread for the World

Linda Pfeiffer
INMED

Carol Bellamy
World Learning

Robert Radtke
Episcopal Relief and Development

Sekyu Chang
Korean American Sharing Movement

Yolonda Richardson
CEDPA

Julius Coles
Africare

George Rupp
International Rescue Committee

Helene Gayle
CARE

Zainab Salbi
Women for Women International

Ann Goddard
Christian Children’s Fund

Ron Sconyers
Physicians for Peace

Lee Hamilton
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Richard Stearns
World Vision

Khalil Jassemm
Life for Relief and Development

Kathy Spahn
Helen Keller International

Neal Keny-Guyer
Mercy Corps

Tsehaye Teferra
Ethiopian Community Development Council

Elizabeth Latham
US Committee for UNDP

John T. Reed on General Petraeus' Counterinsurgency Manual

While waiting for General Petraeus's report on Iraq, it seemed like a good idea to read Petraeus' Army counterinsurgency manual, published in 2006. A google search led to this review from West Point graduate, businessman, and author John T. Reed. He wasn't too impressed:

Muddled
My main impression of the manual is that it is muddled. In the first “overview” chapter, they try to define insurgency, counterinsurgency, and the various tactics and strategies used by insurgencies. What a disaster! If this were a freshman college paper, the authors would get ripped by the professor and probably get a D or an F.

Much of what they say about insurgents and their tactics and strategies would apply equally to our Founding Fathers, the Democrats, the Republicans, the Catholic Church, and the American Cancer Society. At times, it sound like the sort of thinking that the FBI used to justify creating files on civil rights activist Martin Luther King, Jr. and actor Gregory Peck.

Insurgents can lie?
Some of the statements are simply illogical. For example, at ¶1-13, Petraeus et al say, “Counterinsurgents seeking to preserve legitimacy must stick to the truth and make sure that words are backed up by deeds; insurgents on the other hand, can make exorbitant promises and point out government shortcomings, many caused or aggravated by the insurgency.”

Stated as a more competent writer would put it, Petraeus is saying that insurgents can lie, but counterinsurgents must tell the truth. That’s bull!

Lying is its own punishment. Reputation is like fine china: easily cracked but never really repaired. That applies equally to both insurgents and counterinsurgents. If insurgents lie, they will get a reputation for lying and, like the boy who cried “Wolf,” will be ignored even on the rare occasions when they tell the truth.

We Americans were insurgents in our Revolutionary War. I do not recall that our forefathers were entitled to lie to our fellow citizens then. Nor do I recall our revolutionary leaders doing that. Nor do I think it would have been well received if they had. Honesty is the best policy—for both sides in an insurgency.

U.S. never lies?
I also dispute the notion that the U.S. government in general, or its military in particular, always feel compelled to tell the truth. History in full of examples of governments and their militaries lying—like the exaggerated body counts in Vietnam or former NFL player and Army Ranger Pat Tillman’s posthumous receipt of a Silver Star and Purple Heart (both of which require interaction with the enemy) in Afghanistan. After their cover-up was exposed, the Army admitted he was killed by his fellow Americans.

Substitute “party out of power” for insurgents and “party in power” for counterinsurgents and you can test Petraeus’ assertions with regard to U.S. politics. The party in power in the U.S. prior to the 2006 elections was the Republicans. Did they claim the Democrats were lying the gain power? You bet, as did the Democrats when the Republicans were out of power early in the Clinton Administration.

Viewed in that context, Petraeus is just another politician claiming the other side is lying. Am I saying that al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the sectarian Iraqi militias never lie? Hell, no! They lie all the time. But so do our politicians, including the military ones, when they think they can get away with it—like early in the Pat Tillman incident. The bottom line is that there is nothing intrinsic about insurgencies that permits them to get away with lying and if the U.S. government has abandoned all lying it must be an extremely recent development.

Also, insurgents in the Middle East are not the only politicians who create problems for the other side, then try to blame the other side for those same problems. Republicans and Democrats do that exact same thing all the time.

Free government services and utilities from the U.S.
Petraeus et al say that the occupying counterinsurgents (that’s us in Iraq and Afghanistan) have to provide good police, justice, government, and infrastructure to win over the local people. Where in the name of God are we going to get the money and manpower to offer such massive, comprehensive, free services? Petraeus seems to think it is entirely the responsibility of the Army and Marines. It sounds to me like the military’s legendary “can-do” attitude gone berserk. Or maybe when you spend your entire adult life living off a seemingly bottomless pit of taxpayers’ money you think the nation can afford to adopt the entire population of Iraq as a ward of the U.S. military.

Mao’s book
This is not the first military manual on this subject. Communist Chinese leader Mao Tse-Tung wrote one called On Guerilla Warfare. Indeed, his was so good that his readers took over mainland China and won the Vietnam War. Seems to me the way to write a counterinsurgency manual would be to create a mirror image of Mao’s manual with some additions to reflect technological and other changes since Mao wrote his.

‘Precision munition’
At ¶1-23, Petraeus et al describe suicide attacks as the “precision munition of extremists.” I like the use of the word “precision,” but the rest of the phrase is off target.

Suicide attacks are not a munition. They are a delivery system. The munition involved is simply Centex or C4 or some other well-known and long-used military explosive. The vast majority of military forces deliver such explosives to the target via bomb or artillery, weapons that contemporary insurgents rarely possess.

The word “extremist” says more about Petraeus’ bias than it does about our enemies. In World War II, we called Japanese suicide attackers—most notably Kamikaze pilots—“fanatics.” On rare occasions, U.S. military personnel have launched suicide attacks against our enemies. One example is the U.S. destroyer escort Johnston captain Ernest E. Evans in the WW II Battle of Leyte Gulf who attacked much more powerful Japanese cruisers and battleships even though he was out of torpedoes and his 5-inch-gun rounds bounced off the armor of the Japanese ships. He and many of his men were killed and his ship was sunk.

Was he an “extremist?” He was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.

U.S. military brass have sent individuals and units on suicide missions or missions from which few, if any, survivors were expected—like the WW II Doolittle raid on Tokyo or much of D-Day in World War II. Americans regularly throw themselves on grenades to save their comrades.

Suicide attacks are a tactic used by all militaries, including our own, in desperate situations. Labeling our enemies’ suicide attackers “extremists” while calling ours heroes is precisely the sort of lie that Petraeus said earlier that we counterinsurgents could not get away with.

For this subject, I highly recommend the book Utility of Force. It appears to be a better version of this famed new Army/Marines Counterinsurgency Manual. I say “appears” because it is taking me forever to read the manual. Why? It’s not very readable.

Memo to the Army from a professional writer. A book ought to be readable. If your generals cannot write readable books, have them work with someone who can, like competent publishers do. Then the authorrs are listed as “Petraeus and the Marine WITH [insert name of professional writer here].”

Reed's comments suggest that perhaps one might not want to raise one's hopes too high in anticipation of Petraeus' September report on Iraq. Meanwhile, you can buy Mao's On Guerilla Warfare and Rupert Smith's The Utility of Force from Amazon.com:
And here's a link to General Sir Rupert Smith's lecture (he's British) on the utility of force at the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. Also, his May, 2007 lectue on the changing nature of war.

Michael Gambon's FAITH

Someone I know and yours truly watched Faith over the last few nights, a 2-part British television mini-series about a Tory politician who gets caught in webs of international gun-running, family melodrama, and tabloid sensationalism. It was like taking a time-machine back to the John Major era, when people in the UK were talking about "sleaze" instead of "spin." Some observations:

1. Britain was a lot poorer in the 90s that it appears today. It shows in the film. Things look battered and worn, while today they look new and shiny.

2. What was shocking in the 90s is passe today. Men kissing each other on TV--yawn...

3. Socialism, and Ken Livingstone (who appears in the film) have certainly changed their branding strategy since the 90s. They called it "socialism" by name. Haven't heard many direct calls for more of that in a long time--the Tony Blair legacy, of New Labour, I guess.

4. The British certainly know how to do these political shows as horror films--A Very British Coup, House of Cards, To Play the King et al. are all cynical and scary. In contrast American shows like The West Wing appear naive, because, as one Britisher told us on our walk, "everyone seems so sincere" (not necessarily a bad thing).

You can get it from Netflix.