[Peace-discuss] Fwd: Introduction to the Progressive Response: Why U.S. Supports
Israel, Contracting Private Soldiers, Colombia, Africa
Alfred Kagan
akagan at uiuc.edu
Fri May 24 14:52:59 CDT 2002
FYI
>Delivered-To: akagan at alexia.lis.uiuc.edu
>Date: Fri, 24 May 2002 14:47:23 -0500 (CDT)
>Delivered-To: alias-outgoing-akagan at uiuc.edu@outgoing
>From: Progressive Response <irc at irc-online.org>
>To: <akagan at uiuc.edu>
>Subject: Introduction to the Progressive Response: Why U.S. Supports
>Israel, Contracting Private Soldiers, Colombia, Africa
>Status:
>
>This is a one-time mailing to introduce you to the Progressive
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>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>The Progressive Response 23 May 2002 Vol. 6, No. 15
>Editor: Tom Barry
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>The Progressive Response (PR) is a weekly service of Foreign Policy
>in Focus (FPIF)--a "Think
>Tank Without Walls." A joint project of the Interhemispheric
>Resource Center and the Institute
>for Policy Studies, FPIF is an international network of analysts and
>activists dedicated to
>"making the U.S. a more responsible global leader and partner by
>advancing citizen
>movements and agendas." We encourage responses to the opinions
>expressed in the PR and
>may print them in the "Letters and Comments" section. For more
>information on FPIF and joining
>our network, please consider visiting the FPIF website at
>http://www.fpif.org/, or email
><feedback at fpif.org> to share your thoughts with us.
>
>Tom Barry, editor of Progressive Response, is a senior analyst with
>the Interhemispheric
>Resource Center (IRC) (online at www.irc-online.org) and codirector
>of Foreign Policy In Focus.
>He can be contacted at <tom at irc-online.org>.
>
> **** We Count on Your Support ****
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>I. Updates and Out-Takes
>
>*** OUTSOURCING MILITARY TRAINING ***
>By Lora Lumpe
>
>*** WHY THE U.S. SUPPORTS ISRAEL ***
>By Stephen Zunes
>
>*** IMF AND WORLD BANK BLAMED FOR WORST HEALTH CRISIS IN HISTORY ***
>
>*** BUSH'S MILITARY SPENDING SPREE ***
>By Michelle Ciarrocca
>
>*** COLOMBIA TURNS TO THE RIGHT ***
>
>
>II. Outside the U.S.
>
>*** CORPORATE AMERICA AND ISRAELI OCCUPATION ***
>By Sam Bahour
>
>
>III. Letters and Comments
>
>*** DIGNITY OF VENZUELA ***
>
>*** SAD DAY ***
>
>*** A LAUGHING MATTER ***
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>I. Updates and Out-Takes
>
>*** OUTSOURCING MILITARY TRAINING ***
>By Lora Lumpe
>
>(Editor's Note: Excerpted from "U.S. Foreign Military Training:
>Global Reach, Global Power, and
>Oversight Issues," a new FPIF Special Report available in its entirety at:
>http://www.fpif.org/papers/miltrain/box4.html .)
>
>One of the ways the U.S. government has been able to carry out its
>rapid growth in military and
>police training around the globe over the past decade has been to
>outsource many training
>operations to private contractors. This practice reduces pressures
>on the deployment schedule
>of U.S. forces. It also permits U.S. involvement in certain
>situations without risking the deaths of
>U.S. soldiers--a high political cost since the deaths of U.S.
>Rangers in Somalia in 1993.
>
>Post-cold war reductions in the size of U.S. military forces led to
>a glut of out-of-work military
>personnel. Many of them were absorbed into long-established private
>military companies (PMCs)
>that expanded their operations in the 1990s; others created their
>own start-up firms. Among the
>American companies providing training to foreign forces in the 1990s
>were Cubic, DynCorp,
>Logicon, Military Professional Resources Incorporated (MPRI),
>Science Applications
>International Corp. (SAIC), and Vinnell Corp.a
>
>In some cases contractors conduct training programs directly for the
>U.S. government. For
>example, the State Department has hired MPRI and Logicon to run the
>African Crisis Response
>Initiative (ACRI). In other cases, foreign governments contract
>directly with private companies
>to train their security forces. To do so, firms must apply for and
>be granted an export license by
>the State Department's Office of Defense Trade Controls--as would
>any other industry directly
>selling weapons or military services.b Numerous foreign militaries
>have hired private U.S. firms in
>the 1990s and early 2000s, among them Bosnia, Colombia, Croatia,
>Ecuador, Equatorial
>Guinea, Liberia, Malawi, Nigeria, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, and Uganda.c
>
>The accidental downing of a civilian plane in Peru in early 2001,
>killing an American missionary
>and her infant daughter, served to reveal the deep, multifaceted,
>and controversial involvement
>of private military companies in U.S. antinarcotics operations. In
>this incident, a CIA surveillance
>plane, flown by American pilots from an Alabama company called
>Aviation Development
>Corporation (ADC), had mistakenly identified the missionary plane as
>belonging to drug
>traffickers, and a Peruvian military plane responded by shooting it down.
>
>In the wake of this incident, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) introduced
>a bill in April 2001, the
>Andean Region Contractor Accountability Act (H.R. 1591), which would
>prohibit funding of
>private contractors for military or police work in the Andean
>region. By early 2002, it had only 14
>cosponsors and was stalled in committee.
>
>Private military contractors are currently conducting major portions
>of the U.S. military operations
>in the Andes, including crop fumigation and military training. Two
>Virginia-based companies,
>DynCorp and MPRI, have had contracts to provide logistical support
>and training to Colombian
>police and counterinsurgency forces. In 2001, MPRI completed a $6
>million contract with the
>Pentagon under which a 14-man team advised the Colombian military
>and police on logistics,
>planning, and organization.
>
>Under Plan Colombia, the number of private military contractors was
>capped at 300; in
>December 2001, Congress increased this number to 400 (while lowering
>the number of U.S.
>military personnel authorized to be in country from 500 to 400).
>However, private military
>companies get around this cap by employing non-U.S. citizens. In
>Colombia, for instance,
>private companies have hired Peruvians, Guatemalans, and other Latin
>American nationals.
>
>Some of the harshest critics of these companies are members of the
>U.S. military. In a 1998
>essay for the Army War College, Col. Bruce Grant wrote:
>"Privatization is a way of going around
>Congress and not telling the public. Foreign policy is made by
>default by private military
>consultants motivated by bottom-line profits."d Rep. Schakowsky
>agrees, explaining: "There is
>little or no accountability in this process of outsourcing. This is
>a way of funding secret wars
>with taxpayers' money that could get us into a Vietnam-like conflict."
>
>Information on private transactions is scarce and oversight is
>nonexistent. There is no
>requirement that the State Department publish a specific annual list
>of whom it has authorized
>to provide private military or security training, where, with which
>security unit, or for what
>purpose. Nor does Congress know who is training whom at any given
>moment. The State
>Department is only required to notify lawmakers of contracts valued
>at $50 million or more--a
>threshold so high that very few, if any, training operations are
>likely to be reported. The annual
>consolidated report on military assistance and sales, which the
>State and Defense departments
>are required to produce (see Appendix 1, pages 37-40), should
>include information on private
>military training, but it does not currently disaggregate this information.
>
>As with covert operations, there are no legal or regulatory
>requirements for the inclusion of any
>human rights or humanitarian law content in military, security, or
>police force training contracted
>privately. In addition, the Leahy Law requirement that trainees be
>vetted for prior human rights
>abuses does not apply to training purchased with the buyer's own
>money. It does apply to U.S.
>taxpayer-funded programs employing private military companies, such
>as the African Crisis
>Response Initiative (ACRI).
>
>Notes:
>
>a Deborah Avant, private communication, February 25, 2002. The
>list is compiled from news
>articles, journal articles, personal interviews, and web searches.
>Avant cautions that there are
>undoubtedly missing companies, and some included companies may have
>since gone out of
>business.
>
>b Section 38 of the Arms Export Control Act.
>
>c Deborah Avant, personal communication, February 25, 2002.
>
>d Juan O. Tamayo, "Private Firms Take on U.S. Military Role in
>Drug War," Miami Herald,
>May 22, 2001.
>
>(Lora Lumpe <llumpe at mindspring.com> is a researcher and writer based
>in Washington, DC.
>She is a senior associate with the International Peace Research
>Institute in Oslo, working on
>the Norwegian Initiative on Small Arms Transfers, and she consults
>with and for several human
>rights and peace groups.)
>
>This new FPIF Special Report is available at:
>http://www.fpif.org/papers/miltrain/index.html
>
>(Also see our printer-friendly version at:
>http://www.fpif.org/pdf/papers/SRmiltrain.pdf .)
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>*** WHY THE U.S. SUPPORTS ISRAEL ***
>By Stephen Zunes
>
>(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new FPIF Global Affairs Commentary
>available in its entirety at:
>http://www.fpif.org/papers/usisrael.html .)
>
>The close relationship between the U.S. and Israel has been one of
>the most salient features in
>U.S. foreign policy for nearly three and a half decades. The well
>over $3 billion in military and
>economic aid sent annually to Israel by Washington is rarely
>questioned in Congress, even by
>liberals who normally challenge U.S. aid to governments that engage
>in widespread violations
>of human rights--or by conservatives who usually oppose foreign aid
>in general. Virtually all
>Western countries share the United States' strong support for
>Israel's legitimate right to exist in
>peace and security, yet these same nations have refused to provide
>arms and aid while the
>occupation of lands seized in the 1967 war continues. None come
>close to offering the level of
>diplomatic support provided by Washington--with the United States
>often standing alone with
>Israel at the United Nations and other international forums when
>objections are raised over
>ongoing Israeli violations of international law and related concerns.
>
>Although U.S. backing of successive Israeli governments, like most
>foreign policy decisions, is
>often rationalized on moral grounds, there is little evidence that
>moral imperatives play more of a
>determining role in guiding U.S. policy in the Middle East than in
>any other part of the world.
>Most Americans do share a moral commitment to Israel's survival as a
>Jewish state, but this
>would not account for the level of financial, military, and
>diplomatic support provided. American
>aid to Israel goes well beyond protecting Israel's security needs
>within its internationally
>recognized borders. U.S. assistance includes support for policies in
>militarily occupied territories
>that often violate well-established legal and ethical standards of
>international behavior.
>
>Were Israel's security interests paramount in the eyes of American
>policymakers, U.S. aid to
>Israel would have been highest in the early years of the existence
>of the Jewish state, when its
>democratic institutions were strongest and its strategic situation
>most vulnerable, and would
>have declined as its military power grew dramatically and its
>repression against Palestinians in
>the occupied territories increased. Instead, the trend has been in
>just the opposite direction:
>major U.S. military and economic aid did not begin until after the
>1967 war. Indeed, 99% of U.S.
>military assistance to Israel since its establishment came only
>after Israel proved itself to be far
>stronger than any combination of Arab armies and after Israeli
>occupation forces became the
>rulers of a large Palestinian population.
>
>Similarly, U.S. aid to Israel is higher now than twenty-five years
>ago. This was at a time when
>Egypt's massive and well-equipped armed forces threatened war;
>today, Israel has a
>longstanding peace treaty with Egypt and a large demilitarized and
>internationally monitored
>buffer zone keeping its army at a distance. At that time, Syria's
>military was expanding rapidly
>with advanced Soviet weaponry; today, Syria has made clear its
>willingness to live in peace
>with Israel in return for the occupied Golan Heights--and Syria's
>military capabilities have been
>declining, weakened by the collapse of its Soviet patron.
>
>Also in the mid-1970s, Jordan still claimed the West Bank and
>stationed large numbers of troops
>along its lengthy border and the demarcation line with Israel;
>today, Jordan has signed a peace
>treaty and has established fully normalized relations. At that time,
>Iraq was embarking upon its
>vast program of militarization. Iraq's armed forces have since been
>devastated as a result of the
>Gulf War and subsequent international sanctions and monitoring. This
>raises serious questions
>as to why U.S. aid has either remained steady or actually increased
>each year since.
>
>In the hypothetical event that all U.S. aid to Israel were
>immediately cut off, it would be many
>years before Israel would be under significantly greater military
>threat than it is today. Israel has
>both a major domestic arms industry and an existing military force
>far more capable and powerful
>than any conceivable combination of opposing forces. There would be
>no question of Israel's
>survival being at risk militarily in the foreseeable future. When
>Israel was less dominant militarily,
>there was no such consensus for U.S. backing of Israel. Though the
>recent escalation of
>terrorist attacks inside Israel has raised widespread concerns about
>the safety of the Israeli
>public, the vast majority of U.S. military aid has no correlation to
>counterterrorism efforts.
>
>In short, the growing U.S. support for the Israeli government, like
>U.S. support for allies
>elsewhere in the world, is not motivated primarily by objective
>security needs or a strong moral
>commitment to the country. Rather, as elsewhere, U.S. foreign policy
>is motivated primarily to
>advance its own perceived strategic interests.
>
>There is a broad bipartisan consensus among policymakers that Israel
>has advanced U.S.
>interest in the Middle East and beyond.
>
>* Israel has successfully prevented victories by radical nationalist
>movements in Lebanon and
>Jordan, as well as in Palestine.
>
>* Israel has kept Syria, for many years an ally of the Soviet Union, in check.
>
>* Israel's air force is predominant throughout the region.
>
>* Israel's frequent wars have provided battlefield testing for
>American arms, often against Soviet
>weapons.
>
>* It has served as a conduit for U.S. arms to regimes and movements
>too unpopular in the
>United States for openly granting direct military assistance, such
>as apartheid South Africa, the
>Islamic Republic in Iran, the military junta in Guatemala, and the
>Nicaraguan Contras. Israeli
>military advisers have assisted the Contras, the Salvadoran junta,
>and foreign occupation
>forces in Namibia and Western Sahara.
>
>* Israel's intelligence service has assisted the U.S. in
>intelligence gathering and covert
>operations.
>
>* Israel has missiles capable of reaching as far as the former
>Soviet Union, it possesses a
>nuclear arsenal of hundreds of weapons, and it has cooperated with
>the U.S. military-industrial
>complex with research and development for new jet fighters and
>anti-missile defense systems.
>
>(Stephen Zunes <stephen at coho.org> is Middle East editor of Foreign
>Policy In Focus (online
>at www.fpif.org).)
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>*** IMF AND WORLD BANK BLAMED FOR WORST HEALTH CRISIS IN HISTORY ***
>
>Salih Booker, FPIF Advisory Committee member, says, "The IMF and
>World Bank have much
>to answer for. Many of the strongest critiques come from Africans,
>although they have little
>opportunity to travel to Washington to demonstrate. The policies of
>the World Bank and IMF
>have eroded Africa's health care systems and intensified the poverty
>of Africa's people. These
>institutions must be made accountable for their role in causing the
>worst health crisis in human
>history, which Africa now faces."
>
>Africa Action has launched a new campaign called "Africa's Right to
>Health Campaign." The
>campaign is based information on a new position paper, Hazardous to
>Health: The World Bank
>and IMF in Africa, published by Africa Action and written by
>Ann-Louise Colgan. According to
>this new paper, "The policies dictated by the World Bank and IMF
>exacerbated poverty,
>providing fertile ground for the spread of HIV/AIDS and other
>infectious diseases. Cutbacks in
>health budgets and privatization of health services eroded previous
>advances in health care
>and weakened the capacity of African governments to cope with the
>growing health crisis.
>Consequently, during the past two decades the life expectancy of
>Africans has dropped by 15
>years."
>
>For information about Africa Action's campaign and to read the new
>report, go to:
>http://www.africaaction.org/action/campaign.htm
>
>For analysis for FPIF by Salih Booker and other Africa Action staff, visit:
>http://www.fpif.org/advisers/booker.html
>
>For more FPIF analysis on Africa, see FPIF Africa index:
>http://www.fpif.org/indices/regions/africa.html
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>*** BUSH'S MILITARY SPENDING SPREE ***
>By Michelle Ciarrocca
>
>(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new Global Affairs Commentary
>available online in its entirety
>at: http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0205armsspend.html .)
>
>Forget that the Bush administration is sending U.S. troops to train
>local forces in Yemen, the
>Philippines, and Uzbekistan, and that since September 11th the U.S.
>has stepped up military
>aid to Turkey, Pakistan, India, Jordan, and a number of countries
>who are "with us" in the war
>on terror.
>
>Forget the fact that a number of these countries were previously
>prohibited from receiving U.S.
>weapons and military assistance because of poor human rights
>records, ongoing armed conflict,
>or repressive practices. Forget that September 11th has been used to
>justify a $396 billion
>military budget, the largest increase in defense spending in two
>decades, and that the war in
>Afghanistan is costing more than $1 billion a month.
>
>The human rights conditions on U.S. military aid and training
>programs that have been put in
>place over the past few decades have been pushed aside in the
>headlong rush into the global
>war on terrorism. Human rights abuses are being ignored or forgotten
>as the U.S. arms its allies
>in this new war. The goal is freedom, no matter what the cost and no
>matter what the human
>rights practices of our new partners. Defending his military budget,
>Bush said "I've asked for the
>largest increase in defense spending in 20 years not only because it
>will fulfill our commitment to
>support our troops, but because it recognizes that this country is
>in our war for the long pull--that
>we're interested in defending freedom no matter what the cost."
>
>The president is now asking for more money.
>
>President Bush has recently submitted a $27 billion emergency
>supplemental request to
>Congress. The Pentagon will receive almost half of the emergency
>request--$14 billion. Out of
>that amount, $130 million will be spent on unspecified foreign
>countries or "indigenous forces."
>What is most alarming is that more than $1 billion of that request
>has been tagged with the
>clause "notwithstanding any other provision of law"--meaning that
>the few laws in place to
>keep military aid and weapons out the hands of human rights abusers
>are no longer relevant.
>
>(Michelle Ciarrocca <CiarrM01 at newschool.edu> is an analyst with the
>Arms Trade Resource
>Center who writes for Foreign Policy In Focus (online at www.fpif.org).)
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>*** COLOMBIA TURNS TO THE RIGHT ***
>
>Colombians are expected to elect a right-wing presidential candidate
>committed to waging a
>wider war against the guerrilla armies. Meanwhile the Bush
>administration has redefined
>Colombia's five-decade-old civil conflict as a "war on terrorism"
>and called for millions more in
>U.S. arms and training. According to FPIF expert Kimberly Stanton at
>the RFK Human Rights
>Center, "Regardless of who wins Colombia's presidential elections,
>the United States has the
>right and the obligation to ensure that U.S. military aid does not
>contribute to human rights
>abuses. The background and proposals of Alvaro Uribe, the candidate
>that is leading in the
>polls, are troubling in this regard. His proposal to arm a million
>Colombians to serve as the first
>line of defense in the civil war is a recipe for transforming the
>civilian population into a military
>target." Another FPIF analyst, William LeoGrande of American
>University warned: "The danger
>in Colombia is that the U.S. will involve itself in another Latin
>American civil war on a scale
>much bigger than it did in Central America in the 1980s."
>
>See FPIF's Colombia In Focus at http://www.fpif.org/colombia/index.html.
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>II. Outside the U.S.
>
>(Editor's Note: FPIF has a new component called "Outside the U.S.,"
>which aims to bring
>non-U.S. voices into the U.S. policy debate and to foster dialog
>between Northern and
>Southern actors in global affairs issues. Please visit our Outside
>the U.S. page for other
>non-U.S. perspectives on global affairs and for information about
>submissions at:
>http://www.fpif.org/outside/index.html. )
>
>*** CORPORATE AMERICA AND ISRAELI OCCUPATION ***
>By Sam Bahour
>
>(Editor's Note: Excerpted from a new Outside the U.S. Global Affairs
>Commentary available in its
>entirety at http://www.fpif.org/outside/commentary/2002/0205corpisrael.html .)
>
>U.S. military-related corporations support Israeli occupation by way
>of an institutionalized
>mechanism provided for by Congress. Congress has stipulated that 75%
>of U.S. foreign military
>aid to Israel, which amounts to over $2 billion annually, must be
>spent buying U.S. products and
>services. Firms like Lockheed, Boeing, United Technologies,
>Raytheon, ExxonMobil, Northrop,
>Pgsus, General Dynamics, and Oshkosh, among others, are directly
>contributing to the tools
>that Israel uses to violate international and humanitarian law. The
>following are some specific
>cases:
>
>* U.S. weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company,
>which provides the
>fighter jets that have been used by Israel to bomb Palestinian
>cities that have been under
>military closure for 18 months, proudly announced on September 5,
>2001 from Fort Worth,
>Texas that Israel had decided to purchase 52 more Lockheed Martin
>F-16 fighter jets. The
>contract value was reported as approximately $1.3 billion for only
>the aircraft.
>
>* Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, a subsidiary of United Technologies
>Corporation, sells Israel
>U.S. armaments used to destroy Palestinian cities and perform
>political assassinations of
>Palestinian civilians from the sky. "Our company's relationship of
>more than 40 years with Israel
>is a source of pride," said Sikorsky President Dean Borgman in a
>February 1, 2001 press
>release, while announcing his firm was awarded a $211.8 million
>contract for 24 additional
>Black Hawk helicopters to serve the Israeli Air Force.
>
>* Other less visible military suppliers are those like Federal
>Laboratories in Saltsburg,
>Pennsylvania, which provides CS tear gas to the Israeli military.
>During the first Palestinian
>Intifada (uprising) in 1988, Federal Laboratories witnessed civil
>disobedience actions at their
>plant gate in Saltsburg and a lawsuit in U.S. courts after Israel
>misused their lethal tear gas by
>firing it into closed areas, resulting in the killing of many
>Palestinians. Federal Laboratories
>stopped exporting the gas for six months in 1988 and sent a
>fact-finding team to Israel before
>resuming sales.
>
>Corporate America's support of the Israeli occupation is not
>confined to military equipment
>suppliers. In fall 1999, Burger King opened a franchise restaurant
>in an illegal Israeli settlement
>in the West Bank, only to be forced by its customers to close down
>the store to avoid a
>worldwide boycott.
>
>In April alone three U.S. firms have been lured into collaboration
>with Israel's illegal occupation.
>Fifth Third Bank in Northeastern Ohio purchased $500,000 worth of
>bonds from Israel. Robert
>King, president and chief executive of the Cleveland affiliate of
>Fifth Third Bancorp in Cincinnati
>proudly stated in a press release that, "This year is the state of
>Israel's 50th anniversary, and
>now more than ever, it is poised to continue its growth as an
>industrial world leader." No
>mention was made by Mr. King that such growth comes at the cost of
>systematic, gross
>violations of human rights by Israel.
>
>Microsoft Israel put company executives in Redmond, Seattle in an
>awkward position when
>they sponsored two large billboards on a main Israeli highway
>saluting Israel's armed forces at
>the same time the Israeli military was indiscriminately bombing the
>Jenin refugee camp. Only
>days after a grassroots letter writing campaign, partly led by the
>Israeli peace group
>Gush-Shalom, Microsoft executives announced that Microsoft Israel
>had acted alone and was
>instructed to take down the billboards, which they promptly did.
>Israel is the largest research
>and development site for Microsoft outside America. Bill Gates would
>serve world peace well by
>continuing his involvement and requesting that Israel end the
>occupation in order to qualify for
>continued commercial opportunities. The same can be said for Intel
>Corporation, which has the
>largest production facilities outside of the U.S. located in Israel.
>
>(Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American businessman living in the
>besieged Palestinian City of
>Al-Bireh/Ramallah in the West Bank and can be reached at
><sbahour at palnet.com>.)
>
>Also see new commentary by Ahmed Rashid, "Afghan Women Emerge As
>Elections Take
>Place" at: http://www.fpif.org/outside/commentary/2002/0205jirga.html
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>III. Letters and Comments
>
>*** DIGNITY OF VENZUELA ***
>
>Re: Oil and Venezuela's Failed Coup by Luis E. Lander and Margarita
>LÛpez Maya. It is about
>time that governments in Latin America stand up and put things in
>the right place. The national
>resources of each country is a dear asset of the people of those
>nations and NOT a property of
>any international corporation. Congratulations. Keep the dignity of
>Venezuela alive.
>
>- Guillermo Valdivieso <guili250 at shaw.ca>
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>*** SAD DAY ***
>
>Re: "U.S. Hit List at the UN," by Ian Williams. I was horrified when
>I read what has been
>happening at the UN. I've certainly not heard anything about these
>people being forced out
>from any other news organization. Thank you for informing us of what
>Bush & Co. are doing
>behind our backs. Many of us across this nation found out long ago
>that we weren't getting all
>the news but only what the right wingers wanted the various news
>organizations to spin on any
>given day. And when we thought it couldn't possibly get worse, along
>comes the selected
>president and his administration and the media's glowing reports
>about a man who can do no
>wrong in their eyes but has done nothing but bring daily destruction
>down on his own nation
>and the rest of the world.
>
>Thank goodness we have the internet where we can read from sites
>like yours about what's
>really happening in our own country. It's a sad day indeed when we
>can no longer trust
>anything coming from the various U.S. media organizations and are
>turning to foreign news
>outlets and the internet to find out what's being done in our name
>with our tax money.
>
>- Jodie Jones
>
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>*** A LAUGHING MATTER ***
>
>Re: Deconstructing George W. Bush. I had to laugh at the statement
>in this otherwise
>well-reasoned article that U.S. support for the military
>dictatorship in Pakistan "has been partly
>responsible for the rise of anti-American extremism in those parts
>of the world." As the author
>surely must be aware General Musharraf's coup, while actively
>opposed by the U.S., was
>welcomed by virtually every element of Pakistani society as a long
>overdue relief from the
>hyper-corrupt rule of feudal landlords disguised as democratically
>elected politicians. Of course
>the U.S. continued to impose sanctions on Pakistan due to its
>military rule until some time after
>the 9-11 attacks forced it to embrace Musharraf as its ally. Since
>his government has continued
>to enjoy widespread popular support, particularly his campaign
>against native Pakistani
>terrorists, which has been criticized largely for not going far
>enough. Recent drops in his
>popularity are associated primarily with a perception that he has
>not delivered on his original
>commitment to prosecute the generation of thieves which stole from
>the Pakistani people and
>not any disillusionment with his anti-terrorist policies. Despite
>being a military dictatorship,
>Pakistan is one of the few states of the Islamic world in which
>there are virtually no restrictions
>on the freedom of the press nor persons being held in jail due to
>their political views. Rather, the
>threat to freedom of expression in Pakistan has long been and
>continues, albeit to a lesser
>degree, to be from extremists in every political party, which have a
>long tradition of killing, rather
>than refuting, their opponents. The author is sophisticated enough
>to know there is no similarity
>between Musharraf's government and U.S.-backed dictatorships of
>Latin America or feudal
>governments of the Gulf. It is unfortunate that he was sloppy enough
>to lump them together.
>
>- Michael Piston <michael at piston.net>
>
>
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Africana Unit, Room 328
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