Tag Archives: United Nations

Citizen-defendants of the world

…. I speak to you not as a candidate for President, but as a citizen — a proud citizen of the United States, and a fellow citizen of the world…the burdens of global citizenship continue to bind us together.

So spoke then-presidential candidate Barack Obama before an adoring crowd last July in Berlin, Germany. Since then, President Obama has affirmed that the hope and change on which he campaigned amounts, in foreign policy terms, to making a decent showing in a global popularity contest at the expense of vital American national interests.

Indeed, the global citizenship "burdens" the President has in mind are significant and numerous, judging by the nature of the various treaties he and his representatives are seeking to advance. For instance, the Law of the Sea Treaty would severely constrain America’s ability to protect its security and economic interests by establishing a new global bureaucracy to oversee territorial disputes, free passage, and exploitation of seabed resources. The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty would effectively cripple our nuclear deterrent capability by prohibiting any explosive nuclear testing. And the yet-to-be-named post-Kyoto agreement on climate change would likely hinder our economic development through regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.

The depth of the President’s sense of global civic duty is also evident in the recent move to engage with the United Nations Human Rights Council, whose membership includes some of the world’s most egregious human rights violators and other undemocratic countries that use their position to launch hyper-politicized attacks on democratic Israel. The administration is simultaneously dismantling the Guantanamo Bay detention facility, a move that will better position hardened terrorists to harm us and our allies. All of this is being done in the name of securing the coveted approval of European and Middle Eastern capitals.

Among the global initiatives being warmly embraced by the new administration is the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court that could, literally, put the United States on trial, one American at a time.

Created by the 1998 treaty and formally established in 2002, the ICC was designed to investigate and prosecute those accused of genocide, war crimes, and crimes against humanity. Most recently, the Court handed down its first arrest warrant against a sitting head of state: Omar al-Bashir, President of Sudan, accused of committing crimes against humanity and war crimes against the people of Darfur.

The Rome Statute outlines the preconditions for the ICC’s assertion of jurisdiction, stating that the Court theoretically may assert jurisdiction when the accused is a national of a State party, or the alleged crimes were committed on the territory of a State party. The Rome Statute goes on to explain that, assuming either of these preconditions is met, the Court’s jurisdiction may be officially triggered by either a State party referring the matter to the Prosecutor, or the Prosecutor initiating his/her own investigation.

Additionally, the Rome Statute identifies two scenarios where the questions of whether the accused is a State party national or the crime was allegedly committed on the soil of a State party are irrelevant. First, the matter may be referred to the Court by the U.N. Security Council, as was the case with al-Bashir. Second, a State that is not party to the Rome Statute may choose to accept the Court’s jurisdiction for the specific crime in question — in other words, a non-party alleging a crime was committed on its soil may invoke the Court’s jurisdiction for purposes of addressing that specific crime.

The United States is not currently a party to the Rome Statute, but this does not necessarily protect it from the Court’s jurisdiction. President Clinton signed the treaty towards the end of his administration but noted his own concerns at the time about the treaty’s "significant flaws," specifically that the Court "will not only exercise authority over personnel of states that have ratified the treaty, but also claim jurisdiction over personnel of states that have not…9 D In fact, President Clinton was so concerned about the treaty that he specifically stated he "did not recommend that my successor submit the Treaty to the Senate for advice and consent until our fundamental concerns are satisfied." President Bush subsequently "un-signed" President Clinton’s signature, out of concern that the ICC would act as a politically driven forum for the prosecution of American officials and soldiers. Although President Bush did allow the Security Council to refer the situation in Darfur to the ICC in 2005 — at one point even offering to assist the ICC in its investigation of possible war crimes in Sudan — his administration was clear in maintaining American reservations about the Court itself.

As a presidential candidate, Obama indicated with respect to the ICC that he would "consult thoroughly with our military commanders and also examine the track record of the court before reaching a decision on whether the U.S. should become a party to the ICC." He has since indicated that he would continue to support the ICC’s investigation regarding Darfur, but has yet to comment directly as President on whether he will commit the United States to the Rome Statute.

Now that he is the Commander-in-Chief, Mr. Obama is obligated to take a much harder look at the nature of the ICC, and the extent to which it is capable of being used in service to a political agenda, to the detriment of American national security. Consider the following:

* The Rome Statute already allows the ICC to assert jurisdiction even over countries that are not party to the treaty. The most likely scenario for a referral to the ICC — crimes are committed on the territory of a State party — does not require that the accused be a national of a State party. In other words, even under the present formulation of the treaty, the ICC can assert jurisdiction over a U.S. citizen even though the United States is not a party to the treaty by alleging that American military commanders or government officials committed war crimes on the soil of an ICC party. Moreover, as demonstrated by the Ivory Coast in 2005, even a non-ICC party can invite the Court’s jurisdiction to investigate specific crimes.

* Recent reports indicate that the ICC’s chief prosecutor, Argentine national Luis Moreno Ocampo, is actively exploring a request by the Palestinian Authority that the ICC investigate Israel — also a non-party to the Rome Statute — for war crimes allegedly committed by Israeli forces during the recent defensive action in Gaza. Not only is Israel not a party, but the Palestinian Authority is of course not a state. Ocampo’s response: "It’s very complicated. It’s a different kind of analysis I am doing. It may take a long time but I will make a decision [about asserting jurisdiction over Israel based on a referral from the Palestinian Authority] according to law."

"Complicated" is one way to put it, although the Israelis are probably using other adjectives to describe this exercise.

* The ability of the ICC prosecutor to initiate an investigation without an express referral is an invitation to mischief. If the U.S. joins the ICC, since the temporal jurisdiction of the Court goes back to 2002, one can envision a situation where the ICC prosecutor initiates an investigation of American soldiers or officials relating to actions taken in Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan, to name just a few possibilities — irrespective of whether such countries are themselves State parties to the Rome Statute.

* Proponents of the treaty sometimes identify as a safeguard the ICC’s "complementarity" rule. The Rome Statute states that a case is inadmissible to the ICC if a State having jurisdiction is already handling the matter, unless it is clear that the State is "unwilling or unable genuinely to carry out the investigation or prosecution." Some therefore will argue that the United States need not fear a referral to the ICC provided it is "genuinely" pursuing justice with respect to any of its citizens accused of war crimes. This language may be better understood, however, as giving the ICC the last word on the matter. Indeed, the ICC may very well have the last word, given that the U.S. legal system provides various protections, such as the right to a trial by jury, which may be deemed inconsistent with ICC rules and procedures.

The above concerns should give the Obama administration pause as it considers signing the Rome Statute. It is far from guaranteed that joining the ICC in order to have a "seat at the table" will in any way allow the United States to guard against the pitfalls associated with membership. With the exception of specific instances whereby a situation might be referred to the ICC via the Security Council, the United States will not have a veto. A seat at the table will not give us the opportunity to fix what is wrong with this treaty, but rather will trap us within the confines of a legal framework ripe with potential for abuse.

Moreover, there is much more at stake here for the United States than the legal risks that come with signing this treaty. The very act of signature and ratification will not only elevate the Court’s legal authority over the United States, but also the Court’s moral authority in its dealings with America and even its allies. As non-parties, we remain free to dismiss the ICC’s investigation or prosecution of American citizens as illegitimate. Once we are a party to the ICC, however, it will become much more difficult to make a serious argument against the Court’s authority should it initiate proceedings against American citizens or engage in other unacceptable behavior. Our assent to the Rome Statute would likely also have the effect of providing the ICC with that same moral cloaking as it goes after valued allies: Israel for its defensive actions in Gaza; Colombia for actions taken to protect its own citizens from FARC forces; perhaps every NATO country with troops in Afghanistan.

It may be that given the rhetoric thus far, President Obama is quite comfortable with the notion of using the ICC as one of several means to bring America out of the global wilderness he perceives, despite the legal and political risks involved in such a move. The Court’s issuance of an arrest warrant for Sudan’s al-Bashir — a ruthless dictator deserving of punishment for his actions by all civilized standards — may further provide such comfort to the Obama administration by reinforcing the flawed notion that the U.S. has nothing to fear from the ICC, that it will only go after world’s "obvious" thugs. President Obama would be well-advised, however, truly to consult with his defense and national security advisors about the legal and political ramifications of American officials being made citizen-defendants of the world. He might find that they — not to mention vast quarters of the American public — are less than comfortable with that arrangement.

Ben Lerner is director of policy operations at the Center for Security Policy.

Originally published in The American Spectator.

Shariah’s Brotherhood

On Friday, President Obama reiterated for the umpteenth time his determination to develop a "new relationship" with the Muslim world.  On this occasion, the audience were the leaders of Saudi Arabia, Indonesia and the Philippines. Unfortunately, it increasingly appears that, in so doing, he will be embracing the agenda of the Muslim Brotherhood – an organization dedicated to promoting the theo-political-legal program authoritative Islam calls Shariah and that has the self-described mission of "destroying Western civilization from within."

As part of Mr. Obama’s "Respect Islam" campaign, he will travel to Turkey in early April.  While there, he will not only pay tribute to an Islamist government that has systematically wrested every institution from the secular tradition of Ataturk and put the country squarely on the path to Islamification.  He will also participate in something called the "Alliance of Civilizations."

The Alliance is a UN-sponsored affair that reflects – as, increasingly do most things the United Nations is involved in – the views of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).  The OIC is made up of 57 Muslim-majority nations. Thanks to support from Saudi Arabia and its proxies, the Muslim Brotherhood has become a driving force within the Conference and their agendas largely coincide.

For example, in 2005 a communiqué issued after a summit in Mecca declared: "The Conference underlined the need to collectively endeavor to reflect the noble Islamic values, counter Islamophobia, defamation of Islam and its values and desecration of Islamic holy sites, and to effectively coordinate with States as well as regional and international institutions and organizations to urge them to criminalize this phenomenon as a form of racism." 

Ominously, as part of its bid to "criminalize" Islamophobia, the OIC is seeking "deterrent punishments." It insists that not only freedom of expression but all human rights be circumscribed by the OIC’s 1990 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, which concludes with the caveat that, "All the rights and freedoms stipulated in this Declaration are subject to the Islamic Shariah."  Translation: Liberties enshrined in the UN’s foundational Universal Declaration of Human Rights are largely rendered null and void.

The demand that no criticism of Islam be permitted is the preeminent feature of the Muslim Brotherhood’s efforts in the West.  In fact, it is but the leading edge of the Brothers’ bid to suppress public awareness of the threat posed by their program in societies that pride themselves on religious tolerance, thereby facilitating seditious penetration and influence operations by the Shariah-adherent.

A playbook for the latter can be found in a publication issued last Fall by the U.S.-Muslim Engagement Project that is being aggressively promoted to the Obama administration and Congress by a number of its non-Muslim participants. Notably, former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright recently effusively presented the Project’s book entitled Changing Course: A New Direction for U.S. Relations with the Muslim World to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Former Congressman Vin Weber did the same at Grover Norquist’s weekly meeting of conservative activists last week.

Underwritten largely by George Soros’ and other left-wing foundations, Changing Course seems to reflect predominantly the recommendations of groups the government has established are Muslim Brotherhood fronts, such as the Islamic Society of North America and the Muslim Public Affairs Council.  Both are represented in the Engagement Project’s "Leadership Group." Accordingly, its book calls for:

  • "engagement with groups that have clearly demonstrated a commitment to nonviolent participation in politics" (read: the Brotherhood);
  • "not equat[ing] reform with secularism, nor…assum[ing] that reformers who advocate some form of Shariah as the basis for the rule of law will inevitably abuse human rights or adopt anti-American policies";
  • "not supply[ing] additional ammunition to extremists by linking the term ‘Islam’ or key tenets of the religion of Islam with the actions of extremist or terrorist groups";
  • Launching "an education program comparable in scale" to "the more than $7 billion" invested in the "post-Sputnik U.S. commitment to math and science education" to "education on Islam and Muslims, sustained over a decade or more, focused on teacher training and curriculum in middle and high schools, and colleges."

Emboldened by the promise of this influence operation and the apparent willingness of the Obama administration to embrace the Muslim Brotherhood’s agenda –  in part, if not in its entirety – the organization’s assorted fronts in America are becoming ever more audacious.  In response to a long-overdue decision taken by the FBI last year to terminate "sensitivity training" of its agents by one of the most prominent of these fronts, the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), assorted Brotherhood groups and operatives reportedly intend to announce that Muslims will henceforth cease any and all cooperation with U.S. law enforcement until CAIR is rehabilitated.

Such a step would not only call into question the patriotism of the many Muslims in America who do not embrace the Brotherhood’s Shariah agenda – something that would, presumably, be as offensive to them as it would be troubling to the rest of us. It could also expose those engaged in it to criminal charges of "misprision of felony," conspiring to withhold information from the authorities concerning terrorist operations and activities in the Muslim community.

The message should go forth:  Friends of the Muslim Brotherhood are no friends of America.  We follow their guidance at our peril.

 

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for the Washington Times.

 

Sudan, terror & jihad

Though it has received a great deal of attention in the media and from Hollywood celebrities, the issue of Sudan is not entirely clear to many Americans. Many do not realize how Sudan is ruled and the nation’s role in Jihadist terrorism. 

Over the past few years, the Islamic Republic of Sudan has been justifiably targeted by a grassroots divestment movement for the genocide that it has committed against its own people.

Unlike famine and drought, genocide does not simply happen due to forces of nature. Genocide is committed.

And it is no accident that the regime which has committed this genocide is also on the US government’s list of terrorist-sponsoring nations and is thus under US economic and political sanctions.

Sudan has committed genocide over a period of many years in an effort by the Islamist government in Khartoum to impose Shariah (a brutal theo-legal-political system practiced in the Islamic world) on its entire population.

Genocide first occurred in southern Sudan over a period of years in which the Arab Islamist government systematically killed hundreds of thousands of innocent black Christian and animist civilians. There are documented cases in which hundreds of defenseless civilians lined up at aid stations operated by international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) were gunned down by Sudanese Air Force helicopter gunships.

More recently, the genocidal Arab Islamist regime has turned its sights on fellow Muslims-non-Arab blacks-in the Darfur region. These black Muslims do not subscribe to the same brand of militant Islam that the Muslim Brotherhood-inspired Arab Islamist regime subscribes to, thus they are being attacked in a manner similar to that which occurred in the south of Sudan.

Many Americans are asking, "There are brutal regimes in many areas of the world. Why should I care particularly about Sudan?"

The answer is that Sudan is a terrorist-sponsoring nation that has been involved with terrorist groups that have killed Americans.

Sudan is ruled by a Jihadist regime that has hosted Al Qaeda, Hezbollah and Hamas and allowed those terrorist groups to train and recruit within Sudan’s borders. Sudan has been on the US government’s list of terrorist-sponsoring nations since 1993 and the United Nations imposed sanctions on Sudan in 1996 due to it allowing terrorist groups to operate from its territory.

 

Sudan and Al Qaeda

Sudan hosted Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda from 1991 to 1996. It is now known that Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda were involved in attacks on US peacekeeping troops in Somalia in 1993 and that these attacks were coordinated from Bin Laden’s base of operations in nearby Sudan.

Though Bin Laden was deposed from Sudan in 1996 under US and Saudi pressure, there is evidence that Al Qaeda was still at work in Sudan after Bin Laden’s departure. In March 2006, United Nations envoy to Sudan, Jan Pronk, reported that Al Qaeda was "entrenched" in Sudan.

But the most stark indication of Sudanese sponsorship of Al Qaeda involves the murder of Americans.

On October 12, 2000, Al Qaeda attacked the US Navy destroyer USS Cole in a suicide bomb attack in Aden harbor in Yemen.   Seventeen American sailors were killed in the attack and 39 others wounded.

On March 14, 2007, US Federal Judge Robert Doumar ruled in a lawsuit filed by the families of the dead sailors that the Sudanese government was liable for the bombing as the attack was planned in Sudan and the plotters trained and transited from there. On July 25, 2007, Judge Doumar ordered the Sudanese government to pay the families the sum of $8 million.

 

Sudan and Hezbollah

Hezbollah, or Party of God, is the Iranian-backed Jihadist terrorist organization that bombed the US embassy annex and the US Marine Barracks in Beirut, Lebanon in 1983. 241 American servicemen were killed in the Marine Barracks attack alone.

Sudan has harbored Hezbollah terrorists and allowed the organization to operate training camps inside of its territory.

Sudan hosted a meeting of Al Qaeda and Hezbollah leaders in 1994 which resulted in a cooperative training agreement between these two deadly Jihadist terrorist groups in which Hezbollah trained Al Qaeda operatives in explosives.

 

Sudan and Hamas

Hamas is the violent Jihadist Palestinian terrorist organization that seeks to push Israeli Jews into the sea and replace Israel with an Islamist theocracy along the lines of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

The Sudanese regime has openly declared its support for Hamas and has harbored Hamas terrorists within its borders. In fact, Hamas has a business infrastructure in Sudan to support its operations and has nearly the equivalent of diplomatic facilities there.

 

Sudan and Iran

Sudan’s partner in terror is Iran, though Iran is Shiite and Sudan’s regime is Sunni, with its roots in the Muslim Brotherhood. Sudan is one of the few nations on earth, besides Syria and Venezuela, that has openly aligned itself with Iran.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards have operated terrorist training camps in Sudan for years and Sudan and Iran have entered into significant agreements that indicate cooperation on Jihadist terrorism.

In January 2007, Iran and Sudan exchanged military delegations in which it was formally announced that Iran had offered to help train the Sudanese military to quell violence in Darfur. At the outset of the exchange, both delegations indicated that Iran and Sudan would expand military cooperation and Sudan expressed interest in Iranian-made weaponry, including missiles. At the end of the exchange, both sides agreed to "exchange expert delegations" on a regular basis to promote "mutual technical and educational cooperation" on military matters.

 

Conclusion

Sudan’s genocide in Darfur is a humanitarian atrocity that is deserving of condemnation in as many ways as possible. Moreover, it must be recognized that this genocide is born from the militant Jihadist doctrine that underpins the regime in Khartoum and compels it to sponsor the terrorist groups who are America’s enemies in the war on terror.

 

A rare victory in the judicial war in Peru

Imagine if, rather than tossing the coin at the Super Bowl, General David Petraeus was currently spending his life savings to defend himself from spurious charges that he committed human rights violations during the troop surge in Iraq. While this scenario seems preposterous to most Americans, it is a reality in many countries in Latin America, where military officers and soldiers are being persecuted under the guise of "human rights."

Since the end of the Vietnam War, the concept of human rights has been systematically co-opted by groups less interested in actual human rights than in the promotion of leftist politics in the U.S. and abroad. It was in the nascent stages of the Carter Administration, when Brady Tyson, deputy to then UN Ambassador Andrew Young, predicted openly that human rights would be used to help leftist revolutionaries in the western hemisphere.

At around the same time, Democrat Party scion Daniel Patrick Moynihan was criticizing the UN’s similar adulteration of human rights, stating that, "Unless standards of human rights are seen to be applied uniformly and neutrally to all nations…it will quickly be seen that it is not human rights at all which are invoked when selective applications are called for, but simply arbitrary political standards dressed up in the guise of human rights." Moynihan continued, "More and more the United Nations seems only to know of violations of human rights in countries where it is still possible to protest such violations."

Richard Holbrooke, recently named the Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan in the Obama administration, once testified before congress during the height of the Cold War that, "in the name of human rights, a small but vocal group of people…sought to carry out far-reaching change in the world structure…their targets were almost without exception regimes of the right which happened to be anti-Soviet."

Moynihan’s and Holbrooke’s warnings are now manifest in many Latin American countries, where politicized judiciaries settle political scores and "truth and reconciliation commissions," such as that proposed last week by Senator Patrick Leahy to go after the Bush Administration, are stacked to achieve a politically desired outcome.

Today, these quasi-judiciaries incentivize false accusations by offering reparations by the state to any civilian that files a claim against military personnel or state police. Yet neither civilian nor military courts offer legal recourse for those who are killed, maimed or displaced by terrorist groups – the very groups that provoked the military response to begin with.

This "judicial warfare," as it has come to be known, was made possible by the same Senator Leahy, who originated the legislation as a rider to a larger bill in 1997. The "Leahy Law," as it is now called, has provided the Marxist-Leninist-Maoist terrorist groups throughout Latin America with the ability to remove their betters from the battlefield without firing a shot. Many of the most well-trained officers – including those with the most training in avoiding civilian casualties during counter-terrorism operations – are frequently removed from duty at half pay because of flimsy allegations of human rights violations.

Though most are eventually exonerated, the careers and finances of these men are destroyed in the decades-long legal labyrinth that ensues. And worse, the false witnesses that make the accusations are rarely, if ever, prosecuted – though in a multitude of cases they have recanted and have stated under oath that they were induced to testify falsely.

One of the better-known cases of judicial warfare was recently concluded in Peru, with the exoneration by that country’s highest court of General Eduardo Bellido. General Bellido’s case had become a case study for journalists, publicized in a book published by the Institute for the Press and Society.

The book, The Press and the Military, was a mea culpa for the flagrant nature with which the press had accepted all of the arguments of Narco-terrorists and their apologist NGOs against a decorated General that had pacified that country’s largest terrorist redoubt.

On January 29th, the Peruvian armed forces held a ceremony to publicly honor General Bellido for his service to the country as well as to acknowledge the travesty of justice that he had endured. Lurking behind these false allegations, once again, was a panoply of left-wing NGOs including APRODEH, the very group that successfully petitioned the European Parliament not to include the Tupac Amaru (MRTA) terrorists on its official list of terrorist groups.

These same players have been behind nearly every congressional appeal to halt military aid from the U.S. to Latin America for the past two decades, while falling silent during administrations that they consider friendly to their interests. Francisco Soberon, a director of APRODEH, has made a good living as a "human rights advocate" in those two decades. President Alan Garcia called him a "traitor to the country" and demanded an investigation into APRODEH’s funding after it was revealed that it was Soberon that had petitioned the European Parliament in support of MRTA terrorists.

Former Vice President Luis Giampietri, one of the hostages of the Tupac Amaru siege of the Japanese Ambassador’s residence in 1997, accused Soberon of being an advocate for the terrorists. "Whose human rights do these organizations defend? They defend the terrorists," Giampietri said of APRODEH.

A former navy officer, Giampietri helped the Peruvian commandos rescue the hostages by providing intelligence via a miniature two-way radio from inside the ambassador’s residence. This also allowed Giampietri the ability to inform the hostages to stay separated from the terrorists just minutes before the rescue operation began, possibly saving their lives.

Once the smoke cleared, there were no terrorists left alive and one hostage was lost due to heart failure. The operation was hailed worldwide as a textbook success. Yet the first to denounce the "brutality" of the rescue was Eligia Rodriguez Bustamante, a deputy director of APRODEH.  More telling was the fact that Ms. Rodriguez Bustamante was also the mother of one of the Tupac Amaru terrorists killed during the rescue mission. Unsurprisingly, APRODEH later filed suit on behalf of the terrorists’ family members, saying that the rescuers violated the terrorists’ human rights.

It should be stipulated that if there is a true case of an actual human rights violation by a soldier, police officer, or civilian, the violator should receive the harshest penalty available under law. The death of innocents is, and will always be, a lamentable but ineluctable byproduct of defending millions more innocents from the murderous adventurism of schoolyard ideologies. But it is long past time to acknowledge that there is no moral equivalency between those that work to defend the innocent, though imperfectly, and those that defend the slaughter of innocents to justify political ends.

 

This is the second of two articles written by Jon Perdue about how some Latin American human rights organizations falsely accuse various military and political leaders in order to remove them from power. Mr. Perdue’s first article "The New Battlefield in Latin America" published on 7/17/08 may be found in the Americas Report Archives.

Versión en Español

 

 

Will Obama revive the ICC threat to the military?

In one of his last official acts as President, Bill Clinton signed the so-called "Rome Statute" creating an International Criminal Court (ICC). A supposed instrument of "international justice" for perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity, the ICC is instead a massive power grab by an unaccountable pseudo-judicial body lacking the most elementary protections found in the U.S. Constitution.

President George W. Bush’s wise decision to withdraw the Clinton signature from the ICC prompted howls of protest from the usual quarters, notably proponents of world government and, not surprisingly, many Democrats in Congress. Unfortunately, with a Democrat now in the White House – and Mr. Clinton’s wife in charge at the State Department – there is a danger that President Obama will sign the Rome Statute and railroad it through the Senate.

The ICC’s kangaroo-court claim of power and jurisdiction is almost beyond belief. Defenders of the ICC say that it would have jurisdiction only when a given country’s judicial process – the U.S. court system, for example – has failed. But who decides when such a failure has occurred? That’s right, the ICC itself, in violation of American sovereignty and overruling the U.S. Constitution.

An American soldier hauled before the ICC would be subject to a "judicial process" featuring no right to a jury trial; retrials allowed for errors of fact (i.e., double jeopardy); admission of hearsay evidence; no right to a public trial (effectively providing for inquisition-like proceedings); and no right to a speedy trial or reasonable bail, amounting to unlimited detention. These features already are standardized in United Nations Tribunals for Rwanda and Yugoslavia, which advocates for the ICC point to as precedents.

Also relevant is the record of some of the champions of the ICC who have already served notice of their intended operating procedure. For example, in 2001 Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon agreed to become honorary head of a group promoting the ICC. For the ICC proponents it was a good choice. Judge Garzon is a virtual apostle of extraterritorial jurisdiction, the heart of the ICC’s threat to Americans.

Judge Garzon’s claim to universal jurisdiction includes: an attempt to prosecute former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger (for alleged atrocities by anticommunist forces in Central America); Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi (for supposedly evading taxes); and our U.S. military at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq. He even has indicated possible criminal prosecution of businessmen for, if you can believe it, excessive carbon emissions.

Lest anyone think we exaggerate the danger to American military personnel being hauled before the ICC on legally specious grounds should take into account Judge Garzon’s penchant for upending the presumption of innocence – the very core of American jurisprudence. For instance, last October, he issued a summons to appear for questioning for Russian State Duma Deputy Vladislav Reznik. Judge Garzon contended that Mr. Reznik had received payments from businessman Gennady Petrov, who Judge Garzon had earlier arrested in a nighttime raid, during which he, his wife and 10-year-old daughter were forced at gunpoint to stand naked while police officers ransacked their house. Under Franco-era laws still in effect, Mr. Petrov, who has been accused of money laundering despite all transfers of funds being declared to the Bank of Spain and Agencia Estatal de Administracion Tributaria in utmost transparency, can be held without charges or bail for up to four years. Mr. Reznik, who, as a Duma deputy enjoys immunity from prosecution, had simply purchased property from Mr. Petrov in full accordance with both Spanish and Russian laws, nonetheless, prompting Judge Garzon’s judicial inquiry.

So, why should Americans care about a Spanish judge targeting a couple of Russians who may or may not be guilty of any wrongdoing? Just this: the same standard Judge Garzon has put into practice in Spain will become standard operating procedure by the ICC against American military personnel. Forget guilt or innocence, the Constitution or any relevant treaty obligations. Just make a wild accusation against an unpopular target, chuck him in the slammer, and worry about the proof later. After all, in view of the strident anti-Americanism that prevails in many parts of the world, the arrest of an American soldier, whether justified by credible evidence or not, would be greeted with general acclaim.

The fate of an American serviceman should not become the football of a global popularity contest or of megalomaniacal political agendas. It is imperative that any effort by the Obama administration to pull the stake out of the heart of the ICC be quickly killed.

 

James Lyons, U.S. Navy retired admiral, was commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, senior U.S. military representative to the United Nations, and deputy chief of naval operations, where he was principal adviser on all Joint Chiefs of Staff matters. Adm. Lyons is chair of the Center for Security Policy’s Millitary Committe.

 

Obama, the appeaser?

President Obama’s broad scheme for foreign policy has been something of a puzzle, short on specifics and long on talk about forging alliances, extending hands and "engaging."

In his first address to a joint session of Congress on Tuesday evening, Obama offered a further hint–repeating the gist of the argument with which, as one of his first acts in office, he ordered the closing of Guantanamo Bay: "Living our values doesn’t make us weaker. It makes us safer, and it makes us stronger."

So far, there’s not much reason to feel safer. If anything, the world seems to be getting less safe, at speed. On Wednesday, just hours after Obama delivered his speech, Iran began its first test-run of the nuclear reactor built with Russian help at Bushehr.

Barring forcible intervention of some kind, it’s highly likely Iran will fire up this reactor in earnest later this year–and start cranking out, on an industrial scale, spent fuel that can be processed into plutonium for nuclear bombs. That’s in addition to Iran’s uranium enrichment, another route along which Iran, according to U.N. officials, has now traveled far enough to have the makings of a bomb.

The Bushehr test run follows a month, post-Inauguration, in which Iran has launched a satellite, underscoring its interest in long-range missile capability. North Korea in short order announced its aim to soon do the same. Russia has been flexing its muscles in its continuing bid to reassert hegemony in what Moscow considers the "near abroad."

Pakistan released from house arrest the godfather of its nuclear program and chief broker-dealer of its proliferation networks, A.Q. Khan. The International Atomic Energy Agency released a report confirming the finding last year of unexplained "uranium particles" at the site of Syria’s secret nuclear reactor.

Syria has just replied by denying the reactor’s existence, but telling diplomats that the site now hosts a missile launching facility. On a related note, rockets hit Israel again this week, out of both Hamas-controlled Gaza and Hezbollah-infested Lebanon.

So what are the values with which Obama plans to address this landscape?

Are they the values now on display in U.S. policy toward Gaza, run by the terrorist group Hamas? There, despite overwhelming evidence of the Iranian-backed terror nest that Gaza has become, the U.S. seems less interested in ending the terrorist reign of Hamas than in bankrolling its territorial base.

Reports earlier this week, citing an unnamed U.S. official, said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton plans to attend a funding conference in Cairo next week where she will pledge $900 million in U.S. aid for Gaza. At a Tuesday press briefing, a State Department spokesman confirmed that while details, including the exact amount, are still being worked out, a whopping pledge is indeed in the offing: "It’ll be, you know, several hundred million."

Or does Obama have in mind the values articulated by Clinton when she sidelined human rights during her visit last week to China? There, our prematurely jaded new Secretary told reporters that America and China already know each other’s stands on human rights, so needn’t bother with ritual recitations; and in any event, such issues as human rights "can’t interfere with the global economic crisis, the global climate change crisis and security crises."

Will we be living by the values implied in the Obama administration’s decision to "engage" in preparations for the United Nations Durban II conference scheduled this April in Geneva. This conference, convened in the name of fighting "racism," is actually an exercise in censorship and condemnation directed at the free world, starting with Israel.

Durban II is a pet project of the despotic lobbying bloc that controls the 192-member UN General Assembly, which is led most of the time by the 57-member Organization of the Islamic Conference, or OIC (headquartered in Saudi Arabia), which overlaps with the 130-member Group of 77 (currently chaired by Sudan). The Durban II conference preparations were captured from the start by such nations as Libya, Iran and Pakistan (on behalf of the OIC).

The Durban II conference is already configured to savage Israel and endorse a global gag-order on free speech about Islam. It is styled as a "review" of the U.N.’s 2001 conference in Durban, South Africa. That played out as such a bacchanal of bigotry that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell told the U.S. delegation to walk out.

Under President Bush, America declined to legitimize Durban II by taking part in the plans. Obama this month reversed that decision and sent a delegation to a planning session in Geneva. Now is the moment that the U.S. might usefully mount a boycott and invite other decent governments to join. Instead, Obama’s administration has been coy–which suggests he’s going to lend a U.S. stamp of legitimacy to the sordid doings of Durban II.

And then there are the values implicitly endorsed by Obama’s new Special Representative to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke. He’s been talking about Iran’s reach into Afghanistan not as part of the problem, but as part of the solution. Despite allegations, some by NATO officials, that Iran has been helping Taliban "extremists"– as Obama labels the terror-dedicated Taliban — Holbrooke opined recently on an Afghan TV station that Iran (yes, the same Iran run by the totalitarian mullahs who applaud Palestinian suicide-bombers, jail and torture dissident bloggers, and execute children and homosexuals) has a "legitimate role to play in this region, as do all of Afghanistan’s neighbors."

Or will America be living the values suggested by Obama’s plan to appoint as head of the National Intelligence Council, crafting the influential National Intelligence Estimates, Charles "Chas" Freeman, sharp critic of democratic Israel and head of a Washington think-tank endowed by the King of Unfree Saudi Arabia. Freeman is also a critic of China’s 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising, in which Chinese demonstrators built their own Statue of Liberty–or, as they called it, Goddess of Democracy.

Writing in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal, Gabriel Schoenfeld quotes a 2006 posting on a confidential Internet site, in which Freeman offered his view of "the truly unforgivable mistake of the Chinese authorities"–which apparently was not the decision by China’s despots to order in China’s own army to shoot China’s own people–but "the failure to intervene on a timely basis to nip the demonstrations in the bud."

For that matter, will America be engaging abroad on the terms of the values displayed by Obama’s Attorney General, Eric Holder, who from his high national pulpit recently denounced America as "a nation of cowards"–with no public rebuke from Obama.

Holder was speaking about race in a speech to a domestic audience. But is anyone in the Obama administration paying attention to how such talk might feed the aggressive ambitions of America’s enemies abroad? For that matter, in appointing Timothy Geithner as Secretary of the Treasury, despite the tax-cheat scandal, has Obama considered what kind of signal that sends not only to Americans but beyond our shores, regarding the value placed by the current White House on integrity in financial dealings?

What are we to make of the values involved in Obama’s signing, with fanfare, an order to shut down Guantanamo Bay, our holding tank for alleged terrorists–while holding out olive branches to assorted despotisms that specialize in consigning democratic dissidents to some of the world’s worst dungeons?

If the world is one, and Obama is a citizen, how do we reconcile the showmanship over Guantanamo with the sidelining of issues that lead to the doors of Syria’s horrific Tadmor Prison, Iran’s Evin Prison, Libya’s Abu Salim or the labor and death camps of North Korea?

On two fronts, Obama has displayed sharp concern for "values" over realpolitik–or whatever we might call the above mix. Guantanamo, as just mentioned, and Darfur, on which Obama and Vice President Biden recently held an evening pow-wow in the White House with actor George Clooney.

These are not equivalent issues. What they do have in common, however, is that, unlike the dissidents of Iran and Syria, the vanished dissenters of North Korea, the smothered voices of democracy in China, they are favorite causes of the American media and Hollywood.

Obama has been described, at least in his speech delivery, as Reaganesque. But had Ronald Reagan lived by such values, it’s a good bet he never would have delivered the mortal blows he did to the Soviet Union and its satrapies, summed up in his 1987 demand in West Berlin: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall." Instead, we might have heard something like "We’ve made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not always lived up to our best intentions"… Oh, wait! We did hear that, not so long ago. That was Obama, speaking last July, in Berlin.

It is one thing to tear down a wall that imprisons people within a tyranny. It is another to tear down distinctions between democratic and despotic governments, ignoring profound differences of principle in the hope that appeasing and engaging, with maybe some cash thrown in, will bring peace.

In Obama’s defense, it might be said that no government is entirely consistent in such matters. The world is too complex for that. Reagan stood up to the Soviets but flinched when Iran-backed Hezbollah bombed the marine barracks in Beirut.

George W. Bush talked big about democracy, and wrestled it through to where it stands a chance in Iraq, but otherwise tilted heavily in his second term toward engagement–negotiating with North Korea, hosting Syria at Annapolis, attending the Beijing Olympics and largely turning over the urgent matter of Iran’s nuclear ambitions to the feckless care of the European Union and the UN. If America’s values are freedom, democracy, individual liberty and justice for all, then every presidency has come freighted with some big exceptions.

But by lights of American values, the Obama presidency at its outset is charting a course in which such exceptions look more like the rule. To the great benefit of both the wider world and its own people, America has stood and prospered for a long time as a beacon of freedom. Is the future as bright with America transforming itself into a beacon of "engagement"?

Claudia Rosett, a journalist-in-residence with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, writes a weekly column on foreign affairs for Forbes.com.

 

Rise of the ‘Iran Lobby’:Tehran’s Front Groups Move On– and Into– the Obama Administration

Rise of the ‘Iran Lobby’:Tehran’s Front Groups Move On– and Into– the Obama Administration

WASHINGTON, D.C., February 25, 2009- Today the Center for Security Policy issued a hard-hitting exposé of a network of foreign policy groups and individuals described by the clerical regime in Tehran as the “Iran Lobby” in the United States.

As Iran’s government pursues nuclear weapons, continues to support terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hizballah, and uses blistering and apocalyptic rhetoric against Israel, the United States and the West, the ‘Iran Lobby’ in Washington has been actively advancing the party line espoused by Iran’s theocrats.

Alarmingly, key figures from this circle have been drawn into influential posts in the Obama Administration. Recent or impending appointments of key Middle East experts – such as Ambassador Charles ‘Chas’ Freeman to head the National Intelligence Council, Dr. Vali Nasr as senior advisor to Ambassador Richard Holbrooke for Afghanistan/Pakistan issues, and Dr. Susan Rice as Ambassador to the United Nations – have long promoted the U.S. policies preferred by the mullahs, of US accommodation, unconditional dialogue, and concessions.

The Center’s Occasional Paper Series published “Rise of the ‘Iran Lobby,'”  a comprehensive study of these networks by Clare M. Lopez.  Ms. Lopez is Vice President of the Intelligence Summit and also a professor at the Centre for Counterintelligence and Security Studies.

Ms. Lopez, noted that “the pattern outlined in this paper is one of penetration of our national security infrastructure by agents of influence, be they witting or unwitting, whose actions, intentionally or unintentionally, serve to support the objectives of a hostile foreign power. To date, however, there has been no serious public review of the activities of this Iran Lobby or its affiliates from a counterintelligence perspective. And yet, given the serious nature of the complex challenges that Iran –and especially a nuclear-armed Iran — can be expected to pose in coming months, it is more important than ever to consider the consequences of appointing aggressive advocates, or at least apologists, for this terrorist regime to high posts within U.S. national security leadership.”

“Serious questions must be posed about whether U.S. national security interests are being jeopardized through an insidious influence operation directed by or supportive of the Iranian mullahs.  The Iran lobby threatens incalculable damage not only to our own national security posture but to the millions of Iranians seeking U.S. solidarity, if not help, with their opposition to the regime,” said Frank J. Gaffney, Jr., President of the Center for Security Policy.

“Rise of the ‘Iran Lobby'” can be found online here:

http://www.centerforsecuritypolicy.org/p17907.xml?genre_id=3

 

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Rise of the ‘Iran Lobby’

Tehran’s front groups move on—and into— the Obama Administration

Clare M. Lopez

25 February 2009

A complex network of individuals and organizations with ties to the clerical regime in Tehran is pressing forward in seeming synchrony to influence the new U.S. administration’s policy towards the Islamic Republic of Iran. Spearheaded by a de facto partnership between the National Iranian-American Council (NIAC), the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and other organizations serving as mouthpieces for the mullahs’ party line, the network includes well-known American diplomats, congressional representatives, figures from academia and the think tank world.

This report documenting the rise of what can accurately be described as the “Iran Lobby” in Washington, D.C. is derived entirely from unclassified open sources and describes in detail the activities, linkages, and objectives of this alarming alliance between NIAC, CAIR and others that is aimed at co-opting America’s foreign policy in the Middle East and specifically with Iran. Understanding the involvement of the Tehran regime in the foundation and continuing activities of organizations like these and their allies will become increasingly important to understanding the extent of the regime’s influence on American foreign policy decisions regarding Iran.

As these organizations expand, multiply and, in the process, intensify their efforts to promote a shared and ominous agenda, it is imperative to recognize the role being played by what amount to their interlocking (or at least overlapping) boards of directors, donations from the same foundations and growing access to some key members of Congress and top levels of US policymaking circles.  Of special concern is the growing penetration of the Obama administration by a number of individuals with such associations.

To be sure, efforts at influencing U.S. decision-making are common among a host of legitimate interest groups, including many foreign countries. But in this context, where the guiding force behind such influence operations emanate from the senior-most levels of a regime like Iran’s – which holds the top spot on the State Department list of state-sponsors of terror, makes no secret of its hatred and enmity for the United States and its ally, Israel, and acts in myriad ways to support those who have assassinated, held hostage, kidnapped, killed and tortured American civilians and military personnel over a 30-year period – such operations must be viewed with serious concern.

Specifically, the de facto alliance between CAIR, one of the Muslim Brotherhood affiliates named by the U.S. Department of Justice as an unindicted co- conspirator in the 2007 and 2008 Holy Land Foundation trials, and groups such as NIAC and its predecessor, the American-Iranian Council (AIC), which long have functioned openly as apologists for the Iranian regime, must arouse deep concern that U.S. national security policy is being successfully targeted by Jihadist entities hostile to American interests.

Background

This paper is meant to provide a Who’s Who-style catalogue of the organizations and individuals associated with the Iran Lobby in America.  Some of the most influential figures involved are surely witting that their actions serve to support the objectives of the mullahs in Tehran, while others may not realize that their actions inevitably result in such consequences. Either way, the group as a whole is openly portrayed in the Iranian media as the regime’s “Iranian lobby” in the United States.1

Some of these entities also share another connection – to Iranian and international business interests, especially in the oil industry. Whatever their differences, the members of the Iran lobby have one thing in common: They insist that the United States must adopt a new policy towards Iran of conciliatory negotiations without preconditions. 

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A stimulus for African security

The most recent iteration of the National Security Strategy of the United States of America, released in March 2006, declared:

Africa holds growing geo-strategic importance and is a high priority … It is a place of promise and opportunity, linked to the United States by history, culture, commerce, and strategic significance. Our goal is an African continent that knows liberty, peace, stability, and increasing prosperity … The United States recognizes that our security depends upon partnering with Africans to strengthen fragile and failing states and bring ungoverned areas under the control of effective democracies … We are committed to working with African nations to strengthen their domestic capabilities and the regional capacity of the AU to support post-conflict transformations, consolidate democratic transitions, and improve peacekeeping and disaster responses.

The mission statement approved by the Secretary of Defense in May 2008 for the United States Africa Command (AFRICOM) states that:

The United States Africa Command, in concert with other U.S. government agencies and international partners, conducts sustained security engagement through military-to-military programs, military-sponsored activities, and other military operations as directed to promote a stable and secure African environment in support of U.S. foreign policy.

Last week, Senator Russ Feingold (D-Wisconsin), chairman of the Subcommittee on African Affairs, in the course of remarks on U.S. policy in Africa inserted into the Congressional Record, noted:

I was reminded … of the very important and strategic roles that AFRICOM, if advanced properly, can play. These roles include helping to develop effective, well-disciplined militaries that adhere to civilian rule, strengthening regional peacekeeping missions, and supporting postconflict demobilization and disarmament processes. If carried out properly, AFRICOM’s work can complement that of the State Department, USAID, and other U.S. Government agencies working on the continent and help contribute to lasting peace and stability across Africa.

Taken together, these three statements underscore the fact that the advancement of American national interests in Africa requires a recommitment to strengthening and expanding of U.S. security cooperation with the nations of the continent.

Security cooperation, that is, military engagement outside wartime, is hardly a new concept. During the Cold War, these activities were focused on building the relations that were not only successful in containing the spread of the Soviet empire, but ultimately in bringing about its fall. In the wake of the collapse of the Iron Curtain, military engagement activities played a significant role in integrating the newly freed states of Central and Eastern Europe into the North Atlantic community. Nowadays, security cooperation is codified in the joint doctrine of the U.S. armed forces and defined by Joint Publication 5-0: Joint Operation Planning (2006) as "the means by which Department of Defense (DoD) encourages and enables countries and organizations to work with us to achieve strategic objectives" and by the most recent version of Joint Publication 3-0: Joint Operations (2008) as "all DoD interactions with foreign defense establishments to build defense relationshipsthat promote specific U.S. security interests, develop allied and friendly military capabilities for self-defense and multinational operations, and provide U.S. forces with peacetime and contingency access to a host nation." The latter document also affirmed that "security cooperation is a key element of global and theater shaping operations," which, in Pentagon-speak, would make security cooperation a large part of "Phase 0" of any U.S. campaign, a stage that as General Charles Wald, then deputy commander of the European Command (EUCOM), noted in one Joint Force Quarterly article, includes "everything that can be done to prevent conflicts from developing in the first place," the goal being to "promote stability and peace by building capacity in partner nations that enables them to be cooperative, trained, and prepared to help prevent or limit conflicts."

While some of the security cooperation efforts undertaken with allies and potential partners are carried out directly by active duty U.S. armed forces personnel, reserve and National Guard components also play an important role. For example, beginning in 1993 in the wake of the liberation of the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, the State Partnership Program (SPP) helped shape the strategic environment after the departure of the Red Army by partnering Army National Guard units with militaries in participating countries in a variety of activities in support of broad bilateral goals, including military-to-military subject matter expert exchange, disaster planning and response, environmental protection, and provincial- and city-level contacts. Currently, more than fifty countries are linked to forty-six states, two territories (Puerto Rico and Guam, and the District of Columbia. In Africa, Ghana is paired with North Dakota, Morocco with Utah, South Africa with New York, and Tunisia with Wyoming.

Moreover, it goes without saying that, given the stresses of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan as well as fidelity to the Quadrennial Defense Review (2006) directive to integrate them into the "Total Force," civilian government personnel and contractors also make significant contributions, especially in training and equipment, but also in humanitarian responses, post-conflict reconstruction, and new infrastructure building – the latter all roles which the market-driven private sector may be better positioned to do well than government bureaucracies. (See my previous discussion on "Total Force" in the AFRICOM context.)

Generally speaking the six geographical combatant commands (COCOMs) are required by two still-classified Security Cooperation Guidance directives from the Secretary of Defense to develop and submit for approval annual security cooperation plans for their respective theaters which would link bilateral and multilateral defense activities to U.S. security interests identified by theme and objective (AFRICOM is, in fact, holding its annual capstone Theater Security Cooperation Working Group conference this week in Garmisch, Germany, an event that brings together hundreds of officials representing about a dozen U.S. government and international agencies to develop a plan of projects and programs which are synchronized with the strategic plans which U.S. embassies develop for each partner state). In Africa, for example, it would not be hard to imagine that the broader approach to security cooperation includes two programs which have shown themselves to be not only meet strategic objectives of a more immediate nature like countering terrorist activity and "showing the flag," but also building relations over the longer term, are the Operation Enduring Freedom-Trans Sahara (OES-TS) military support for the State Department-administered Trans-Sahara Counterterrorism Program (TSCTP) and the Africa Partnership Station (see, respectively, my reports last year on U.S. security engagements in the Maghreb and maritime security efforts) as well as the ongoing activities of the Combined Joint Task Force-Horn of Africa (CJTF-HOA), based at Camp Lemonier in Djibouti.

Despite the success of initiatives like OEF-TS, Africa Partnership Station (APS), and CJTF-HOA – kicking off the 2009 APS deployment, the Austin-class amphibious transport dock USS Nashville arrived Tuesday in Dakar, Senegal, beginning a mission that will also include port calls in Ghana, Nigeria, Cameroon, and Gabon for training, professional military exchanges, and humanitarian and civic outreach – security cooperation within AFRICOM’s area of responsibility (AOR) still faces a number of challenges, some of which are common to the other five regional commands, while others are unique to the African context.

Despite being mandated to plan and carry out security cooperation in their respective AORs, the COCOM commanders both lack sufficient dedicated resources to implement their security cooperation strategies in a coherent manner and, when attempting to manage as they can, often find themselves confronted with a bewildering array of legislative, policy, and bureaucratic hurdles. Testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee three years ago in his then-capacity as the head of EUCOM and Supreme Allied Commander Europe, Marine Corps General James L. Jones, currently President Barack Obama’s National Security Advisor, lamented:

There are as many as thirty sources of funding which emanate primarily from the Department of Defense and the Department of State – and which are regulated by various, often times competing, authorities and guidelines. Although the Unified Command Plan establishes the authority of the Geographic Combatant Commander (GCC) to plan and conduct security cooperation activities within an assigned area of responsibility, there are a number of programs or activities over which the GCC has no influence.

The general might have added that even within single government agencies, security cooperation programs face significant hurdles. Sales of defense equipment and technology to allies, for example, are acknowledged as extraordinarily good policy. In addition to reinforcing existing partnerships and improving interoperability between the U.S. military and its professional counterparts, the economies of scale created by these transactions help the American economy in general and our defense industries in particular, while simultaneously indirectly subsidizing the research and development efforts critical to maintaining our technological edge in the years to come: simply put, the more units of something that are sold, the lower the marginal costs. Yet, as retired U.S. Navy Captain Sam Tangredi, author of Futures of War and other strategy texts, noted in a recent Defense News article:

Even within DoD itself, Foreign Military Sales programs are subject to approval by up to five technology-transfer committees, each of which operates on its own schedule. After DoD, the State Department must approve and Congress must be briefed. For a major weapon system sale to a critical non-NATO ally (and sometimes to a NATO ally) to be fully approved within two years is almost a miracle.

Efforts to build security partnerships with African nations bring additional challenges. The starting point of many African countries insofar as security capabilities are concerned, is relatively low. Moreover, with the exception of the continent’s handful of natural resource-rich, low population-density countries like Angola (see my September 9, 2008 column advocating an intensified strategic engagement with the geopolitically significant Southern African country), most of America’s would-be partners are constrained by lack of the financial wherewithal to upgrade their capabilities to meet even short-term priorities. It is a vicious cycle in which many are trapped: security is a prerequisite for development and development is a preventative for insecurity, yet these states lack the basic means to pay for the security that would facilitate the stability and economic growth that would, in turn, generate the revenues for the governments. Furthermore, lest anyone simplistically respond that Africans just emerging from conflicts need peacebuilding, not the accoutrements of armed security, it is worth recalling that acclaimed development economist Paul Collier and his colleague Anke Hoeffler found in their study on Military Expenditure in Post-Conflict Society that in the first five years after a peace agreement a given country’s estimated risk of renewed conflict is about 44 percent. Interpreted bluntly, this means that governments need to consolidate Max Weber’s "state monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force" (Gewaltmonopol des Staates). In addition, the current global economic crisis is not without its effect on African security, as non-African states pull out of peacekeeping missions on the continent in an effort to cut costs: for example, just last Saturday Poland became the latest such country when Prime Minister Donald Tusk said that in the next few months he would pull the 400-strong Polish contingent, the second-largest in Chad, from the European Union Force helping protect civilians and humanitarian workers in that country and the Central African Republic (EUFOR Tchad/CAR).

Of course, a variety of programs exist to "jump start" America’s potential partners when they lack resources on their own, including Foreign Military Financing (FMF), administered by the Office of Policy Plans and Analysis within State Department’s Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, provides grants for the acquisition of U.S. defense equipment, services and training, with an emphasis on promoting U.S. national security by contributing to regional and global stability, strengthening military support for democratically-elected governments, and containing transnational threats including terrorism and trafficking in narcotics, weapons, and persons; Section 1206 funds (named for the apposite section in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006), which allow the Secretary of Defense to train and equip foreign military and maritime security forces to carry out counterterrorism actions and to support military and stability operations in which U.S. armed forces might participate; and the Section 1207 authority for the Pentagon to transfer to the State Department up to $100 million per fiscal year in dense articles, services, and other support for reconstruction, stabilization, and security activities coordinated by the State Department’s Office of the Coordinator for Reconstruction and Stabilization (S/CRS). Nonetheless, despite the fact that the Section 1206 money has allowed COCOMs to move quicker in building up partner capacity and the Section 1207 authority has, according to a U.S. Institute of Peace special report last year by Robert Perito, helped to "jump start the S/CRS by providing authorization and funding for projects that would involve interagency coordina tion," neither is supported by specifically appropriated funds, thus implementation of approved initiatives remain subject to whether or not money is ultimately determined to be actually available within the overall Defense Department budget to be shifted toward the programs. Moreover, authority for Section 1206 is set to expire in FY 2011 while that for Section 1207 was extended last year for one fiscal year and will expire September 30 of this year (in testimony last April before the House Armed Services Committee, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had noted that the Departments of State and Defense were in agreement that Section 1207 authority should be increased to $200 million per year and extended for at least five fiscal years); both provisions need to be made permanent.

Taking a look at Africa, however, it is hard to say that budgetary provision for security cooperation aside from obligatory contributions to the United Nations for peacekeeping operations has kept pace with the continent’s growing strategic importance to the United States. Aside from Egypt (which comes within the mandate of CENTCOM), the fifty-two other African countries in received just $17.435 million out of the $4.45 billion available for FMF in FY 2008 – barely three-tenths of one percent of the total. In FY 2009, assuming Congress fully funds the $4.812 billion requested in the FY 2009 international affairs budget, just nine countries in AFRICOM’s AOR – the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Djibouti, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Liberia, Morocco, Nigeria, and Nigeria – are slated to benefit from FMF funds, sharing a pool of just over $16.5 million. As for Section 1606 funds, $67.9 million was obligated to African programming in FY 2008 (out of a total of just under the statutory limit of $300 million), most of which went either to enhancing counterterrorism capabilities in Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Tunisia or to maritime security efforts in Gulf of Guinea. As for Section 1207 transfers, of the $100 million to fund seven programs in FY 2008, just one, a $9.1 million initiative to reinforce the authority of the central government in the DRC (see my report last week on developments in that sorry land and its benighted regime), went to Africa.

Where there has been money available, it has been used to good effect. The Horn of Africa republic of Djibouti, for example, received modest FMF funding of $3.8 million and $1.9 million in FY 2007 and FY 2008, respectively. In the former year, it also received about $8 million in Section 1206 funding for maritime domain awareness (MDA) projects, in addition to much more modest assistance it received under multilateral and bilateral programming like the State Department-administered East Africa Counterterrorism Initiative (EACTI) and International Military Education and Training (IMET) program, respectively. Given that, in addition to hosting America’s only permanent military installation in Africa, CJTF-HOA’s Camp Lemonier, Djibouti sits astride the vital Bab-el-Mandab straits – 2-mile-wide Bab Iskender and 16-mile-wide Dact-el-Mayun, connecting the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden – through which nearly 10 percent of the world’s petroleum production passes each day and that Somali pirates are still active nearby notwithstanding the increased presence of naval vessels from a number of countries (the election last month of Abdirahman Mohamed Farole, a wealthy businessman who is believed by a number of intelligence services to enjoy a close relationship with the pirate crews operating out of Eyl, as the president of the semi-autonomous Puntland region is hardly an auspicious start to the year), the assistance enabled the Djiboutians to effectively multiply their maritime capacity several times over by acquiring four 44-foot patrol boats equipped with global positioning system (GPS) and other modern naval systems. With these new capabilities, Djibouti, whose port is also fast becoming a regional hub for containerization of cargo traffic between Europe, Africa, and Asia, can contribute its part to both regional security and U.S. interests, as underscored by the affirmation of the National Strategy for Maritime Security (2005) that "Assisting regional partners to maintain the maritime sovereignty of their territorial seas and internal waters is a longstanding objective of the United States and contributes directly to the partners’ economic development as well as their ability to combat unlawful or hostile exploitation by a variety of threats."

As the United States undertakes a major strategic shift towards Africa and as America’s first president of African descent settles into his third week in the White House amid a severe economic crisis, there may indeed be an opportunity to be discerned in the confluence of developments. As I noted in this column two weeks ago on the morrow of President Obama’s inauguration, "the wave of enthusiasm for the new president and, consequently, for America in general which has swept across the continent gives the forty-fourth president an unprecedented opportunity to not only secure key U.S. interests in Africa." By more generously allocating political and financial resources to security cooperation programs in general and those under the aegis of AFRICOM in particular (recall that the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense has slashed the new regional command’s requested FY 2009 budget by nearly one-third), President Obama now has a chance to simultaneously help America’s African friends begin achieving their own security objectives, enhance the U.S. military’s professional relationships and potential interoperability with these new partner states, and frustrate the efforts by other powers like China and Russia to reduce our influence through the indiscriminate sale of their arms cross the continent – all the while strengthening the domestic security industrial sector, reducing the cost of future defense acquisitions, and securing business for U.S. firms and creating jobs for American workers. Now that is the type of strategic stimulus we can all get behind.

— J. Peter Pham is Director of the Nelson Institute for International and Public Affairs at James Madison University in Harrisonburg, Virginia. He is a Senior Fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies in Washington, D.C., as well as Vice President of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA). In addition to the study of terrorism and political violence, his research interests lie at the intersection of international relations, international law, political theory, and ethics, with particular concentrations on the implications for United States foreign policy and African states as well as religion and global politics.

Dr. Pham is the author of over two hundred essays and reviews on a wide variety of subjects in scholarly and opinion journals on both sides of the Atlantic and the author, editor, or translator of over a dozen books. Among his recent publications are Liberia: Portrait of a Failed State (Reed Press, 2004), which has been critically acclaimed by Foreign Affairs, Worldview, Wilson Quarterly, American Foreign Policy Interests, and other scholarly publications, and Child Soldiers, Adult Interests: The Global Dimensions of the Sierra Leonean Tragedy (Nova Science Publishers, 2005).

In addition to serving on the boards of several international and national think tanks and journals, Dr. Pham has testified before the U.S. Congress and conducted briefings or consulted for both Congressional and Executive agencies. He is also a frequent contributor to National Review Online’s military blog, The Tank.

© 2009 J. Peter Pham

Obama at Durban II

Yesterday in Geneva, President Obama unveiled the new look of America’s foreign policy — obsequiousness. It was Day One for his emissaries to the U.N. planning committee of the Durban II conference. This is the racist “anti-racism” bash to be held in Geneva in April. The U.S. and Israel walked out of the first go-round in Durban, South Africa in September 2001. Ever since, the U.S. government has refused to lend any credibility to the Declaration adopted after they left. That is, until yesterday.  
 
U.S. representatives were addressing a human-rights negotiating committee with an executive consisting of a Libyan chair, an Iranian vice-chair, and a Cuban rapporteur. Russian Yuri Boychenko was presiding over Monday’s “human rights” get-together. Before them was a draft document which participants plan to adopt in finished form at the conference itself. The draft now contains mountains of offensive references to limits on free speech, anti-Israel and anti-Jewish provisions, and incendiary allegations of the victimization of Muslims at the hands of counter-terrorism racists.   
 
Here is how the American delegates responded to a proposal they understood was incompatible with U.S. interests (“Brackets” denote withholding approval at any given moment in time.): “I hate to be the cause of unhappiness in the room . . . I have to suggest this phrase remains in brackets and I offer my sincere apologies.”  
 
Continue Reading…

 

Obama Naïveté at the U.N.

National Review, February 16, 2009

In a major foreign-policy decision taken over the weekend, President Obama has decided to legitimize the United Nations’s “anti-racism” forum known as Durban II. State Department officials announced in a press release buried on Saturday, that starting today the United States will attend for the first time the preparatory meetings of this controversial U.N. conference. The “Durban Review Conference,” scheduled for April in Geneva, is the progenitor of the anti-semitic hatefest that took place in South Africa in early September 2001.  
 
The searing images of the demonization of America and Jews on the U.N.’s global stage, and the terrorism in New York 72 hours later, should have made joining this revived forum for U.N.-driven hate inconceivable. But President Obama seems intent on learning the lessons of history — and the relationship between hatemongering and violence — the hard way. 
 
The State Department announcement claims that participating in Durban II preparations still leaves open the possibility of refusing to attend the April conference itself.  The claim is completely disingenuous.  They know full well that preparations are planned on and off-the-record from now until April and will likely continue until the final moments of the actual meeting — justifying ongoing participation under the guise of “still can’t tell yet.” Like diplomatic bees to honey. It is the decision to attend at all which represents a huge shift in American principles and priorities. For the past seven and a half years, the United States has boycotted Durban follow-up activities and voted against every Durban-related U.N. resolution. 
 
Moreover, the very objective of Durban II is "to foster the implementation of the Durban Declaration and Program of Action."  This is non-negotiable and cannot be changed by U.S. participation, period. In addition, all U.N. states attending these preparatory sessions have already agreed to “reaffirm the Durban Declaration”. Since the U.S. walked out of Durban I in disgust (along with Israel) and rejected the Durban I Declaration, joining negotiations now means agreeing to its provisions for the first time.

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