Just Foreign Policy News
August 10, 2011
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I) Actions and Featured Articles
A Historic Opportunity to Cut Military Spending
The agreement in Washington to raise the debt ceiling in exchange for deficit reduction has made a lot of people very unhappy. But the agreement had one important positive aspect: it created a historic opportunity for significant cuts in projected military spending.
http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/08/20118711133701977.html
Take Action: Urge Congress and the President to Put Military Cuts First in Line
https://www.justforeignpolicy.org/act/cutpentagonfirst
Bahrain: Shouting in the dark
Al Jazeera’s documentary on the democracy movement in Bahrain, the Saudi-led crackdown, and the anemic Western response.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaTKDMYOBOU
Call to Action: nationwide protests on September 15, 2011 in support of Palestine
A Palestinian state is on the UN’s table. But the US is acting to block Palestinian self-determination.
http://september15.org/
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II) Summary:
U.S./Top News
1) As he pushes to get the rich to pay more into federal coffers, Obama is also urging Congress to approve a trade agreement with Panama that would cement a key tax avoidance tactic deployed by some of the richest Americans, the Huffington Post reports. Panama has some of the most stringent bank secrecy laws in the world, making it easy for U.S. citizens to set up offshore corporations and bank accounts. Any money that Americans stash in these entities is not taxed. Panama is home to nearly 400,000 offshore corporations, more than any other nation except Hong Kong.
"A tax haven . . . has one of three characteristics: It has no income tax or a very low-rate income tax; it has bank secrecy laws; and it has a history of noncooperation with other countries on exchanging information about tax matters," said Rebecca Wilkins, senior counsel with Citizens for Tax Justice. "Panama has all three of those. … They’re probably the worst."
"The Tax [information] Exchange Agreement that we’ve executed with Panama is really weak," said Wilkins. "There’s just a lot of reasons why it’s not going to be very effective."
2) Jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti said worldwide protests will result from a U.S. veto of a Palestinian state at the UN, JTA reports.
3) If Greece defaults, it could help poor countries with unpayable debts get a fairer deal from the international institutions, writes Jonathan Glennie in the Guardian. Countries in the poor world might be bolder in defaulting when there are clear public health and education emergencies to deal with. And it might encourage world leaders to look again at the need for a fair and transparent mechanism to deal with debt problems.
4) The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization recently elected as its next leader Jose Graziano da Silva of Brazil, a former Brazilian food security minister and one of the creators of the nation’s anti-poverty programs that include income transfers to poor families who keep their kids in school, AP reports. Hunger and poverty activists hope that Graziano’s election will mean the FAO will help spread similar anti-poverty programs in other countries.
Israel/Palestine
5) In all the tumult of the Arab revolts, one of the most striking manifestations of change is a rejuvenated embrace of the Palestinian cause, the New York Times reports. The burst in pro-Palestinian activism in Egypt, Lebanon and Tunisia has offered a rebuttal to claims that pro-Palestinian stances by Arab governments reflected authoritarian leaders cynically inflaming sentiments over Israel and Palestine to divert attention from their own shortcomings, rather than expressing true Arab public opinion, the Times notes.
In Tunisia, activists have insisted on an article in the Constitution banning normalization with Israel and making support for Palestinians state policy. Protesters in Egypt have urged officials to let boats sail from Egyptian ports to break the blockade against Gaza.
Iran
6) A high-powered array of former top US officials is advocating removal from the US terrorist list of a controversial Iranian opposition group with a long anti-American history, the Christian Science Monitor reports. Many of these former high-ranking US officials have been paid tens of thousands of dollars to speak in support of the MEK. They rarely mention the MEK’s violent and anti-American past. Some acknowledge they knew little about the group before they were invited to speak and were coached by MEK supporters.
Officials say the millions spent on the campaign have raised political pressure to remove the MEK from the FTO list to the highest levels since the group – whose record includes assassinations of US military advisers and attacks on US diplomats – was one of the first to be put there in 1997.
But the delisting of the MEK, Iran experts say, could benefit Iran’s rulers by giving them more reason to brutally clamp down on Iran’s internal, nonviolent opposition. The Green Movement steadfastly rejects the MEK as an anti-democratic and violent force.
Korea
7) Gangjeong, a small fishing and farming village on Jeju Island 50 miles south of the Korean peninsula, is a Unesco-designated ecological reserve, writes Christine Ahn in the New York Times. It is also the site of a fierce resistance movement by villagers who oppose the construction of a South Korean naval base on the island that will become part of the U.S. missile defense system to contain China.
South Korea’s president claims the base is to protect Seoul from North Korea. But in a report to Congress, the Pentagon acknowledged that the anti-missile system being deployed there will be useless against North Korean missiles. Instead, the base is aimed at China.
Libya
8) The head of UNESCO sharply rebuked NATO for its July 30 air strikes against Libyan state television that killed several people and wounded nearly a dozen, Reuters reports. UNESCO is the U.N. agency that oversees issues related to freedom of expression and press freedom. "Media outlets should not be targeted in military actions," UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova said. Bokova said the NATO strikes were "contrary to the principles of the Geneva Conventions," which she said have established the civilian status of journalists in times of war, even when they engage in propaganda.
Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Panama Trade Deal Would Undercut Efforts To Get Rich Americans To Pay Taxes
Zach Carter and Sara Kenigsberg, Huffington Post,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/08/09/panama-trade-deal_n_922398.html
Washington — During a Monday press conference addressing Standard & Poor’s downgrade of U.S. debt, President Barack Obama reaffirmed his commitment to raising taxes on the wealthy. But as he pushes to get the rich to pay more into federal coffers, Obama is also urging Congress to approve a trade agreement that would cement a key tax avoidance tactic deployed by some of the richest Americans.
"What we need to do now is combine those spending cuts with two additional steps: tax reform that will ask those who can afford it to pay their fair share and modest adjustments to health care programs like Medicare," Obama said during the address, referring to steps the U.S. should take in addition the cuts agreed to to raise the federal debt ceiling.
Just two days before, during his Saturday radio address, Obama urged Congress approve three trade deals, including one with Panama that would permit Americans to easily stash assets in the Central American country, a notorious tax haven for the wealthy and American corporations.
"It’s time Congress finally passed a set of trade deals that would help displaced workers looking for new jobs," Obama said, "and that would allow our businesses to sell more products in countries in Asia and South America — products stamped with three words: Made in America."
But Panama’s entire annual economic output is around $26.7 billion a year, according to The World Bank — only about two-tenths of one percent of the U.S. economy — making the effect on jobs minuscule at best. Some economists expect other agreements with South Korea and Colombia to create net job losses in the U.S., as corporations ship American jobs overseas to take advantage of cheaper labor.
It may not have a large economy, but Panama does have some of the most stringent bank secrecy laws in the world, making it extremely easy and inexpensive for U.S. citizens to set up offshore corporations and bank accounts. Establishing the corporation and bank account costs less than $2,000, and any money that Americans stash in these entities is not taxed. Bank secrecy laws and extremely lax corporate registration standards make it very difficult for the Internal Revenue Service to track transactions transferring funds to these Panamanian destinations from the United States. Small surprise, then, that Panama is home to nearly 400,000 offshore corporations, more than any other nation except Hong Kong.
"A tax haven . . . has one of three characteristics: It has no income tax or a very low-rate income tax; it has bank secrecy laws; and it has a history of noncooperation with other countries on exchanging information about tax matters," said Rebecca Wilkins, senior counsel with Citizens for Tax Justice, a nonpartisan nonprofit dedicated to improving U.S. tax policy. "Panama has all three of those. … They’re probably the worst."
The trade agreement with Panama would effectively bar the U.S. from cracking down on this activity. The U.S. would not be allowed to treat Panamanian financial services transactions differently from transactions in nations that are not tax havens. It would also be unable to pursue some standard anti-money laundering techniques in Panama. Combating tax haven abuse in Panama would be a violation of the trade agreement, exposing the U.S. to fines from international authorities.
"It directly undermines Obama’s putative domestic agenda of job creation, cracking down on tax havens and collecting revenue from tax-dodging corporations," said Lori Wallach, Director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. "The [free trade agreement] would forbid future use of existing policy tools to combat financial crime."
The deal with Panama was first negotiated by President George W. Bush in 2007, but in April, Obama met with Panama President Ricardo Martinelli to announce the signing of a new information sharing agreement as part of the broader deal to help facilitate tax enforcement.
"Thanks to the leadership of President Martinelli, there have been a range of significant reforms in banking and taxation in Panama," Obama said. "And we are confident now that a free trade agreement would be good for our country, would create jobs here in the United States."
But the tax enforcement agreement amounts to little more than a gesture, relying on a decades out-of-date framework that is not very effective at recovering lost tax revenue. Thanks to the TIEA, American tax officials can now obtain tax information on U.S. citizens stashing money in Panama. That’s great — if they already know which citizens are using Panama-based schemes to dodge U.S. taxes. But, of course, the IRS doesn’t actually know who is doing this — if it did, it wouldn’t need to gather bank account information in the first place.
"The Tax [information] Exchange Agreement that we’ve executed with Panama is really weak," said Wilkins. "There’s just a lot of reasons why it’s not going to be very effective."
The U.S. has negotiated much more helpful TIEAs with other countries in the past. The IRS, for instance, is automatically notified whenever U.S. taxpayers deposit money in a Canadian bank, making it effectively impossible for a U.S. citizen to hide money in Canada.
Raising taxes on wealthy Americans, of course, will have little effect if those same citizens can simply hide funds from the IRS in Panama.
While the IRS is starved for information on U.S. individuals hiding money in Panama, it has the opposite problem among U.S. corporations. In 2008, the Government Accountability Office issued a report noting that 17 of the 100 largest American companies were operating a total of 42 subsidiaries in Panama, suggesting that these subsidiaries could be used to help firms skimp on their U.S. tax bills.
But while the IRS knows that firms are operating in Panama, it doesn’t have the resources to investigate or prove that the offshore activities of U.S. companies are devoid of economic substance other than tax-dodging. While 17 of the 100 largest corporations were operating Panamanian subsidiaries, a total of 83 were operating sub-companies in nations the GAO labeled as tax havens, with some corporations using dozens of different subsidiaries.
According to the Bureau of National Affairs’ Daily Tax Report, IRS official Samuel Maruca told an audience at a National Association for Business Economics conference that his agency didn’t have enough funding to chase cases of "transfer pricing" abuse — a technique in which U.S. corporations sell their own goods to foreign subsidiaries at bizarre prices in order to reduce their tax bills.
"To put it bluntly, we can’t afford to pursue every case — even cases that may have considerable merit," the official said. "We have to be strategic about where we are willing to invest our resources."
[…]
2) U.S. veto of Palestinian state a ‘deadly mistake,’ Barghouti says
JTA, August 10, 2011
http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/08/10/3088932/veto-of-palestinian-state-a-deadly-mistake-palestinian-leader-says
Jerusalem — Jailed Palestinian leader Marwan Barghouti said worldwide protests will result from a U.S. veto of a Palestinian state at the United Nations.
Barghouti, who has been imprisoned in Israel since 2002 for murdering Israelis but still remains influential in the Arab world, told an Egyptian news service that a U.S. veto of a Palestinian state would be a "historic, deadly mistake," the French news agency AFP reported.
"Such a veto will be confronted by millions-strong protests throughout the Arab and Muslim world, indeed throughout the whole world," he reportedly said.
Barghouti is a member of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’ Fatah Party.
[…]
3) Debt crisis: A default in Europe could benefit poor countries
If a European country defaults, poor countries might feel bolder about defaulting when faced with a public emergency, and it might encourage world leaders to look for better ways to deal with debt problems
Jonathan Glennie, Guardian, Tuesday 9 August 2011
http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/poverty-matters/2011/aug/09/debt-crisis-europe-poor-countries-benefit
Senior economic advisers in Greece and a couple of other European countries are considering defaulting on part of their debt. Not to be taking such a course of action seriously would be irresponsible. Defaulting can never be plan A. But when countries get into very serious financial trouble it is sometimes the least bad of the bad options.
In the current climate, this doesn’t sound very radical. Economists of all backgrounds are popping up arguing that default might ultimately be best for Greece, and indeed for the rest of Europe, providing at least a modicum of stability for banks and country creditors. It is almost in danger of becoming the conventional wisdom.
That certainly wasn’t the context five years ago when I wrote a paper arguing that debt default should be considered a serious option for many countries around the world. Rather than conventional wisdom, that view was characterised by many as irresponsible. How could Christian Aid, the organisation for which I was working, sanction the refusal to pay debts?
For much the same reasons it might be good for Greece now. If huge debt payments are causing social problems and political unrest in Greece, one of the world’s richest countries (ranking about 30th out of 200 countries in GDP per capita terms), imagine the misery being caused in poor countries with similar or larger debt burdens.
Campaigns since the 1990s had some success in getting creditors to cancel the debt of the very poorest countries, but some of the world’s poorest countries are still paying out far more money than they receive in aid, rather than spending it on health, education and infrastructure. It is morally bankrupt to force poor countries to pay debts while their people suffer in extreme poverty, especially if much of the debt is illegal or otherwise illegitimate. It is also bad for the economy.
Another argument for debt repudiation not mentioned in Greece’s case but relevant for many poor countries is that the debt may well be illegal. Money lent to dictators and snaffled away into offshore accounts gets racked on to the public debt to be paid by future generations. This immoral practice leaves no responsibility with the creditors for the initial lending, a classic case of moral hazard. Debt audits, such as the one that led Ecuador to refuse to pay some of its debt in 2008, are being used by some countries to bolster their case for debt default.
A recent debate between Mark Weisbrot, an economist at the Centre for Economic and Policy Research , and an IMF deputy director about Jamaica’s debt demonstrates the kind of creditor thinking that has kept poor countries saddled with huge debts. Despite a clearly unpayable debt causing havoc to the economy and social welfare, the IMF still insists on repayment.
While the IMF and its main shareholders dress up their insistence that countries "pay up at all costs" with technical analysis and claims to have the interests of the poor at heart, the truth is that they are simply serving their own interests as the major creditors. Economic theory follows economic interest far more often than it does academic reasoning.
There is no doubt that default can be a costly option. That is not in debate. When Peru defaulted in the 1980s, there was a creditor backlash and Peru was eventually forced to pay up. The question is whether the alternative is even more costly.
The famous case of Argentina, which defaulted on its debts in 2001, appears to suggest that default can be the least bad option. Argentina was growing again at 8-9% within a year or two. Although threatened with retaliation from investors, this is probably exaggerated as well, as investors tend not to be moralists – they go where there are returns to be had. As the Economist put it: "Capital markets appear to have a remarkably short memory."
It is possible that two positive outcomes will emerge from default in a country like Greece. First, countries in the poor world might be bolder in defaulting when there are clear public health and education emergencies to deal with. If it was OK for Greece, they might say, why not for us? Our debt burden is higher, and the opportunity cost of paying it greater in terms of basic needs provision.
And, second, it might encourage world leaders to look again at the need for a fair and transparent mechanism to deal with debt problems. Under the present system, when a debtor has to choose between repaying its debts and meeting the basic rights of its citizens, it has to ask for a meeting with its creditors (usually the Paris and London Clubs and the IMF) and request a "rescheduling". Under the proposed alternative mechanism, debtor countries could call for the convening of an ad hoc panel with neutral parties, probably based at the United Nations.
Many existing arbitration panels could serve as a model for this. It was a key demand in the Make Poverty History campaign of 2005 and even an IMF deputy managing director tried to establish one unsuccessfully. An independent panel would try to ensure that the debtor emerges from the proceedings with good prospects for financial and economic stability. And lenders will know that they can no longer get away with odious or careless lending.
4) Activists hope ex-Brazil official can replicate success in hunger fight worldwide
Associated Press, Wednesday, August 10, 8:45 AM
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/americas/activists-hope-ex-brazil-official-can-replicate-success-in-hunger-fight-worldwide/2011/08/10/gIQALFuY6I_story.html
Sao Paulo – When Altaiza Silva lost her job cleaning houses two years ago, she thought she would have to pull her daughters out of school and put them to work, likely perpetuating the cycle of poverty that’s claimed generations of her family.
Instead, their fall has been halted by Brazil’s widely admired social safety net, which includes the world’s biggest program giving money directly to poor households. With the help of that $8 billion national effort, Silva gets $65 a month. That is only about a fifth of what she earns in her new job as a hospital cleaner, but for desperately poor Brazilians, the extra cash from Bolsa Familia (Family Grant) program often means the difference between starvation and survival.
That same idea may now get a global tryout as world food prices spike, economies everywhere sputter and a horrific famine desolates East Africa.
The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization recently elected as its next leader Jose Graziano da Silva of Brazil, a former Brazilian food security minister and one of the creators of the nation’s "Zero Hunger" social programs that include Bolsa Familia.
He has said eradicating hunger is his first priority for the FAO, which is the U.N.’s biggest specialized agency, with a $1 billion budget. While that is dwarfed by the budget of Brazil’s Bolsa Familia alone, the FAO plans to spread the knowledge of how to create such programs to governments around the globe.
Graziano, 61, said last week in Brasilia that Zero Hunger should be a model for other nations. Over the past eight years, the effort has helped lift 19 million Brazilians out of poverty. In Silva’s case, the aid meant her daughters could stay in school.
The strength of Zero Hunger, Graziano said, is its "strong institutional framework," such as the recent inclusion of the right to food in Brazil’s constitution. The government also works closely with civic groups. "These two pillars are what make the Brazilian program so attractive for the world," Graziano said.
Brazil’s effort also seeks to change behavior by requiring parents keep their children in school or get medical checkups to receive aid.
The choice of Graziano heartened hunger and poverty activists, who have watched his programs reduce the inequality and extreme poverty that have long hampered growth in Brazil. The big question now is whether that success can translate to countries with different governments, cultures and problems.
The U.N. food organization estimated 925 million people worldwide suffered from undernourishment last year, a jump from less than 800 million in the mid-1990s. While 2010 marked the first drop in undernourishment rates in more than 15 years, experts fear rising food prices will soon push the figure higher.
The change in Brazil has been dramatic: According to a May government report, the number of Brazilians living in extreme poverty has fallen from 17 million in 2003 to 9 million six years later. Such households had an average income of less than $30 a month.
Studies by the Getulio Vargas Foundation, a Brazilian think tank, say Bolsa Familia itself accounts for about 20 percent of the drop in poverty and inequality. In July, the program was used by more than a quarter of Brazil’s 190 million people.
The percentage of undernourished people in Brazil was cut by nearly half to 6 percent from the early 1990s to 2007, according to the FAO.
[…] Brazil’s programs, which borrow partly from a Mexican initiative, have inspired other government initiatives around the globe, including 16 conditional cash transfer programs in Latin America and at least 14 outside the region.
"Brazil’s experience is hugely inspirational to a lot of developing countries that are themselves battling with a lot of issues around food security and hunger," said Asma Lateef, director of the Washington-based anti-hunger Bread for the World Institute. "That it could be done and done so quickly is a wonderful success story and gives hope to a lot of people around the world.
Ian Walker, the World Bank’s lead economist for social protection in Latin America, said Bolsa Familia is "one of the best designed and operated" cash transfer programs. "But it is by no means unique in terms of quality and impact. There is no ‘right’ way to design such programs and policymakers need to respond to local conditions," Walker said.
[…]
Israel/Palestine
5) In Tumult, New Hope for Palestinian Cause
Anthony Shadid and David D. Kirkpatrick, New York Times, August 9, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/10/world/middleeast/10palestinians.html
Beirut, Lebanon – In the Palestinian refugee camp of Shatila, a corner of Beirut bearing the scars of massacres and an enduring despair, the words of a young barber hinted at an emerging optimism about what the Arab revolts could mean for a central issue of the last half century in the Middle East: the fate of Palestinians.
The barber, Mohammed Assad, was not naïve; life here is too grim for that. But in a region whose politics are being recalculated, he celebrated the rising influence of popular will on governments that long ignored it. "There is hope," he said.
In all the tumult of the Arab revolts, one of the most striking manifestations of change is a rejuvenated embrace of the Palestinian cause. The burst in activism in Egypt, Lebanon and even Tunisia has offered a rebuttal to an old bromide of Arab politics, that authoritarian leaders cynically inflamed sentiments over Israel and Palestine to divert attention from their own shortcomings.
But the embrace of the issue also helped confirm its status as a barometer of justice and freedom for many Arabs and Muslims. And now, the demands of an empowered public raise the possibility of a significant change in the region’s foreign policies which, at least tacitly, capitulated to the dictates of the United States and Israel.
"We always said, ‘If you want to liberate Palestine, you need to liberate yourselves,’ " said Gamal Eid, founder of the Arabic Network for Human Rights Information, in Cairo.
In Tunisia, activists have insisted on an article in the Constitution banning normalization with Israel and making support for Palestinians state policy. Through a vibrant social media network, Lebanese and Palestinian youths have organized marches and sought ways to have a greater say in decisions of the Palestinian leadership. Protesters in Egypt have urged officials to let boats sail from Egyptian ports to break the partial blockade against Gaza; one boat docked in Alexandria last month before the Israeli military boarded and seized it.
"Even if the revolutions fail to achieve full and thorough regime change, there is no Arab government that can ignore its people now," said Rashid Khalidi, a professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. "All the rulers – the kings of Morocco and Jordan, all the dictators and all the autocrats – they’re scared blind of their own people."
All across the region, popular uprisings have most insistently looked inward, at issues of democracy, social justice and dignity. But for many, dignity is a notion defined both individually and collectively. And even in the most idealistic moments of the Arab revolts, the weakness of their own governments was often a focus of protesters’ ire. In Tahrir Square in Cairo, anger at America and Israel was less pronounced than resentment of the subservience of Egyptian leaders to their policies, namely the blockade of Gaza.
The Foreign Ministry in Egypt now calls the Gaza blockade "shameful." The reconciliation agreement signed in May in Cairo between bitterly opposed Palestinian factions was a direct consequence of the fall of President Hosni Mubarak. Even at the United Nations, bracing for a debate in September over whether to admit a Palestinian state as a full member, advocates evoked the Arab revolts as the appropriate context for an end to an Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands that has lasted 44 years.
[…]
Iran
6) Iranian group’s big-money push to get off US terrorist list
A roster of influential former US officials is speaking at rallies in support of removing the MEK, an Iranian opposition group with a violent anti-American history, from the US terrorist list. A decision is expected within weeks.
Scott Peterson, Christian Science Monitor, August 8, 2011
http://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-East/2011/0808/Iranian-group-s-big-money-push-to-get-off-US-terrorist-list
Washington; and Istanbul, Turkey – A high-powered array of former top American officials is advocating removal from the US terrorist list of a controversial Iranian opposition group with a long anti-American history.
With a decision due within weeks by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, former US four-star generals, intelligence chiefs, governors, and political heavyweights are calling for the US government to take the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK/MKO) off the terror list it shares with Al Qaeda and Hezbollah.
Many of these former high-ranking US officials – who represent the full political spectrum – have been paid tens of thousands of dollars to speak in support of the MEK.
They rarely mention the MEK’s violent and anti-American past, and portray the group not as terrorists but as freedom fighters with "values just like us," as democrats-in-waiting ready to serve as a vanguard of regime change in Iran. Some acknowledge that they knew little about the group before they were invited to speak and were coached by MEK supporters.
Their efforts may be working: Knowledgeable officials say the millions of dollars spent on the campaign have raised political pressure to remove the MEK from the Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) list to the highest levels since the group – whose record includes assassinations of US military advisers and attacks on US diplomats – was one of the first to be put there in 1997.
But the delisting of the MEK, Iran experts say, could benefit Iran’s hard-line rulers by giving them more reason to brutally clamp down on Iran’s internal, nonviolent opposition. The Green Movement – which led street protests in 2009 – steadfastly rejects the MEK as an anti-democratic and violent force.
"The people who are saying [the MEK] are no longer terrorists are also saying they are democratic," says John Limbert, a former US hostage in Iran from 1979-1981, who was US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Iran until last year.
"The issue is, have [the MEK] changed their terrorist nature?" asks Ambassador Limbert. "If they say, ‘We renounce terrorism,’ I have no confidence in that. What is it in their past – or in their present – that leads you to have confidence in such a statement?"
The State Dept. will be weighing many ramifications, from how this will play out in the streets of Tehran to how it will affect US strategic credibility.
"The MEK, with its violent history, is exactly what the Iranian regime needs to legitimate its violence against the peaceful opposition," says Maziar Bahari, a journalist who was incarcerated in Iran during the 2009 protests. He spoke Aug. 4 in Washington at a panel organized to warn of the risks of delisting the MEK.
Reformist cleric Mohsen Kadivar and US-based academic Ahmad Sadri warn of broader dangers. Taking the MEK off the terrorist list, they have written, would "trigger a huge loss of US soft power in Iran, damage Iran’s democratic progress, and help Iranian hardliners cement a long-term dictatorship."
[…] All have been stunned by the speed, heft, and sheer wealth of the current delisting campaign, after years of determined but fruitless efforts.
Removing the terrorist designation is critical to the MEK to bolster its legitimacy. It would also enable the MEK to openly fund-raise in the US – despite having used fraudulent techniques in the past that prompted FBI investigations into smuggling rings, forgery, and fraud schemes that resulted in prison time for dozens of members.
A host of former American officials, in speech after speech since December, dismiss the MEK’s terrorist designation. At more than a dozen events in Washington and Europe since December, they assert instead that the group offers a popular "third way" between failed dialogue with the Islamic Republic and military action.
"With Al Qaeda and Hamas, you would never think they would be able to drum up this kind of support," one State Dept. official told the Monitor. "But with the MEK, they trawl the halls of Congress. Picture this with any other terrorist group; find one."
Talking points for the former US officials often include demanding that the Obama administration "free" the MEK from the terrorist list and ensure "protection" of Camp Ashraf before the controversial enclave is closed at the end of the year by the Iraqi government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Some argue that the MEK "provided invaluable information" to the US during the Iraq war, as Gen. Hugh Shelton, the former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, did last month. Yet current US officials have publicly disputed that view, and the 2009 RAND report states that "the CIA unsuccessfully attempted to persuade some MEK leaders to leave the group and provide intelligence information about Iran."
The group is often credited with announcing in 2002 the existence of Iran’s undeclared uranium enrichment facilities at Natanz, but experts widely believe the intelligence came from Israel and was funneled through the MEK. The State Dept., in its October 2009 court filing, noted that UN inspectors say "much" of the information they receive from the MEK about Iran’s nuclear program "has a political purpose and has been wrong."
Former US officials taking part in MEK-linked events told the Monitor or confirmed publicly that they received substantial fees, paid by local Iranian-American groups to speaker bureaus that handle their public appearances.
The State Dept. official, who is familiar with the speech contracts, explains the mechanism: "Your speech agent calls, and says you get $20,000 to speak for 20 minutes. They will send a private jet, you get $25,000 more when you are done, and they will send a team to brief you on what to say."
[…] Howard Dean, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, hailed Rajavi in Berlin last March.
"Madame Rajavi does not sound like a terrorist to me; she sounds like a president," Mr. Dean said, gesturing toward the MEK leader from the dais. "And her organization should not be listed as a terrorist organization. We should be recognizing her as the president of Iran."
Mr. Dean confirmed to the Monitor that he received payment for his appearances, but said the focus on high pay was "a diversion inspired by those with a different view."
[…] Expelled from Iran in 1981, and then evicted from France, the MEK in 1986 set up in Iraq where they "became a wholly owned subsidiary of Saddam Hussein’s regime," according to Ken Pollack, a former CIA analyst and National Security Council director for Gulf affairs, in his book "The Persian Puzzle."
Saddam "armed them, paid them, and sent them on missions into Iran during the later stages of the Iran-Iraq War," notes Mr. Pollack, adding that they became "such creatures of the Iraqi regime" that they helped crush Shiite and Kurdish revolts in 1991 that the White House had encouraged – actions that today are one reason for enduring anti-MEK hostility from Iraq’s Shiite-led government.
The MEK denies fighting in Saddam’s wars and often claims it was "independent" of the Iraqi dictator’s regime, but Pollack’s description is confirmed by numerous independent sources.
A US State Dept. report in 1994 dismissed MEK efforts to reinvent itself. Noting the MEK’s "dedication to armed struggle"; the "fact that they deny or distort sections of their history, such as the use of violence"; the "dictatorial methods" of their leadership; and the "cult-like behavior of its members," the State Dept. concluded that the MEK’s "29-year record of behavior does not substantiate its capability or intention to be democratic."
[…] Also supplying some funds has been Colorado’s Iranian American Community, according to a disclosure report filed in early July by Rep. Bob Filner (D-CA) and posted at legistorm.com. That group paid $6,589.62 for six days of first class travel and lodging expenses for Rep. Filner to attend the June MEK rally in Paris.
The House disclosure form describes him attending a "Grand meeting of Iranians in support of human rights and democracy for Iran." It makes no mention of the MEK, nor meeting Rajavi. In his speech, Filner said: "I bring you greetings and support from the Congress of the United States … I want to congratulate Madame Rajavi … we will succeed."
In 2007, Filner also accepted $7,949.40 worth of travel to attend a "rally for Iranian human rights" in Paris. Both trips were paid for by Tim Mehdi Ghaemi of the Colorado group, according to the required "Private Sponsor Travel Certification Form."
In 2004, this Colorado group was among 23 co-sponsors of a fundraiser for Iran’s Bam earthquake victims that turned into a "night of resistance." Seventeen were found to have MEK connections, including the Colorado group, according to news reports at the time. Then-Pentagon adviser Richard Perle delivered a paid speech, unaware of the MEK link. The US government froze the assets of the primary sponsor, the Iranian-American Community of Northern Virginia.
Such groups are familiar to US agencies as a means for MEK supporters to raise and spend funds, despite the terrorist designation. The State Dept. has described how the MEK "has formed associated groups with benign names" to raise cash and sympathy.
[…]
Korea
7) Unwanted Missiles for a Korean Island
Christine Ahn, New York Times, August 5, 2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/06/opinion/06iht-edahn06.html
[Ahn is the executive director of the Korea Policy Institute and a member of the Global Campaign to Save Jeju Island.]
Seoul – Gangjeong, a small fishing and farming village on Jeju Island 50 miles south of the Korean peninsula, is a pristine Unesco-designated ecological reserve where elderly Korean women sea divers, haenyo, still forage for seafood. It is also the site of a fierce resistance movement by villagers who oppose the construction of a South Korean naval base on the island that will become part of the U.S. missile defense system to contain China.
South Korea’s president, Lee Myungbak, says the base is needed to protect Seoul from an attack from Pyongyang. The problem with that assertion is that the Aegis destroyers that Lee pledged to deploy at the base aren’t designed to protect South Korea from North Korean Taepodong ballistic missiles (TBM).
In a 1999 report to the U.S. Congress, the Pentagon verified that the Aegis system "could not defend the northern two-thirds of South Korea against the low flying short range TBMs."
Thus, instead of protecting South Koreans, the militarization of Jeju Island will introduce new security threats to the country by fueling an arms race in an increasingly tense region of unresolved conflicts. The naval base on Jeju Island will equip South Koreans and their American allies with the capability to strike long-range ballistic missile batteries in southeast China that target Japan or Taiwan. Washington sees this base as a central pillar to its defense system in the Asia-Pacific region. China, no doubt, sees it as a new threat.
The result of building the base, therefore, will only be increased stress on the U.S.-China relationship. One South Korean military analyst, Cheong Wook-sik, said that China sees the U.S. Asia-Pacific missile defense system "as the 21st century’s greatest threat."
[…] Washington hasn’t been forthcoming about this base being built for U.S. interests, particularly in light of growing South Korean resentment of the high costs of U.S. military bases on the peninsula, and tensions over the recent admission by three U.S. veterans of dumping Agent Orange at Camp Carroll in southeast South Korea in 1978.
When I called the Korean Embassy in Washington to register my complaint about the Jeju naval base, the response was: "Don’t call us; call the U.S. State or Defense Departments; they are the ones who are pressuring us to build this base."
Gangjeong villagers have used every possible democratic means to overturn the decision by Seoul to construct the base there. For four long years, the villagers have squatted on their farmland that was seized by the government, and laid down in front of cement trucks intending to pour concrete over the volcanic rock where pure spring water meets the ocean. Despite the fact that 94 percent of Gangjeong residents voted against the base, the central government, the military and Jeju officials colluded to make Gangjeong the designated site.
This week, the South Korean government ordered the police take further measures to restrict protesters, many of whom have already been arrested, heavily fined and barred from entering the waters and land that they have lived on and depended upon for generations.
[…] No one in the United States, North and South Korea, Japan and China wants another militarized conflict; we still haven’t healed from last century’s wars. This is perhaps more apparent in Korea than anywhere else, a country where a militarized division still separates millions of families. We must not allow an unneeded military base to destroy Gangjeong’s rich marine ecology and the livelihoods of farmers, fishermen and haenyo – people who provide us with human security – certainly not in the name of "national security."
Libya
8) UN official "deplores" NATO attack on Libyan TV
Reuters, Tue Aug 9, 2011 8:19am GMT
http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE77802120110809
United Nations – The head of the U.N. cultural agency UNESCO sharply rebuked NATO on Monday for its July 30 air strikes against Libyan state television that killed several people and wounded nearly a dozen.
"I deplore the NATO strike on Al-Jamahiriya and its installations," UNESCO Director-General Irina Bokova said in a statement. "Media outlets should not be targeted in military actions," she said. "U.N. Security Council Resolution 1738 (2006) condemns acts of violence against journalists and media personnel in conflict situations."
Paris-based UNESCO is the U.N. agency that oversees issues related to freedom of expression and press freedom.
[…] Bokova said the NATO strikes were "contrary to the principles of the Geneva Conventions," which she said have established the civilian status of journalists in times of war, even when they engage in propaganda. She said the NATO strikes killed three media workers and wounded 21 people. "Silencing the media is never a solution," she said. "Fostering independent and pluralistic media is the only way to enable people to form their own opinion."
[…]
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