[haw-info] Important vote on the Supplemental War Funding Bill will take place as early as tomorrow, June 16
The following message is sent on behalf of Carolyn (Rusti) Eisenberg, member of the HAW Steering Committee and of the legislative task force of the antiwar coalition United for Peace and Justice.
Call Your Congressional Representative Today to Oppose FY 2009 Supplemental War Funding Bill
Didn't we hear about this before? Yes. Congress has already voted on this once--$93 billion to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan until the end of this fiscal year. After that there is another $130 billion request already in the pipeline for FY 2010.
With a Democrat in the White House, this 2009 Supplemental was supposed to be a "slam-dunk." But the first time around, 60 members of the House of Representatives unexpectedly voted "NO." Of these 51 were antiwar Democrats. The bill has now come out of reconciliation conference between the House and Senate
and will be voted on again as early as tomorrow Tuesday June 16.
But now the bill is in trouble. Republicans are refusing to vote for the bill because it contains additional funding for the IMF to bail out European banks. Unless 38 of the 51 antiwar Democrats change their vote, this War Funding bill cannot pass. According to many reports from Capitol Hill, Rahm Emmanuel and Nancy Pelosi are putting intense pressure on their colleagues to abandon their antiwar position.
The list of NO voters is pasted in below. If your member of Congress is on this list, call their office and urge them to hold their ground and continue to Vote Against the Supplemental. If your member of Congress is not on this list, it is still useful to call their office and urge them vote NO this time around. Number for Congressional switchboard is 202-224-3121.
What's special about this vote? Once this 2009 Supplemental passes, the United States Congress will be giving its approval to an escalated war in Afghanistan.
Rusti Eisenberg, for Historians Against War
The text is available on the Appropriations Committee Web Site:
Despite the popularity of military memory in the United States, we remain a country without memory. It isn't about forgetting the sacrifices of the past or our debts to our forfathers. It's about remembering what we ourselves were thinking and saying as recently as six months ago:
This Memorial Day should be devoted to reviving and refreshing the failing memory of the American people, or, at least, those millions who voted for Obama in hopes of a better day. Remember the campaign promises, the soaring rhetoric about "the rule of law" and our "constitutional liberties"? Remember this: "Gitmo. That’s an easy one: close it"? Remember the promise of "change"?
Rachel Maddow's piece on MSNBC, linked to the article, is worth listening to closely. She doesn't go into the constitutional history, but she doesn't need to. All we have to do to start is compare the current administration with the last one.
I would almost say she didn't go far enough in her comments about Obama's proposal to create a new legal framework for arrest and indefinite detention without trial, however. The whole thing reminds me - someone who thought the claims of creeping fascism under Bush II made by authors like Naomi Klein to be alarmist - of the German Ermaechtigungsgesetz - the Enabling Law that let the Nazis do whatever they wanted. That was the creation of a new legal framework, a legalized carte blanche for the executive. As Maddow rightly points out, what Obama is proposing is already far more dangerous than in any comparable democracy on earth. We need to be watching this process very closely.
I would like to thank David Beito for pointing out the article.
May 17, 2009 Letters ‘Underground’ Regrets http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/17/books/review/Letters-t-UNDERGROUNDR_LETTERS.html?_r=1&ref=review
To the Editor:
From Paul M. Barrett’s review of Mark Rudd’s memoir, “Underground: My Life With SDS and the Weathermen” (May 3), one might imagine that Rudd had written an unrepentant, unreflective, shallow defense of his activist days with “some mistakes” tossed in.
In his introduction, Rudd expresses the hope that his story will help young people “figure out what they can do to build a more just and peaceful world.” The reviewer is indignant. How can this would-be terrorist claim that “his exploits” should “offer inspiration” to anyone? However, Rudd is not making this claim. Although he never repudiates the causes of his youth or the perception that something drastic needed to be done, he is quite clear that violence is not a remedy for social injustice or for illegal wars.
Rudd expresses deep sorrow for what he terms “disastrous mistakes.” He has remained silent about his past activities for over 25 years because of his abiding sense of shame and self-doubt. In unflinching detail, he demonstrates how political conditions, psychological need and poor judgment produced decisions that destroyed his own movement and inflicted immeasurable pain on others, including his loving parents. What makes this memoir so affecting is the absence of excuses, the refusal to blame others, the willingness to accept responsibility — more perhaps than the circumstances warranted.
As a student protester at Columbia, I knew Mark Rudd and disagreed with him much of the time (a point alluded to in the book). However, it takes no special acuity to see that his memoir is the work of a 60-year-old man with many regrets but an abiding commitment to learn from mistakes and make a positive contribution to the world.
As an aging historian, I have been reading the declassified papers of other men of that period who made plans to set off bombs in the middle of cities. Some had their doubts, some were neutral, some were plainly excited and enthusiastic about the damage they could do. Unlike the Weathermen, whose elaborate schemes never materialized, these men carried out their plans, not once but thousands of times, with excruciating human consequences. None has ever apologized or been called to account. To this day, those who are still alive are described as statesmen, not “terrorists,” and when they publish books they are treated respectfully.
CAROLYN EISENBERG Brooklyn The writer, a professor of American diplomatic history at Hofstra University, is completing a book about the foreign policy of Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.
[haw-info] National Call-In Day: Fund Diplomacy, Not the Wars! Tuesday, May 12
This message is sent on behalf of Carolyn (Rusti) Eisenberg, a member of the HAW Steering Committee and of the legislative task force of the anti-war coalition United for Peace and Justice, which issued this appeal.
National Call-In Day: Fund Diplomacy, Not the Wars! Tuesday, May 12
The Obama Administration has asked Congress for another $83.4 billion in Supplemental funding for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. As it stands now, the House Appropriations Committee has actually increased this amount to $94.2 billion. Members of Congress need to hear from their constituents that this war funding bill is not acceptable!
Voting on the Supplemental will be happening as early as next week. It is vitally important that people across the country send a clear rapid message that this bill continues and extends the failed policies of the past administration.
On May 12, join the National Call-In Day and let Congress know that while we support funding for the safewithdrawal of troops, and for diplomacy, economic assistance and humanitarian aid, we oppose more money for war. While making that call, urge them to co-sponsor a bill by Congressman James McGovern that would require President Obama to provide an exit plan for Afghanistan no later than December 2009.
Last week, Secretaries Clinton and Gates testified before the full Senate Appropriations Committee to explain their strategies and budget needs in preparation for a vote on the Supplemental. Although both senior officials repeatedly said economic assistance and diplomacy are the keys to stability and security, only 8% of the funding in this bill is for non-military activities -- the remainder for military operations. There is no military solution to the problems of Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan. The American air strikes inside Afghanistan and Pakistan are stirring up more suffering, fear and hatred towards the United States, while decreasing the prospects of a negotiated settlement. Congress needs to re-think and re-direct American resources.
Key Talking Points:
At a time of economic crisis and multiplying domestic needs, the 2009 Supplemental is an appalling waste of our money.
The Supplemental funds the increase of troops to Afghanistan, escalating the war rather than ending it.
The Supplemental places no restrictions on American bombings in either Afghanistan or Pakistan, despite the disproportionate harm to civilians.
The Supplemental maintains a high level of American troops in Iraq for the duration of FY 2009.
Join the National Call-in Day on Tuesday, May 12! The Congressional switchboard number is 1-800-517-5696. Let them know that you reject another 'blank check' for war!
Go to the National Priorities Project for information on the local costs of the war in Afghanistan: www.nationalpriorities.org.
Fischer's Historians' Fallacies as peace history...
Many of us are familiar with David Hackett Fischer's Historians' Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought. It has been a useful text in many graduate methodology seminars since its publication in 1970. I discovered it only recently when I "overheard" some of my online students "talking" about it in one of my classes.
In it, HAW's own venerable Staughton Lynd comes in for several pages of criticism in the chapter on Fallacies of Significance. Lynd, along with others, is accused of the "pragmatic fallacy," that is, selecting "useful facts in the service of a social cause." Examples are found in several of Lynd's early works. Lynd is quoted from his 1968 essay A Profession of History as writing, "As one considerably alienated from the American present, I wanted to know if there were men in the American past in whom I could believe." If that is a fallacy, it is one we face as an organization as well as one which some of us face in other contexts. Whether we consciously or unconsciously pick historical examples to suit our current views, whether that be as a true reflection of our views on history or as a conscious corrective to what we perceive as dishonest propaganda history from others, there is an inherent tension between history as a science and history as context for current policy. I have done this myself - whether it be drawing attention to particular facets of the historical record here at this blog to provide aid, comfort and context to a peace position or whether it be encouraging my students to investigate figures such as Bartolome de las Casas, Friedrich Spee or even someone like Robert G. Ingersoll as examples of voices of opposition to prevailing trends in the past.
Fischer lands another blow in the concluding chapter of Historians' Fallacies as well. After dismissing (rightly, I think) several of the commonly forwarded justifications for the study of history, he singles out the historians of the New Left and their search for a "usable past" as an example of history as propaganda. Although they are writing from the left, they are "methodologically reactionary." History used to legitimize some subversive policy or view is no more accurate than history used to legitimize power.
It is surprising then to read how the book ends several pages later. When he finally turns to what history can be good for, we find a peace agenda. Writing during the Vietnam War and against the background of the Cold War arms race, he closes the book with a warning about nuclear proliferation and makes good history writing a matter of human survival in the 21st century. The connection is found in several of the reasons he lists for the study of history.
History can, for example, "...clarify contexts in which contemporary problems exist." It can put historians' "temporal sophistication" to use in making suggestions about the future, something historians usually shy away from, or in mobilizing the algorythmic kind of thought in which economic historians engage, illuminating the conditions under which certain things are likely to happen. It can train people to think historically and help them avoid the political extremism that results from the abuse or misunderstanding of the past. An historian "against the war" can find no small degree of encouragement in these pages of Fischer's book.
Finally, with history, we can "learn about ourselves" and "about other selves." "And nothing is more necessary to the peace of the world." He is not, he argues, making a special plea for any "humbug" about the brotherhood of mankind. It is not, he writes, about "goodness," but about "survival." I understand this to mean that an historian is not trapped in a fallacy, is not abandoning history as a science, if he or she consciously sees his or her work as a contribution to the understanding of policy or current events (whether for or against a particular ideology or policy, left or right). If we remind people of the colonial history of Iraqi statehood, that is a contribution to understanding the "other self" that is the Iraqi citizen who knows that past. If we teach about traditional Afghani approaches to conflict resolution, we are not justifying sharia or siding with terrorists. We are showing that there are real differences between peoples that need to be taken into account and providing relevant information for formulating more nuanced views of the problem. If we talk about the anti-imperial tradition in the United States, we "clarify contexts in which contemporary problems exist" by showing that opposing empire is not new, not solely a product of recent invention.
I do not think that David H. Fischer has himself landed on the horns of a delimma or trapped himself in a fallacy or contradiction. There is simply no sharp dividing line between a truly scientific history useful for survival on the one hand and that written by those consciously concerned with that survival for the explicit purpose of contributing to that survival on the other. We must make every effort to be fair to our sources and to the context, we should not distort the record for the purpose of legitimizing a political state of affairs or policy position, but we cannot pretend to have a no perspective, to occupy some kind of "view from nowhere."
1.The basic Historians Against the War statement, overwhelmingly approved in a ratification vote open to everyone on the "HAW-Info" e-mail list earlier this month, is posted on the HAW web site at http://www.historiansagainstwar.org/statement.html.Everyone who is in substantial agreement with the statement is invited to fill out a form at the bottom of the web page and become formally a member of HAW.
2.The HAW-sponsored panel discussion at this year's AHA convention, on "The Bush-Cheney Legacy," is now available from Radio Free Maine in various formats (DVD and VHS video, dual audio CD and audiotape cassette).For ordering information contact Roger Leisner, rleisnerrfm@yahoo.com or (207) 242-0643 (cell phone).The five featured speakers were Alice Kessler-Harris, David Montgomery, Vijay Prashad, Ellen Schrecker, and Barbara Weinstein.HAW is also preparing edited versions of the talks in printed form, available later this spring.
3.Larry Wittner, longtime activist in HAW's collaborating organization the Peace History Society, has prepared an abbreviated version (for college classes and general readers, of his scholarly Struggle Against the Bomb trilogy.Entitled Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, it will be available in paperback from Stanford University Press (http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=9646) and from bookstores as of mid-June.
Lawrence Wittner, longtime peace historian and peace activist, recently completed an abbreviated version of his award-winning Struggle Against the Bomb trilogy. Entitled Confronting the Bomb: A Short History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, it provides a very positive portrayal of the role of the world peace movement in curbing the nuclear arms race and preventing nuclear war. Unlike his hefty, massively-footnoted scholarly trilogy, Confronting the Bomb is designed for college courses and general readers. Scheduled for publication in mid-June 2009, it supplies a useful context for what will be stepped-up popular agitation this year and next year for the creation of a nuclear-free world. The book is available in an inexpensive paperback edition from Stanford University Press (http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?id=9646) and from bookstores.
Members and Friends of Historians Against the War,
Voting has been completed on ratification of the proposed new basic statement of HAW, and the result was 194Yes votes (93%) and 14 No votes, so the statement has been adopted. Many thanks to those who took the time to vote, and to those who provided feedback on an earlier draft of the statement.
As a result of the vote, a better-defined category of "members" of HAW has been created. People who find themselves in substantial agreement(broadly defined) with the statement are invited to go to http://www.historiansagainstwar.org/statement.html and fill out a four-item form. This web page also has the text of the statement.
Those who are currently on the "HAW-Info" list but do not choose to become members of HAW will be kept on the list, for purposes of occasional informational e-mailings, as in the past.
Jim O'Brien and Marc Becker co-chairs, Historians Against the War
A YES vote on the new statement is a vote for the following:
-- The new statement would supersede the 2003 statement (available at http://www.historiansagainstwar.org) in defining broadly HAW's position.
-- It would create a new membership category consisting of people who indicate that they are in substantial agreement (however broadly defined)with the new statement. A list of those who self-identify as HAW members would be maintained for purposes of voting for the Steering Committee and other HAW business.
-- Others who choose not to sign, or neglect to sign, would still get informational mailings.
A NO vote on the new statement is a vote to retain the 2003 statement as an expression of HAW's identity. If NO votes are in the majority, the new statement will stand as an expression by the Steering Committee, not a basic statement of the organization.
Are you in favor of adopting the following statement as the new basic statement of HAW? (Please mark an X next to one of the following)
___ Yes
___ No
Statement by Historians Against the War
As historically minded activists, scholars, students, and teachers, we stand opposed to wars of aggression, military occupations of foreign lands, and imperial efforts by the United States and other powerful nations to dominate the internal life of other countries.
In particular, we continue to demand a speedy end to US military involvement in Iraq, and we insist on the withdrawal, not the expansion,of US and NATO military forces in Afghanistan. We also call for a sharp reduction of US military bases overseas, and an end to US financial and military support of regimes that repress their people, or that occupy the territories of other peoples. We favor as well a drastic redirection of national resources away from military spending and toward urgently needed domestic programs.
We deplore the secrecy, deception, and distortion of history, the repeated violation of international law, and the attack on civil liberties domestically that have accompanied US policies of war and militarism—policies that became especially belligerent in the aftermath of September 11.
We fear that the current, rapidly escalating crisis of global capitalism, which is creating suffering worldwide, will lead to escalating wars abroad and intensifying repression at home. We support solutions to this crisis that seek to enrich the lives and increase the power of people globally,and protect their fundamental human rights. We are unalterably opposed to any attempts to solve the crisis at their expense.
We are aware that, in the words of the late historian William Appleman Williams, "empire as a way of life" has long characterized the United States and is not easily changed. However, we are mindful as well that the current conjunction of international and domestic crises offers an opportunity to alter longstanding destructive patterns. As historians, we br>believe that we can and must make a contribution to the broad, international movements for peace, democracy, and environmental and social justice. In pursuing our objectives, we look toward building and joining alliances with a wide variety of intellectual and activist groups that share our concerns.
To members and friends of Historians Against the War,
The HAW Steering Committee has endorsed a new basic statement for HAW, which would replace the 2003 statement that focused on ending the occupation of Iraq. The proposed new statement appears at the end of this message.
We are grateful to all those who gave feedback on a draft of this statement. We are submitting the final statement for ratification by people who are on our "HAW-Info" email list. This is the same process we use to elect HAW's Steering Committee every year.
A YES vote on the new statement is a vote for the following:
-- The new statement would supersede the 2003 statement (available at http://www.historiansagainstwar.org) in defining broadly HAW's position.
-- It would create a new membership category consisting of people who indicate that they are in substantial agreement (however broadly defined) with the new statement. A list of those who self-identify as HAW members would be maintained for purposes of voting for the Steering Committee and other HAW business.
-- Others who choose not to sign, or neglect to sign, would still get informational mailings.
A NO vote on the new statement is a vote to retain the 2003 statement as an expression of HAW's identity. If NO votes are in the majority, the new statement will stand as an expression by the Steering Committee, not a basic statement of the organization.
Are you in favor of adopting the following statement as the new basic statement of HAW? (Please mark an X next to one of the following)
___ Yes
___ No
Statement by Historians Against the War
As historically minded activists, scholars, students, and teachers, we stand opposed to wars of aggression, military occupations of foreign lands, and imperial efforts by the United States and other powerful nations to dominate the internal life of other countries.
In particular, we continue to demand a speedy end to US military involvement in Iraq, and we insist on the withdrawal, not the expansion, of US and NATO military forces in Afghanistan. We also call for a sharp reduction of US military bases overseas, and an end to US financial and military support of regimes that repress their people, or that occupy the territories of other peoples. We favor as well a drastic redirection of national resources away from military spending and toward urgently needed domestic programs.
We deplore the secrecy, deception, and distortion of history, the repeated violation of international law, and the attack on civil liberties domestically that have accompanied US policies of war and militarism—policies that became especially belligerent in the aftermath of September 11.
We fear that the current, rapidly escalating crisis of global capitalism, which is creating suffering worldwide, will lead to escalating wars abroad and intensifying repression at home. We support solutions to this crisis that seek to enrich the lives and increase the power of people globally, and protect their fundamental human rights. We are unalterably opposed to any attempts to solve the crisis at their expense.
We are aware that, in the words of the late historian William Appleman Williams, "empire as a way of life" has long characterized the United States and is not easily changed. However, we are mindful as well that the current conjunction of international and domestic crises offers an opportunity to alter longstanding destructive patterns. As historians, we believe that we can and must make a contribution to the broad, international movements for peace, democracy, and environmental and social justice. In pursuing our objectives, we look toward building and joining alliances with a wide variety of intellectual and activist groups that share our concerns.
[haw-info] HAW contingent for Wall Street march this Saturday, April 4
Historians Against the War will have a contingent in the March on Wall Street, sponsored by the anti-war coalition United for Peace and Justice, this coming Saturday. Look for the HAW banner at the corner of Leonard Street and Broadway (see below), next to the Labor contingent, starting at 11 am. The march step-off time is noon.
For complete information on the march, including demands, times, route, and full logistics, go to the United for Peace and Justice web site at http://www.unitedforpeace.org/
We are passing along the following statement just issued by United for Peace and Justice, the anti-war coalition to which HAW belongs.
Call for National Action for Peace in Afghanistan
Today, President Barack Obama announced his plans to send another 21,000 troops to Afghanistan: he is girding the nation for a long and costly military occupation there.
While he also made some good statements on increasing diplomacy and economic aid to Afghanistan and Pakistan, the emphasis is clearly on military operations. Predictably, the Pakistan and Afghan factions of the Taliban are already uniting to oppose our escalation of troops. As the spring fighting season approaches, only one thing is certain -- more death, destruction, and misery in a desperately poor country that has had little respite from war for decades.
Here in the U.S., Obama's escalation in Afghanistan and the continuing occupation of Iraq threaten our nation's urgent economic and domestic agenda. Now is the time for more diplomacy, not more war!
United For Peace and Justice calls for immediate action for peace in Afghanistan. Here are three things you can do:
1) Call the White House today - 202-456-1414
Make sure President Obama knows that you disagree with his plans to send more troops to Afghanistan. Call the White House comment line at 202-456-1414 between 9:00 AM and 5:00 PM ET.
2) March with UFPJ on April 4!
Building on the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., we are marching on the anniversary of his historic speech against the war in Vietnam and the anniversary of his assassination. On Saturday, April 4, we are taking our message to Wall Street in NYC: addressing this country's economic crisis must include drastic cuts in military spending and that means ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The last thing our country needs is a new quagmire in Afghanistan - it is time to bring the troops home, not send more.
3) Help organize local actions April 6 - 9
Congress will be in recess so this is a perfect time to meet with your representatives while they are home. Actions can also be community or media-focused -- vigils, rallies, public education forums with local speakers, film showings or other events to educate and mobilize support in your community. This is an important time to educate people about Afghanistan and the urgent need to change U.S. policy.
UFPJ calls for the following:
A halt to the planned escalation of 21,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan. We need to bring all our troops home now, not to send more into a country where military solutions have never worked.
A strong commitment to diplomacy as the only solution to the conflict in Afghanistan. The U.S. must support negotiations already underway among various actors in Afghanistan, and must also engage all countries in the region with a stake in a peaceful Afghanistan. The announcement that Iran will join negotiations over Afghanistan is a positive development. We need to share more cups of tea for negotiating rather than more weapons where military solutions have never worked.*
A dramatic shift from military spending by the U.S. to funding for Afghan-led humanitarian community development and reconstruction projects to enable Afghan communities to improve daily life for their own people. Our goal is to put an end to U.S. war funding.
*The reference is to the work of Greg Mortenson as described in his New York Times #1 best-selling book, 'Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Mission to Promote Peace One School at a Time', by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin.
Today, from 3:15 to 4:15 PM (Eastern Time) Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights will speak at a special session of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. His remarks can be views at www.oas.org/OASpage/Live. Ratner will put forward a three point plan.
• Issue official recommendations to the United States to engage in criminal investigations and prosecutions for torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment; • Reform laws that prevent the victims of U.S. policies from learning the truth about these abuses; and • Make reparation s to victims of human rights abuses committed by the U.S. government.
The word “victims” and the field of “victimology” have changed and grown in recent legal and historical scholarship. As a sub-field of legal history there are interesting and important debates about the elevation and deployment of this construct. Some French jurists have argued that the focus on victims can result in a perversion of criminal law and justice. They argue that the creation of specialized “Victim Judges” has undermined, twisted and perverted everyday criminal trials and reintroduced pre-revolutionary interpersonal vengeance into court proceedings.
It is important to note that the CCR proposal DOES NOT fall into such a trap. The ability of those who have been tortured to publicly confirm what they already know to be true is crucial for personal healing. Moreover, the process will enable each person to speak to us all and empower their voices in ways that will sustain a healing process. In many ways, the opportunity for on-going psychic reparation will be far more important than cash compensations that can never be commensurate with the damages and losses suffered by the human beings who have been abused.
When HAW was founded in 2003 we said, “We deplore the secrecy, deception, and distortion of history involved in the administration's conduct of a war that violates international law, intensifies attacks on civil liberties, and reaches toward domination of the Middle East and its resources.” The CCR initiative and approach offer us the best strategy to accomplish our goals and help create a historical record that “connects the dots” in our founding statement.
I have just returned from observing Sunday's historic elections in El Salvador. For the first time in that country's history voters selected a left-wing government. This bring an end to 20 years of right-wing ARENA rule, the U.S.'s closest ally in the region and a party associated with paramilitary death squads in the 1980s.
El Salvador is the only country in Latin America that has troops as part of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. The FMLN's victory will mean that the country will withdraw those troops, striking a significant blow against imperialism.
The plan to "buy off" supposedly "reconcilable" Taliban fighters and thus split the insurgency projects an image onto the situation in Afghanistan that is contrary to the assessment of Afghanistan experts about the true motivation for the hostility toward coalition personnel. It is a repeat of numerous cases under the Bush administration of ignoring the real cultural context on the ground. It fails to recognize real fault lines among the insurgents - for example between the Arabs associated with al Qaeda and the local Taliban.
In the accompanying radio interview at http://antiwar.com/radio/, Porter assents to antiwar.com's radio host Scott Horton's charicature of the Afghans as a warlike people who will always fight, among themselves and against foreigners, implying either a Hobbesean state of nature or a kind of Alice-in-Wonderland view of the "noble savage". The two say that this image of eternal war represents the consensus of experts - it is in their ancient culture. As the conversation moves on, and as the article presents it, however, a more subtle view emerges: The Afghanistan insurgency is rooted in hostility to foreign occupation troops based primarily on desire for revenge for violence inflicted by the occupation forces on members of their groups. That view would seem to fit in better with the history of the clan/tribe-based society there, where sub-national loyalties and honor are so highly valued. Against that background, the idea of buying off parts of the insurgency seems absurd.
Afghani conceptions of honor, reconciliation and compensation do allow for monetary reimbursement for killing, however. So a scenario where the coalition buys off insurgents is not total fantasy. But each case would have to be personally negotiated by men (sic) of recognized authority and accompanied by ritualized actions that would be difficult to reconcile with military or bureaucratic traditions in the west. And any such action would leave the issue of the presence of foreign troops and the anger generated by foreing occupation as such unaddressed.
A recent comment on the previous story laments the stagnation of this blog and the fact that it is now commenting on things other than foreign policy (which it was not limited to before either, as several earlier postings can attest).
The HAWblog is not dead, but we are deliberating rules and procedures for its continuance because
- there were some sharp disagreements between the Steering Committee of HAW and those who were making the most frequent contributions
- there was a desire to slow down traffic to allow the new Steering Committee statement to remain at the top of the page.
We plan to return shortly with clear procedures for dealing with authors and ironing out disagreements, and perhaps somewhat narrower parameters for content. The slate of authors will likely change as well, although exactly how will depend on the decisions made by those members of the Steering Committee who will be elected to be in charge of the blog under the new rules.
One hundred historians have declared their support for the Employee Free Choice Act, introduced into Congress on March 10 by Senator Tom Harkin and Rep. George Miller. The legislation would make it easier for workers to organize unions and harder for employers to evade them. Workers could obtain a union when fifty percent sign cards authorizing a union. The law would also force employers to respond quickly and bargain in good faith or face increased fines and mandatory, binding arbitration by the National Labor Relations Board.
Why are faculty members, who are so notoriously un-organized, speaking on behalf of unions? There are many reasons, but on one level the reason is simple: democracy depends upon it, and our economy needs it.
The last great depression occurred when unions declined to almost nothing in the 1920s. Republican government cut taxes on the rich and removed many of the regulations of the Progressive era, which in turn allowed bankers and corporations to make sky-high profits. The housing and stock market boomed, and the rich got richer. That led to the crash of 1929.
Because labor was not organized, it had almost no restraining influence on government, leading to a vast divide between the rich and the working class.Sound familiar?
In 1935, the Wagner Act made it easier for workers to organize, establishing the right to freedom of association and speech on the job without employer intimidation or interference. The rise of unions paved the way to the Social Security Act, the Fair Labor Standards Act, and many of the government safety nets we rely upon today.
Because unions gained in strength, workers increased their wages and their buying power. When the economy came out of its stupor during the rapid industrialization of World War II, unions became widespread. The result was the rise of the largest middle class in world history.
This history favors two arguments about the need for labor law reform today. Without unions, government will not reflect the needs of the great majority of people who work for a living. Not only will democracy suffer, but wages will stagnate, people cannot afford to buy what they produce, and our economy will suffer.
Those who have jobs need to be able to advocate for themselves. Employers will not voluntarily raise wages, and government will not do very much to make that happen either. Only workers themselves can do that, but to do it, they need to be able to harness their numbers in an organized way.
Employers will say EFCA takes away the workers right to a secret ballot. It isn't true. If thirty percent or people in a work place petition for it, they can demand a secret ballot election. The trouble is, employer strategies since the 1980s have turned elections into a nightmare of intimidation, delays, and poor results for workers.
EFCA allows that if fifty percent petition for a union, it will take effect immediately. The choice of methods belongs to workers, not to the employers, who seem perfectly capable of protecting themselves. Let's face
it: Labor laws are written to protect workers.
History shows that we are in a time where worker rights need increased protection. Unions are clearly not the answer to every problem. But for capitalism to function in a democratic manner, we need them.
For a list of signers to the historians' petition, and for more information on the Employee Free Choice Act, see the web site (http://LAWCHA.org/tls.php).
******
By Michael Honey, Fred and Dorothy Haley Professor of Humanities, President, Labor and Working-Class History AssociationUniversity of Washington, Tacoma http://faculty.washington.edu/mhoney/
More responses to the statement published by the HAW steering committee...
The following are only those e-mailed responses for which we have received explicit permission to publish.
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To HAW Steering Committee:
I think we should revise our existing policy statement from September 21, 2003. It was good for then, but events have moved along. We should take some credit as an organization for helping to raise some of the anti-war consciousness that eventually became politicized and will result in the eventual end of US military occupation of Iraq by August 2010.
I think the proposed statement takes us well in the right direction. I would reduce the word-count but expand on the anti-war ideas. Please see my revised statement that is attached.
I have looked through the blog exchange and would restrict my comments to two issues. First, I do not think we need to attract all historians. We are liberal and progressive historians in a professional organization that has traditionally been quite conservative, often apolitical, and frequently silent on US imperial aggression. This should be our guiding light. Second, I agree with the contributor who wishes to remove the reference to global capitalism’s crisis. As a socialist, I need little persuading regarding the accuracy of the argument. I just think that HAW’s raison d’etre is anti-war opposition to US imperial policies past and present and that this is where our focus should lay.
I do not think we need a redefinition of HAW; nor do we need to consult the members in an e-mail ballot. I think the proposed statement should be a statement offered by the HAW steering committee. We elected you. You have solicited feedback and revision. That’s fine by me.
One suggestion for the future is that the policy statement might be updated every time by newly-elected steering committee members.
in solidarity,
J. R. Kerr-Ritchie
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I agree totally with the statement only one word I would change: "crisis of global capitalism" for "global economic crisis." Capitalism (unless one is a determined terminologically commited marxist) is not a very clear category and adds a political tone that is not heplful and somewhat restricts the appeal of the statement. My best wishes and many thanks.
Arturo Giraldez
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The new statement appropriately broadens the concerns of HAW and I believe should be considered as a re-definition of the group's purpose. I am very pleased to see at least a mention of the "global capitalism" in relation to US empire.
E. Wayne Ross
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Dear Steering Committee, I am enthusiastically in favor of the first three paragraphs, but strongly opposed to the fourth and much of the fifth. I think you stand a real danger of limiting your membership to a negligible sect as soon as you start talking about "the crisis of capitalism," a term that I've heard thrown around for too much of my life, and labelling the entire course of American history as evil. Many people, myself included, and I would suppose the Society of Friends, are opposed to all that you mention in the first three paragraphs but are not ready to agree on causes or on the complexion of American history in the 18th century. Please ponder ways of broadening your organization, not narrowing it.
Sincerely, Robert Lerner
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Dear HAW Colleagues ~ I've read through the comments on the blog, yet still believe the new revision is strong, clear and a better expression of contemporary concerns. One minor suggestion - if we oppose both "foreign military bases" and US empire, should we not explicitly encourage the return of Guantanamo to Cuba? I think a job well done on a difficult and delicate issue! My thanks to those who worked so hard on this - In solidarity, nelly blacker-hanson
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Hi -
As far as feedback - I would like to see a better developed rationale for opposition to the Afghan war. The major US media seem not to address this issue at all. US goals seem muddled and vague.
Best wishes,
Thomas K. Murphy
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I like the statement and would support it as redefinition of HAW. I do have two comments, though. In this sentence, why not just "people" rather than "working people" (?): "We support solutions to this crisis that seek to enrich the lives and increase the power of [working] peoples globally, and protect their fundamental human rights."
Also, in the penultimate sentence, would it make sense to add environmental to "social justice" (thus, "environmental and social justice")? Environmental justice is implicit in social justice, but it seems to me worth making the former more explicit.
Matthew Dennis
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I like the revised/updated statement; I'm not sure its adoption would necessarily entail "redefinition" of HAW. Thanks for all the work you do. Warm regards, Davis Joyce ________________________________
I support the statement, and opt for the second option to include the question of support for Israel as part of the mession statement. Thanks, Magid Shihade
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I support the revised statement, in general and as the position of HAW rather than just the Steering Cmte. Thanks for drafting it and sending it out for comment. Best, Dan Berger
Some responses to the new HAW statement proposal...
Response to our new statement has been overwhelmingly positive. Here are the e-mail responses we have gotten from our members who have given up permission to make their remarks public. Other responses can also be seen as direct comments made at the blog posting of the statement itself (story below this one).
Since there is concern that criticism of the statement is not being given a fair viewing at this blog, a particularly critical contribution to the discussion is highlighted below in red. We encourage comments and discussion about the statement, both pro and con, in the comments section.
____________________ I think the new statement looks pretty good and should be adopted (after revision) as a new general statement of HAW's purpose. The old statement, with its heavy focus on Iraq, is becoming dated as the imperial action moves to Afghanistan, Gaza, etc.
I caught one grammatical error in the draft: in the 3rd par., "accompanies" should be "acompany," since you have a plural subject (secrecy, deception, distortion, etc.) for that verb.
Beyond that, you might prune the prose a little so that the statement is not an unbroken chain of multiclause sentences. But that's just a stylistic matter.
On a substantive note, might you want to include another sentence or phrase pointing toward "lessons of history?" The current draft statement is really just an anti-imperialist manifesto that doesn't reflect a distinctive "historically-minded" approach. I'm wondering if there are things that stand out in particular to historians. Perhaps a troubling parallel between Obama, who is now pushing a surge in Afghanistan to fend off charges of being "soft on terrorism," and his fellow Democrats JFK/LBJ, who did likewise in Vietnam to avoid being labelled "soft on communism?" Just a thought.
Thanks for your hard and good work on behalf of the membership.
Roberta Gold ____________________
I'm down with the statement. It's well put together. As always, better to light a single candle than curse the darkness.
Incidentally, I'm not on the updated signers' list but I'm happy to be.
Louis Segal
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I like it. There's nothing I see wrong in or with it.
My thanks to all those who have worked on it.
Daniel White
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Dear Friends,
Thank you for your enduring commitment to these issues. And for considering an updating of the statement.
I write as one who dates from long back in the struggle, as indeed to many other members of HAW. I appreciated your statement of basic values and specific positions. But if there are lessons to be learned from forty years ago, they would include two points. If we wish to be effective in bringing people in (rather than simply stating our postion) our statement needs to be succinct. And it needs to avoid polarizing language; we need allies, even at the expense of expressing intellectual purity.
With these points in mind, I've proposed some revisions, both to make this more concise and to serve as an arena that will attract, not alienate others. Below, I attach three texts: your original, my proposed revisions in track changes mode (so you can trace each proposed change), and a clear copy of the revision.
I realize this will disappoint some people who want to make points of their own, but it seems to me more important to write in such a way what can bring a range of diverse people along.
Cordially,
David Newbury
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I love the new statement. Have been feeling so frustrated about the build-up in Afghanistan...wishing the president were better versed in history instead of constitutional law.
As for how the statement should be handled, I'm for whatever will get it out in pretty much the form it's in now. If the membership is less rad than the leadership things can sometimes be derailed when the membership is not unified.
One thing I hate about email is that I can't hear various arguments pro and con, and in isolation it's hard for me to think out the ramifications of a certain position. I like to come to my conclusions after listening to what others' concerns are.
Anyway, 'way to go!
Ann Jefferson ____________________
Just a quick note to say that I like the new HAW statement, which I think should be a re-definition of HAW itself. It seems to me much more of a general identity statement for the organization than a specific timely comment on Lebanon, Gaza, or Afghanistan. Thanks for your excellent work on this.
Regards,
Scott Laderman ____________________
What HAW is doing and has done is of great importance. Neither the media, nor congress nor the "public" have the expertise at their disposal that HAW does. What is more they are not beholden to anyone and can address issues in as unbiased a way as is possible. You are indispensable if this nation is to deserve to long endure.
Bill Springer ____________________
"…or that occupy the territories of other peoples." Given the vast number of states that occupy territories claimed by other peoples this would appear to be a call for ending almost all financial and military support for other countries. That might be a good thing, but I don't think that it is what's really meant here. It seems to me that this is a mealymouthed way of sneaking a proposal to cut off aid for Israel into the document without openly calling for that and opening a potentially divisive debate on the topic. We should either open this to full and honest debate or we should drop this line from the statement.
Stan Nadel
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It would be a disastrous strategic mistake for HAW to adopt the proposed new statement. The statement's assertions on domestic policies will only weaken the anti-war movement by driving away anti-imperialist libertarians and conservatives who have been among the most committed opponents of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Whereas the original statement wisely avoided making domestic policy prescriptions, the proposed new statement calls for "a drastic reduction of national resources away from military spending and towards urgently needed domestic programs." This is an attack on the politics of libertarians and conservatives who have campaigned tirelessly against the wars but who object to spending on both the warfare and the welfare state.
Similarly, the claim that "the current, rapidly escalating crisis of global capitalism, which is creating suffering worldwide, will lead to escalating wars abroad and intensifying repression at home," is rejected by many anti-war libertarians and conservatives who believe that the source of the current crisis is too little, not too much, reliance on free-market "capitalism." Several scholars sympathetic to HAW's original statement, such as distinguished economic historian Robert Higgs, author of Crisis and Leviathan, attribute the current global economic crisis to governmental actions such as deficit spending, bailouts, Federal Reserve inflationary credit expansion, various stimulus plans, and vast military spending.
Three years ago, there was another attempt to make similar changes to HAW's statement of purpose. David Montgomery, a founder and leading member of the organization, eloquently gave cheer to those of us who favor the strategy of uniting all anti-war historians when he wrote the following: "I remain cautious, however, about taking organizational stands on some of the other issues mentioned as possible targets of HAW activity, especially the socio-economic impact of imperialism. From the outset HAW has encompassed historians with divergent political views, among them quite a number of conservative libertarians. We must try not only to keep our ranks diverse but united. We should welcome open discussion of such issues, but limit the extent to which we take organizational stands. There are, after all, other organizations that quite properly represent their particular analyses and viewpoints. HAW's aim should always be to involve as many historians as possible and to make them feel at home, without in any way prescribing or stifling particular analyses of US power or interpretations of what is now called 'globalization.'"
Montgomery's words apply equally today. Let's not weaken the antiwar cause by adopting positions on domestic and economic issues that will only alienate us from potential allies.
To members and friends of Historians Against the War,
For the past several weeks the Steering Committee has been discussing revising or updating our policy statement that people have been signing to join HAW. We adopted the current statement on September 21, 2003, and it reads:
As historians, teachers, and scholars, we oppose the expansion of United States empire and the doctrine of pre-emptive war that have led to the occupation of Iraq. We deplore the secrecy, deception, and distortion of history involved in the administration's conduct of a war that violates international law, intensifies attacks on civil liberties, and reaches toward domination of the Middle East and its resources. Believing that both the Iraqi people and the American people have the right to determine their own political and economic futures (with appropriate outside assistance), we call for the restoration of cherished freedoms in the United States and for an end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Several times since 2003 the Steering Committee has expressed opinions on issues that were outside the literal framework of the founding statement, but that appeared to many people to be related. The Steering Committee criticized US government support for the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the summer of 2006, and for the invasion of Gaza earlier this winter. Last fall we adopted a set of "discussion points" on Afghanistan that called for the US to withdraw rather than to escalate.
More recently, there has been discussion of formalizing a broader scope for the organization, either through a more general statement by the Steering Committee or by a new statement of unity for HAW as an organization. A proposed document that could potentially serve either purpose is included in this message. We invite feedback on either or both of the following points:
-- The substance of the statement: Do you have concerns about the proposed text? Would you suggest revisions?
-- The purpose of the statement: If it were to be adopted after the process of feedback and revision, should it be simply as a statement of opinion by the Steering Committee (parallel to the earlier statements on Lebanon, Gaza, and Afghanistan) or as a re-definition of HAW itself? (If we follow the latter course, it would be subject to approval in an e-mail ballot open to recipients of the HAW-Info messages.)
Thanks, Jim O'Brien and Marc Becker, co-chairs for the HAW Steering Committee
New Statement Proposal:
As historically-minded activists, scholars, students, and teachers, we stand opposed to wars of aggression, military occupations of foreign lands, and imperial efforts by the United States and other powerful nations to dominate the internal life of other countries.
In particular, we continue to demand a speedy end to US military involvement in Iraq, and we insist on the withdrawal, not the expansion, of US and NATO military forces in Afghanistan. We also call for a sharp reduction of US military bases overseas, and an end to US financial and military support of regimes that repress their people, or that occupy the territories of other peoples. We favor as well a drastic redirection of national resources away from military spending and towards urgently needed domestic programs.
We deplore the secrecy, deception, and distortion of history, the repeated violation of international law, and the attack on civil liberties domestically that accompanies the present U.S. foreign policy of war and militarism—a foreign policy that became especially belligerent in the aftermath of September 11.
We fear that the current, rapidly escalating crisis of global capitalism, which is creating suffering worldwide, will lead to escalating wars abroad and intensifying repression at home. We support solutions to this crisis that seek to enrich the lives and increase the power of working peoples globally, and protect their fundamental human rights. We are unalterably opposed to any attempts to solve the crisis at their expense.
We are aware that, in the words of the late historian William Appleman Williams, "empire as a way of life" has characterized the United States since its foundation and is not easily changed. However, we are mindful as well that the current conjunction of international and domestic crises offers an opportunity to alter longstanding destructive patterns. As historians, we believe that we can and must make a contribution to the broad, international movements for peace, democracy, and social justice. In pursuing our objectives, we look toward building and joining alliances with a wide variety of intellectual and activist groups that share our concerns.
When I was seven years old or so growing up in the small town of Albert Lea, Minnesota, Paul Harvey was one of the first voices I heard in the morning. His memorable over-the-top delivery kept me entertained as I gulped down my mother’s signature “mush” (which, contrary to the name, was a tasty Norwegian dish of cream, cinnamon, and butter). None of the reserved Minnesota adults I knew sounded like that! Harvey’s bracing “Good Day!” helped get me in the right frame of mind for the coming day in school--one my least favorite activities.
After we moved to Minneapolis, I rarely heard him on the air. Even the old fogie stations didn’t seem to carry him. His fan base was always in small towns, where he often preceded or followed the daily crop report. Like many, I eventually came to dismiss Harvey as an antiquated vestige from a 1950s time warp, a sort of precursor to such bumbling and pretentious fictional new announcers as Les Nessman (“WKRP in Cincinnati”) or Ted Baxter (“The Mary Tyler Moore Show.”)
Later, however, in my research for my book on tax revolts I gained a new appreciation for Harvey. He stood out as one of the last prominent survivors of the once powerful Old Right of the 1940s and 1950s. Old Right conservatives had fought a dogged rear-guard action against the New Deal welfare and warfare states. The man who published Harvey’s first books in the 1950s was none other than John M. Pratt. An ardent FDR hater, Pratt, while in Chicago during the 1930s, had led one of the largest tax strikes in American history. He obviously saw something in young Harvey.
While Harvey moved away from his earlier Old Right isolationism, events sometimes pulled him back to it. It was Harvey, along with Walter Cronkite, who was instrumental in turning the heartland against the Vietnam War. In 1970, when Richard Nixon was still popular in countless small towns Harvey announced dramatically in his daily commentary: “Mr. President, I love you ... but you're wrong." He was deluged with angry mail and phone calls.
For this expression of old fashioned Midwestern horse sense alone, Paul Harvey deserves the recognition and thanks of all Americans who value peace.
Ron Paul goes into the lion's den and gives the members of CPAC a much needed lesson in the dangers of an interventionist foreign policy and the need to protect civil liberty. He doesn't pull his punches and you can feel the tension in the room.
The AP reports that "more Afghan civilians are dying in U.S. and allied operations than at the hands of the Taliban, according to a count by The Associated Press. In the first two months of the year, U.S., NATO or Afghan forces have killed 100 civilians, while militants have killed 60."
Robert Higgs on the History of the American Warfare State
Few historians know more about the history of the American warfare state during the twentieth century than Robert Higgs. In this probing interview (audio here), Higgs gives his thoughts on the forgotten depression of the early 1920s, the Great Depression, World War II, the hubris of wartime leaders, past and present, and the current financial crisis.
That's the impression left by the latest Josh Brown cartoon which is prominently displayed on the HAW frontpage. Brown's cartoon portrays our new commander-in-chief as a weak and clueless victim of a siren song from Bush, Cheney, and Rice in his Afghanistan policy. Nothing could be further from the case.
Obama is going into this with both eyes open. He ran to the right of both Bush and McCain during the 2008 campaign and repeatedly called for sending in more U.S. troops and even recklessly supported cross border attacks into Pakistan, with or without the permission of that government. Unfortunately, on Afghanistan policy, Obama is just keeping his campaign promises.
That's right. We have a massive financial crisis that has forced most Americans to tighten their belts yet he can find room to ramp up spending for our world empire:
The Defense Department would see a $20.4 billion boost in 2010, a 4% increase from this year, slowing its growth from the Bush years but securing personnel increases for the Army and Marine Corps. Mr. Obama will request an additional $75.5 billion for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan for the rest of 2009 and another $130 billion for 2010, as he withdraws most combat troops from Iraq over 19 months but sends many of them to Afghanistan.
The "Security Without Empire: National Organizing Conference Against Foreign Military Bases" will be held at American University, February 27-March 2, 2009. This conference, featuring speakers from around the world such as Walden Bello, Wafula Okumu and Zia Mian, is attracting people from around the globe. It is an opportunity for HAW members in the DC area to network as well as develop HAW connections to the international movement for peace and social justice. (http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/39318)
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has just announced the appointment of Dennis Ross as special envoy to Iran. Ross, who co-founded AIPAC, wrote much of Barack Obama's address to AIPAC last June, in which the candidate said that in its dealings with Iran the U.S. "should take no option, including military action, off the table." Three months after that speech, Ross co-authored a report by the Bipartisan Policy Center, which, according to Jim Lobe, the Washington Bureau Chief of the Inter Press Service, "amounts to a roadmap to war with Iran." Here is Lobe's summary and analysis of the report:
– A strategy of deterrence, if Iran became a “nuclear-capable” state, would not necessarily work because of the “Islamic Republic’s extremist ideology.”
— No agreement can be reached that would permit Iran to enrich uranium on its own territory under any circumstances, including even under the strictest international inspections regime.
— A “grand bargain” with Iran cannot be worked out in the time that remains before Iran builds a stockpile of 20 kgs of highly enriched uranium 6 kgs of plutonium which would make it technically “nuclear weapons-capable” and which thus must be unacceptable to the U.S.
— The U.S. should be willing to suspend all bilateral nuclear co-operation with Russia in order to pressure it to cooperate on Iran; that is, lending Washington full diplomatic support and refusing to provide additional assistance to Tehran’s nuclear and missile programs or to sell it advanced conventional-weapons systems.
— The U.S. should maintain a constant dialogue with Israel because “…(o)nly if Israeli policymakers believe that U.S. and European policymakers will ensure that the Islamic Republic does not gain nuclear weapons will the Israelis be unlikely to strike Iran independently.” In other words, unless the U.S. is prepared to take out Iran’s nuclear facilities, Israel will likely do so without seeking a green light from Washington.
— If the next administration agrees to enter into direct talks with Iran without insisting on its suspension of enrichment, it must set a pre-determined deadline for compliance with its demands, after which it should be prepared to enforce a blockade of Iranian gasoline imports, followed, if Iran still does not agree, by a blockade of its oil exports. If that does not have the desired effect or if Iran retaliated in some way, the U.S. should be prepared to launch a military strike that would “have to target not only Iran’s nuclear infrastructure, but also its conventional military infrastructure in order to suppress an Iranian response.” Such an attack would be followed immediately by “providing food and medical assistance within Iran…” [!!!]
— To convey his seriousness both to Iran and to the international community, the new president should begin building up the U.S. military presence in the region “the first day (he) enters office…” Specifically this would involve “pre-positioning additional U.S. and allied forces, deploying additional aircraft carrier battle groups and minesweepers, emplacing other war material in the region, including additional missile defense batteries, upgrading both regional facilities and allied militaries, and expanding strategic partnerships with countries such as Azerbaijan and Georgia [!!!] in order to maintain operational pressure from all directions.” The report goes on to note that “the presence of U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan offers distinct advantages in any possible confrontation with Iran. The United States can bring in troops and material to the region under the cover of the Iraq and Afghanistan conflicts, thus maintaining a degree of strategic and tactical surprise.” [Emphasis added in light of recent concerns raised in Iraq about the Status of Forces Agreement.]
In other words, if Tehran is not eventually prepared to permanently abandon its enrichment of uranium on its own soil — a position that is certain to be rejected by Iran ab initio — then war becomes inevitable, and all intermediate steps, even including direct talks if the new president chooses to pursue them, will amount to going through the motions (presumably to gather international support for when push comes to shove). While I would certainly not be surprised if such an approach were adopted by a McCain administration, what is a top Obama adviser doing signing on to it?
Russia to Cut Military Budget: Will Obama Do the Same?
Russia plans to cut its military budget by 15 percent because of the financial crisis. Here is a golden opportunity for Obama to follow Russia's lead and do the same or, better yet, raise the stakes with even more cuts. This is an important test and we should know soon. If Obama fails this test, we have to raise a ruckus.
Robert Scheer, the eminent left-liberal journalist, professor of communications at the University of Southern California, and supporter of Barack Obama's presidential campaign, made a surprising comparison last Friday on the NPR show "Left, Right, and Center." Tony Blankley, who represents the "right" on the show, responded with a question that many should be answering these days.
Robert Scheer: I don't think the idea of nationalizing, as it's now being called--which means bailing out these banks, setting them straight, then letting them go private again, which is the model that everybody is using, and the people who get screwed are the people whose retirement funds had common or preferred shares and they get wiped out, and these bankers come out richer than ever at the other end--that's not a leftist idea and it's not socialism. This is what we used to, in Comparative Economic Systems, call fascism. It's putting government at the service of the big financial interests. That's what happened in Italy, that's what happened in Germany, that's what happened in Japan. . . .
Tony Blankley: What I don't understand is how my colleagues on this show, who I believe were for Obama, are now saying he's leading a fascist regime. Did he mislead them a few weeks ago when he was still running? . . .
Robert Scheer: To answer your question, I am disappointed in Barack Obama and I'm not quite sure what he's doing.
by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Satyam Khanna, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Ali Frick, and Ryan Powers
AFGHANISTAN
No Longer A Forgotten War
For far too long, the war in Afghanistan has been dubbed "theforgottenwar." After U.S. forces ousted the Taliban in 2001, the Bush administration quickly shifted critical resources to the less critical war in Iraq. The Pentagon repeatedly begged President Bush for additional troops for Afghanistan, which never seemed to materialize. The Center for American Progress's Lawrence Korb and Caroline Wadhams warned that this "forgotten front" could become "a terrorist haven for Al Qaeda and affiliated terrorist networks." In the meantime, security around the region dramatically deteriorated, heroin production spiked, and government corruption ran rampant. As Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen has said of the current situation, "In Afghanistan, we do what we can. In Iraq, we do what we must." In the past year, attention has shifted back to Afghanistan as coalition troop deaths there began surpassing those in Iraq. On Tuesday, President Obama announced that had approved the deployment of 17,000 U.S. soldiers to be sent to Afghanistan. This move is a fulfillment of a campaign promise made by Obama and marks the beginning of the drawdown in Iraq, where these troops were originally headed. "This increase is necessary to stabilize a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan, which has not received the strategic attention, direction and resources it urgently requires," explained Obama. To put together a comprehensive strategy to accompany this troop increase, Obama has authorized a strategic review -- led by former CIA official Bruce Riedel, who was a member of the CAP's 2008 working group on Pakistan -- of U.S. policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
CHANGING THE DYNAMICS: There are already 38,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan, compared to 146,000 in Iraq. To meet Obama's request, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ordered the deployment of 8,000 Marines -- who are expected to arrive by late spring -- and a 4,000-strong Army brigade that will follow in the summer. Another 5,000 support troops will be sent at a "later date." Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) welcomed Obama's announcement this week; Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that more troops were long overdue, but added that "the president must spell out for the American people what he believes victory in Afghanistan will look like and articulate a coherent strategy for achieving it." It's important to keep in mind the mission in Afghanistan. As Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) recently wrote in the Washington Post, "The United States is not in Afghanistan to make it our 51st state -- but to make sure it does not become an al-Qaeda narco-state and terrorist beachhead capable of destabilizing neighboring Pakistan." Indeed, the bulk of these new troops will be going to southern Afghanistan, where the poppy trade has exploded under the Taliban, which uses the profits to fund its forces. "What this [additional troop deployment] allows us to do is change the dynamics of the security situation, predominantly in southern Afghanistan, where we are at best stalemated," said commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan Gen. David McKiernan.
COMPREHENSIVE APPROACH: The deployment of these additional troops is part of Obama's commitment to make Afghanistan "the center of our global counterinsurgency campaign." Part of this strategy requires building, training, and equipping the Afghan National Army. The new troops authorized by Obama will have a "dual mission" to "help double the size of the Afghan Army to 134,000 by the end of 2011 and provide security in Afghan communities, which increasingly are falling under Taliban control." Accompanying Obama's troop surge should be a corresponding civilian surge; McKiernan has already "pressed for more help from civilian agencies, both within the U.S. government and from other countries." As the Center for American Progress has written, actions in Afghanistan also have an impact on Pakistan, a country with nuclear weapons and a far larger population. Obama has recognized this fact and appointed Richard Holbrooke to be the Special Envoy to both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair has acknowledged that "no improvement in Afghanistan is possible without Pakistan taking control of its border areas and improving governance." This week, the Pakistani government made a concession to local Taliban leaders and agreed to enforce strict religious law in the Swat Valley, a resort near the Afghan border that was once known as the "Switzerland of Pakistan." After being ousted from Afghanistan in 2001, the Taliban has rebuilt strength in Pakistan; this recent Swat deal is similar to the ones struck in 2004, 2006, 2008, which ended up creating greater safe havens. Additionally, U.S. missile strikes on suspected al Qaeda hideouts in Pakistan have been extraordinarily effective in "tracking and killing high-value terrorist suspects," but they have "not helped to prevent the spread of jihadist sympathies in the tribal regions and beyond, nor has it slowed the stream of militants and material into Afghanistan," national security analyst Micah Zenko notes. "In fact, according to Pakistani intelligence reports, refugees from Afghanistan have flocked to the Taliban by the hundreds to avenge the drones' killings of innocent civilians."
CHALLENGES AHEAD: Afghanistan requires a sustained commitment from the international community. One senior U.S. commander has warned that "it's going to get worse before it gets better." McKiernan has stated that even with the additional forces, "2009 is going to be a tough year." A majority of the American public currently believes the situation is going "badly" in Afghanistan and support Obama's deployment of additional troops as "unfortunate but necessary." Major impediments to progress include increasing insurgent violence, corruption and the illegal economy, and a lack of coordination within U.S. government and with international allies. According to the United Nations, 2,118 civilians died in fighting in Afghanistan last year, "a 40% hike as the war grows ever more bloody." The Taliban greeted Holbrooke's arrival in Kabul last week "by launching an audacious terror attack on three government buildings in the capital, leaving 26 people dead." Government corruption is now so bad in Afghanistan that many women say they would prefer living under the Taliban. Delivering a threat assessment on Feb. 12, Blair concurred with this view, stating that corruption in Kabul and throughout the country had bolstered support for the Taliban and warlords. Obama avoided asking Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper for increased troop support while he was in Ottawa this week, and convincing other countries may be tough. In the past, Obama has pressed NATO allies to step up their commitments and not let the U.S. and U.K. do all the "dirty work."
ETHICS -- NOW ISSA CARES ABOUT TAKING EXTRA MEASURES TO PRESERVE WHITE HOUSE E-MAILS: In a letter to White House Counsel Gregory Craig yesterday, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the ranking Republican on the House Oversight Committee, "called on President Obama to put in place a system that ensures all White House emails be preserved even if official business was done through private e- mail accounts." "The use of personal e-mail accounts, such as Gmail, to conduct official business raises the prospect that presidential records will not be captured by the White House e-mail archiving system," wrote Issa, referring to how the Obama administration briefly used "Gmail accounts after Obama was sworn in last month, as they waited for the official White House e-mail accounts to become active." But Issa's newfound interest in the use of outside e-mail accounts at the White House is ironic, considering his dismissal of such concerns when the Bush administration abused RNC e-mail accounts. "Are we simply going on a fishing expedition at $40,000 to $50,000 a month?" asked Issa at an oversight hearing looking into the use of RNC e-mails. "Do any of you know of a single document -- because this committee doesn't -- that should've been in the archives but in fact was done at the RNC?" In 2007, the House Oversight Committee discovered that at least 88 Bush White House officials, including former adviser Karl Rove and former chief of staff Andrew Card, had RNC e-mail accounts. Additionally, the RNC had preserved no e-mails from 51 officials and had major gaps in the e-mail records of the 37 White House officials for whom the RNC did preserve e-mails.
HEALTH CARE -- KENNEDY-LED 'WORKHORSE GROUP' NEARS CONSENSUS ON INDIVIDUAL MANDATES: Led by Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), a diverse group of senators, lobbyists for health insurance companies, pharmaceutical companies, small businesses, and doctors have been in quiet negotiations on a prospective universal health care plan since last fall. Although "not all industry groups are in complete agreement," they are "embracing the idea that comprehensive health care legislation should include a requirement that every American carry insurance." Opponents to such a "mandate" worry that the "government would end up forcing people" to buy coverage that they didn't want or need. In reality, however, mandates would serve to lower health care costs for everyone. The New Republic's Jonathan Cohn explained that "if government prohibits insurers from excluding people with pre-existing conditions -- a step that's essential to making insurance available to all -- people could then game the system by waiting to buy insurance until after they became sick." Adding a mandate protects against such behavior while ensuring that individuals have access to preventative care -- a key component to reducing health care costs. The "workhorse group" is reportedly considering a legal penalty to enforce the mandate on the condition that all available health insurance packages are "meaningful and affordable."
HUMAN RIGHTS -- REVERSING BUSH POSITION, U.S. NOW SUPPORTS U.N. MEASURE CONDEMNING DISCRIMINATION BASED ON SEXUAL ORIENTATION: In December, the United States joined China, Russia, the Vatican, and members of the Organization of the Islamic Conference in refusing to support an unprecedented U.N. declaration calling for a worldwide decriminalization of homosexuality. While the declaration "to ensure that sexual orientation or gender identity may under no circumstances be the basis for criminal penalties, in particular executions, arrests, or detention" was signed by 66 countries, the Bush administration "couched its objection to the measure in legal technicalities." At the time, human rights advocates slammed Bush for "trying to come up with Christmas presents for the religious right so it will be remembered." But yesterday, continuing the Obama administration's rejection of Bush-era policies and attitudes, the U.S. offered support for a proposal to condemn "all forms of discrimination and all other human rights violations based on sexual orientation" at the U.N.'s "Durban Review Conference" on racism and xenophobia in Geneva. While the measure failed because of resistance from non-western countries, U.N. Dispatch's Mark Leon Goldberg noted that "it's relieving to see that the United States is now back on the side of the enlightened on this issue of basic human rights."
Writing in Time Magazine, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) lays out "the case for a truth commission." "People would be invited to come forward and share their knowledge and experiences, not for purposes of constructing criminal indictments but to assemble the facts," he writes. "If needed, such a process could involve subpoena powers and even the authority to obtain immunity from prosecution in order to get to the whole truth."
"I'm excited because this president is taking urban America out of the desert it's been in for eight years," said Adolfo Carrion, Jr., the new head of the White House Office of Urban Affairs. Derek Douglas, formerly of the Center for American Progress, is headed to the new office as well.
For the budget he will present next week, President Obama "has banned four accounting gimmicks that President George W. Bush used to make deficit projections look smaller." The move away from budget gimmicks, one of which used to be failing to note the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, will create "a budget that is $2.7 trillion deeper in the red over the next decade than it would otherwise appear."
"Demand at food banks across the country increased by 30 percent in 2008 from the previous year," according to a survey by Feeding America. Even food pantries in upscale communities are seeing an uptick in demand. "These are people who never really had to ask for help before," said Brenda Beavers of the Salvation Army.
The number of U.S. workers drawing unemployment benefits "jumped to a record high of nearly 5 million," the Labor Department reported yesterday. It's the highest number since 1967 when the government began keeping such records.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) said it’s time to "take a whack" at climate change and that "he plans to push for Senate action on global warming by the end of summer." Reid said "the Senate will take up energy legislation in a couple of weeks ‘and then later this year, hopefully late this summer do the global warming part of it.'"
The IAEA has "found that Iran recently understated by a third how much uranium it has enriched" and it has enough low enriched uranium that --- with added purification -- is sufficient for one atom bomb. But the IAEA also found that Iran is "putting the brakes on key aspects" of its program, which is seen "as a conciliatory gesture in advance of any diplomatic overtures by the Obama administration."
A classified Pentagon assessment has concluded that "there is a significant risk the U.S. military may not be able to respond quickly and fully to new crises" because of strain from "repeated war tours, persistent terrorist threats and instability around the globe." This is the third year in a row that the risk level has been set at "significant."
And finally: Obama's director of the Office of Management and Budget, Peter Orszag, had a rough first weekend of work. Finding a large marble fireplace stacked with wood in his office on a chilly January day, Orszag lit a cozy fire. "The only problem: The Secret Service had capped the building's chimneys. Smoke alarms started going off upstairs, and the building was evacuated." Orszag has suffered the mocking of the White House ever since. "Rahm [Emanuel] asked me to send smoke signals to the Hill," Orszag told Politico's Ben Smith.
