Avuncular American

Eating the Seed Corn: the Iraqization of American Diplomacy

It's official: the most important places in the world - more important than China, which holds the US dollar and the American economy in its hands; more important than Moscow, which is increasingly ornery about American missile projects; more important than everywhere on this planet, in terms of diplomatic priority - are Baghdad and Kabul.  For that reason, the US State Department is taking away 10 percent of the Foreign Service staffing from everywhere else in the world to meet the staffing needs of the Emerald City.

In a related vein, my "Speaking Out" article has appeared online (pdf) in The Foreign Service Journal December issue.  I address the increasing militarization of American foreign policy, and the tendency to look at diplomats as ancillary to the real business of dealing with the foreigners, as run by the US military.  Here it is:

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Expeditionary Sidekicks?  The Military-Diplomatic Dynamic
By Gerald Loftus

We still refer to one subcomponent of the political cone as “pol-mil” -- as if, by putting “political” first, we indicate its primacy over the military.  Civilian control of the military has always been a byword of democracies, as we never tire of lecturing military officer corps from around the world.  Yet a look at our current military-diplomatic relationship should give us pause.

Speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., on Sept. 12, 2007, General David Patraeus hailed Ambassador Ryan Crocker as “my great diplomatic wingman.”  The term’s Air Force origins denote a trusty sidekick, hovering slightly behind “Top Gun.”  Granted, Iraq is a unique situation; not all U.S. ambassadors have four-star generals commanding troops in a war zone in their countries of assignment.  But the overall attitude toward diplomacy within our national security structure typified by Petraeus’ quote is troubling.

We are used to a defense attaché and perhaps a military assistance officer as part of the embassy country team, where the ambassador is in charge.  But increasingly, Foreign Service officers find themselves in subordinate relationships to the military, especially as the “expeditionary” model is expanded.  Combatant commanders have long had Foreign Service advisers and, more recently, also operate Joint Interagency Cooperation Groups, with representatives from foreign affairs and other agencies.  POLADs are now present at subordinate commands and in the offices of service chiefs.  And AFRICOM, the newest geographic command, expects to use diplomatic and development experts for a third of its headquarters complement.

Going Through the Motions

Without doubt, the U.S. military values diplomatic expertise.  But the relationship can be one of checking boxes, not of acting on civilian expertise.  Carl von Clausewitz’s dictum, “war is merely the continuation of politics by other means,” has become a staple of military culture, so diplomacy comes across largely as a preface.  In that spirit, war-game planners frequently write scenarios with just a nod to diplomatic niceties before cutting to: “Diplomacy has failed; send in the military.” 

If the post-9/11 era really is to be characterized by long, global wars, we must be particularly wary of the dangers of focusing obsessively on notions like expeditionary diplomacy, to the exclusion of our core competency.  War zones are military turf, and in that kind of expeditionary environment, the “pol” will always be wingman to the “mil.”  Even in such FSO billets as Provincial Reconstruction Team leader, what is the nature of authority when the PRT is embedded as part of a larger military unit?  Recall that in the Red Army, the political commissar could contravene decisions taken by military professionals.  Happily, there are no signs of that on our side, nor would we want the tail to wag the dog in that manner.  But why should the world’s leading democracy accept an increasing militarization of our diplomatic engagement with the world?

Though the expeditionary diplomat/soldier amalgam may appeal to writers like Robert Kaplan, it presupposes that Iraq and Afghanistan are not one-off circumstances.  If expeditionary (as opposed to what -- desk-bound?) is to be the new ideal, where (and what) is the next expedition?  David Jones pointed out several fallacies behind the headlong rush to jettison traditional diplomacy in his Speaking Out column in the July-August 2006 FSJ (“Run, Lemmings, Run”).  Exposed one-officer posts, with a company of security contractor outriders, to perform “transformational diplomacy” -- is that the new paradigm?  How does that help the U.S. deal with the rest of the world?

Washington on the Rhine

When I attended National Defense University in 1998-99, I was part of a student body comprised largely of colonel-rank officers and (defense and foreign affairs) civilians.  But I was conscious of who was missing: where were the rising GS-14s of the Treasury Department, who might one day deal with America’s increasing indebtedness to China?  How about the stellar climate scientists from Agriculture, whose work on dry-land farming might be crucial to sustaining our food supply?

When the premier federal institutions of learning are those designed for professional military education, it tells us something about our national priorities.  This is not new: the panic over Sputnik in the 1950s resulted in the National Defense Education Act, and the same period saw further billions spent on the “Eisenhower Interstate and Defense Highways.”  Though NDU and the service war colleges, to their credit, also study the other elements of national power, including diplomatic, economic and informational resources, the stress is inevitably on national security in the classic Defense Department sense.  The fact that FSOs are “embedded” in classes for some diplomatic leavening does not alter the fact that these institutions remain war colleges.

The superstars of the U.S. official presence overseas are, let’s face it, not the 190 or so ambassadors accredited to conduct bilateral relations, but the four-star geographic combatant commanders of EUCOM, CENTCOM, PACOM, SOUTHCOM, and AFRICOM.  For their full-spectrum approach to their respective areas of responsibility, the Pentagon wants the various commands to fund such programs as “Building Global Partnerships” and greatly expand the Commander’s Emergency Response Program.  This is not your $5,000 “Ambassador’s Self-Help Program” grant for the village school; we are talking about many millions of dollars here.

In a May 13, 2007, Washington Post article, Walter Pincus quotes a Senate Foreign Relations Committee report: “As a result of inadequate funding for civilian programs . . . U.S. defense agencies are increasingly being granted authority and funding to fill perceived gaps . . . weakening the Secretary of State’s primacy in setting the agenda for U.S. relations with foreign countries.  Some foreign officials question what appears to be a new emphasis by the United States on military approaches to problems that are not seen as lending themselves to military solutions.”  Indeed.  Generals are naturally assertive about their role in their areas of responsibility.

Stuttgart and the U.S. European Command are actually on the River Neckar, but a “Washington on the Rhine” outlook can develop at the overseas commands.  In their quest for greater unity of effort, four-star combatant commanders lament the bureaucratic barriers to their centralizing interagency coordination.  Some combatant commanders would like to “mature” the interagency process to the regional level (“Extending the Phase Zero Campaign Mindset,” Joint Force Quarterly, Issue 45, 2nd Quarter 2007).  How do you do that when there are some 50 U.S. ambassadors in, say, Africa, but only one four-star general?

Here’s the rub: when you establish and generously fund major regional combatant commands, they must “do something” about crises in their bailiwick.  As the U.S. launches another continental-sized mission in AFRICOM, we should consider what Andrew Bacevich, in his 2005 book The New American Militarism, said regarding the 1980s growth of CENTCOM in its Mideast AOR: “As the U.S. military profile in the region became ever more prominent, the difficulties with which the United States felt obliged to contend also multiplied.”

This is not just a matter of historical interest.  The establishment of AFRICOM -- how it is to be configured, where headquartered, and with what missions -- is a live issue.  Is it to be a classic geographic combatant command, with the force structure that comes with four-stardom?  Maybe not.  Will it move from co-location with EUCOM in Germany, from which it spawned?  Probably, but where to in Africa, where there has been reluctance to host a foreign military presence?  And what missions will AFRICOM undertake?  Maritime security in the Gulf of Guinea’s oil shipping lanes is a strategic interest, as is transnational terrorism across the Sahel.  But African publics and governments have begun to protest that U.S. engagement with Africa is increasingly military -- 50 U.S. ambassadors and their self-help programs versus a brand-new U.S. commander for whom Africa is his sole job description.

Stake Out the Core Turf: Diplomacy

Some analysts argue that the unprecedented size, resources and strategic reach of its military give the United States a comparative advantage in power projection, similar to the one China has in producing cheap products for the world, or the European Union has in unifying a continent.  The strength of the U.S. military is undoubtedly a prime asset of the United States, but as Thomas Barnett recently wrote in Esquire (“The Americans Have Landed,” June 2007), the danger is that “the poised hammer makes everything suddenly look like a nail.”

Does the U.S. need “expeditionary diplomacy?”  Perhaps, but not as its default posture, unsuited as it is to solving the myriad problems that don’t fit this Foreign Legion stance.  Of the world’s 193 countries, some 180 might be considered non-war zones.  Not all of them are completely stable or developed, and many are not democracies.  But they still constitute sovereign nations in the generally accepted sense, with boundaries, capitals, elites and economies.  This non-expeditionary world is the diplomatic “area of responsibility,” where the Foreign Service works to advance American interests.

In the “Rest of the World” (to use Pentagon parlance), basic social structures and norms do not exist or are exceedingly shaky.  In those places, the host government cannot (or will not) provide perimeter security for the embassy, let alone assure a safe working environment for diplomats to do their jobs.  Nor can the Marine security guard detachment.  And as we are learning in Iraq, the costs of hiring private security companies to do the job go far beyond dollars and cents.  These relatively few extreme environments are the ones in which the military can and should take the lead to protect U.S. interests -- and where our diplomatic presence should be kept lean until conditions permit peacetime operations. 

So by all means, let imaginative Army majors produce and debate papers on “armed diplomacy” at places like Leavenworth’s Combat Studies Institute.  Meanwhile, the non-expeditionary core of the Foreign Service should take the lead in confronting climate change, mass migration and colossal U.S. currency reserves in foreign hands, to name just a few of the serious threats we face. 

Let me be clear: Political-military issues, including counterterrorism and expeditionary forays in war zones, will remain important.  But they should not blind us to the many other challenges that demand much more of the Foreign Service than to be sidekicks, diplomatic wingpersons to the armed forces.

Gerald Loftus, a Foreign Service Officer from 1979 to 2002, lives in Brussels.  Since retirement, he has focused on interagency and multinational aspects of defense, with emphasis on Africa.

Brussels Democrats Hold "SiCKO" Salon & Discuss US Election

For expatriate wonks like me, it was a perfect evening: small gathering of friendly people in a hotel lounge, beer and snacks from the bar next door, and playing on the wide screen TV, Michael Moore's "SiCKO."  I didn't require any prompting to get my ire up over the American health "situation" (I refuse to call it a "system").  Fighting "Medicare HMOs" has been my lot over the last decade or so: first over my mother's stroke-away-from-home (when her insurance company insisted she stay at their facility, but refused to fly her there), then over my 94 year old father's yo yo hospitalization/discharge/hospitalizations (where, in one 24 hour period, he was in four different institutions).

So last night there were several of us with "SiCKO"-like stories.  Though some people shared certain commentators' distaste for Moore's idealized picture of foreign health care systems, others (including me) felt that his depiction of the general separation of health care delivery from payment by patient accorded with reality in places like Britain, Canada, and France.

The real revelation of the evening was the approach taken by the US Democratic Party towards overseas voters, especially via "Democrats Abroad" (the sponsors of our gathering).  Through its website www.votefromabroad.org, the Democratic Party is treating overseas voters as "The 51st State," for its "Democratic Global Presidential Primary 2008."  This is a sea change from the situation that has prevailed for overseas Americans, who have had to struggle to register, request absentee ballots, and cope with international postal systems getting their votes back home in the (sometimes forlorn) hope that they would be counted.

As good as the Democratic initiative is, it still falls short of what other expatriate communities enjoy in terms of representation in their home countries.  French citizens living abroad, for example, have no fewer than 12 Senators from overseas "electoral districts."  This, in addition to the "Assembly of French Citizens Abroad" for the 2 million French expatriates.  For the 6.6 million Americans living and working overseas, the Democratic initiative is simply the best move yet in recognizing this massive "constituency."  I suppose we should count our blessings: at least those of us who still maintain links to our home states can vote for our Congressional Representatives and Senators; taxation without representation is still the lot of the more than half a million citizens of our nation's capital, Washington D.C.

Belgium, One Year Ago: The Prescience of "Fiction"

"Bye Bye Belgium" was the title (awarded after the TV "news special") of what became known as the "canular," or practical joke, to beat all canulars: announcing the breakup of Belgium.  The main French-language nightly news on RTBF - although it had a text banner at the bottom of the screen announcing, in good Magritte fashion, "This is a fiction" - presented a somewhat credible "breaking news" program about the end of this fine little country.

The bit about the King flying to the old Belgian colony of The Congo for political asylum should have given it away, but for a while it was Orson Welles' panic-inducing "War of the Worlds" all over again.  When the excitement subsided, RTBF was condemned in political circles for stirring up (latent?...hardly) Flemish-Walloon rivalries.  RTBF and others defended their action, saying that the idea was to open Belgians' eyes to the very real separatist aspirations of certain elements in the Flemish political class.

Well, now we are at Day 186 of non-government (actually, the old pre-June election government is taking care of running the business of government, but cannot initiate new programs).  And why?  I think any fair minded person, Belgian or foreign observer, would have to admit that it is because of those same separatist or "community" issues that prompted RTBF's program.  Polls regularly show great majorities of Belgians (including majorities of the Dutch=speaking Flemish community, itself the largest segment of the population) favoring the existence of a country called Belgium.  So what's the problem?

Flemish politicians interpret "Belgium" differently than Francophone (Brussels and Wallonia, the poorer southern region) politicians.  In Flanders, Belgium is largely seen as a burden, a holdover from the days when Wallonia was industrial, wealthy, and imposed its French language in government and society.  A "burden" since the country's large national debt is in some part due to the transfers to the rust-belt South, which is only now beginning to enter the post-industrial era.  But Belgium has its capital in Brussels, which is also the capital of the Flanders regional government.  Brussels, headquarters to the EU, NATO, and other international organizations, is often denigrated by the Flemish for its high unemployment, large North African immigrant community, and rampant use of French (and English, and Polish... it is a truly polyglot city).  But this little (Brussels is only about a million people) island of cosmopolitan Europe is a prize that any eventual institutional reform (not to speak of country-splitting) will have to contend with.

My pet peeve in all this - along with a certain attachment to the country where we have lived for more than nine years all told - is the cavalier attitude of the political class to the economic and "image" impact that this is having on "Brand Belgium."  My concern - as a foreign resident and property owner here - is more with "Brand Brussels," which, as I have mentioned before, is a major asset to this country.  My fears have been confirmed recently by that bellwether industry - real estate agents.  Last week "Le Soir" reported on the woes of real estate agencies on the normally buoyant, leafy, wealthy outskirts of Brussels - the very epicenter of the linguistic to-ing and fro-ing of the debate over who gets to rule the increasingly Francophone suburbs of Brussels, which happen to be on Flemish territory.  In these "communes a facilites," (basically municipalities where residents can conduct administrative business with their town hall in either Dutch or French), house sales have plummeted by 50% in recent months.  The rise of mortgage interest rates and the sub-prime crisis in the US have had their ripple effect, but the professionals are categoric: "The Belgian political crisis has only made it worse."

"Bye Bye" (my little photo montage, actually a smart Brussels program to get you to trade in your car - and symbolically shred its license plate - in exchange for free public transport)... I had originally thought to use this a couple of weeks ago, when the erstwhile, putative, "formateur" Yves Leterme threw in the towel on 6 months of fruitless negotiations to form a government.  Then he reappeared a few days later acting as if he could try again, this time with a completely different (ideological) spectrum of parties.  In the meantime, the King has charged current (lame duck, caretaker) Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt with forming a coalition.  Verhofstadt, a Fleming who has the confidence of the Francophones, probably has a much better chance of pulling off a wide coalition.

If you're still confused by this latest turn in Belgian politics, which makes Gerrymander sound like the utmost in political clarity, then you are a candidate for "Belgian Politics for Dummies," or at least the French language equivalent, "La Crise Expliquee Aux Nuls," from "Le Soir."  Credit to "LeSoir's" wonderful political cartoonist Kroll for his accompanying sketch, which shows King Albert showing up for a briefing, asking "Do you mind if I listen in?  There are days when..."  Warning: even reading "Nuls" won't bring you up to speed: it came out ten days ago, an eternity in Belgian politics.

Algeria: Flags at Half Mast (Updated 12/12)

(See Update Below)

Two attacks, one against the offices of the UNHCR in Hydra, our old neighborhood in Algiers, and another killing students in the suburb of Ben Akhnoun, where my wife used to drive our kids to school every day, brought the violence in Algeria close to home today.  I extend my personal sympathies to the victims and their families.  Students in a bus going to the Law Faculty and UN officials bringing succor to refugees - these are among today's victims.

Algeria, which has had a very rough time of it since its truncated experience with multi-party democracy in the early Nineties, has had a year's worth of high-profile terrorism in the heart of the capital.  In the years leading up to autumn 2006, the capital Algiers had been largely spared the violence that had rocked the entire country in the mid-Nineties.  There was a feeling that the worst was behind them, and a building boom reflected confidence that the country was turning the page.

But in rapid succession, things started to change.  I was on a business trip to Algiers when truck bombs destroyed two police stations in late October 2006.  And a year ago - almost to the day - a bus carrying expatriate workers of Kellogg Brown Root Condor (a Halliburton affiliate at the time) was attacked in what was probably the most "secure" zone of Algiers.  Months later, 11 April 2007, the Prime Minister's office and the Ministry of Interior were bombed, in the very center of Algiers.  Today's bombings show that the perpetrators can act with impunity in areas heretofore considered "safe."

In the early Nineties, Algeria opened a window to democratic pluralism and the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS), which had quickly mastered the art of organizing and "getting out the vote," won every free election - local and parliamentary - that was held.  In early 1992 the Algerian Army, fearing FIS retribution for decades of collusion in the pilfering the country's oil and natural gas wealth, overthrew the president, canceled the final round of elections, and threw FIS elected officials into jail.  The rest, as they say, is history.

Just like the other blasts in Algiers over the last twelve months, there will be claims of responsibility, probably from "Al-Qaeda's Committee in the Islamic Maghreb," as the GSPC is now called.  But western analysts might pause before simply chalking this up as another Al-Qaeda spectacular.  Why, for example, was the UN office hit?  Way back in the spring of 1991, when Algeria "tilted" against "Operation Desert Storm" to liberate Kuwait from Saddam Hussein, Coalition embassies (US, UK, France, but also those of Egypt and Syria) were well-protected.  True, symbolic targets like Air France were fair game for arsonists, but in the main the Government of Algeria wanted to ensure that after the Gulf War was over, it could still do business with the countries of the Coalition.

But that left the United Nations - under whose auspices the Coalition was then fighting Saddam - vulnerable.  And so it was that the UN building in Algiers was attacked by a mob, though it should have enjoyed the same protections as bilateral embassies.  As the head UN official (himself a Syrian national) said at the time, "Where is the hand?" hinting that the UN building may have been a convenient "safety valve" target, a way of letting off steam for frustrated pan-Arabist demonstrators.  The UN - it belongs to all, but really belongs to no one.

Those relatively non-lethal days of throwing a few Molotov cocktails are gone.  This is the age of the suicide bomber, and niceties like avoiding casualties by phoning in bomb warnings are a thing of the past.  I don't know what is behind today's blasts, but one thing is for sure: be wary of simplistic explanations, and search back to the root causes of this 15 year old conflict.  And ask, as my Syrian friend did, "Where is the hand?"

(Update Wednesday 12/12/2007)

Today's "Le Monde" carries a useful chronology of the deteriorating security situation in Algeria (notably Algiers) over the past year.

"Le Soir" (Brussels) has an exclusive from its correspondent in Algiers, analyzing "Who Profits from the Crimes in Algiers?"  Describing the almost instant condemnation of Interior Minister Nourredine Yazid Zerhouni (a close collaborator of President Abdelaziz Bouteflika) by radio call-ins in the immediate aftermath of yesterday's bombings, the correspondent quotes an Algiers political scientist:

It's President Bouteflika who is being targeted by the generals who don't want him to serve a third term; in 1997-98 the collective massacres made President Zeroual resign.  Now they've reactivated the same procedure against Bouteflika.

This is uncannily close to some analysis in "Algeria-Watch" in the aftermath of the April 11, 2007 bombings at the Prime Minister's and Interior Minister's offices.  At the time, Interior Minister Zerhouni himself downplayed an Al Qaeda role in the deadly bombings:

What is Yazid Zerhouni suggesting by declaring the day after the April 11, 2007 attacks in Algiers that "one must not exclude other interests (my emphasis) not wishing the Algerian State to recover, restructure and operate more efficiently."?

Algeria-Watch goes on to speculate about the conspiracy theories, which are never in short supply in Algeria.  Algeria, which truly was a world leader in the Nonaligned Movement in the halcyon days of post-independence '60s and '70s under hard man Houri Boumediene, still likes to think of itself as the "target" of outside powers, alternately France, the United States, the Gulf monarchies... depending on the particular political wind blowing.   Usually, the favorite "other interests" carrying out nefarious activities were the ex-colonists, the French.

Algeria's mercurial relationship with the US has been mostly on the upswing since the Bush Administration found in them a potential ally against terrorists in the Trans-Sahel.  But the Algerian government, which has spent a decade and a half dealing with the aftereffects of a military coup against an Islamist electoral surge, never hesitates to put the US into the hot seat when it feels its interests threatened.  Algeria's opposition to the creation of the US Africa Command AFRICOM is a case in point.  It mounted a very public campaign to distance Algeria from any potential basing of AFRICOM on its soil - though it is not even clear whether the US even contemplated such a move.

Stay tuned for nuanced analysis in the weeks ahead from those who go beyond the one day condemnations, and who may see more in these heinous bombings than the usual Al Qaeda suspects.

"Vier Minuten" - Prison Drama With a Few Differences

Okay, we don't just watch seemingly obscure films that you've never heard of.  We also watch big films that hit the box office charts.  But what's the point of my reviewing "American Gangster" or "The Departed," when you have probably seen them weeks or months before they make it beyond the anglophone world?  Whereas if I do mini reviews of "Vier Minuten," or "Alexandra," or "Auf der anderen Seite," or "Tuya's Marriage," then you the reader get to put them on your must-see list and hope that they make it to an "art house" cinema near you one day.  According to IMDB, "Vier Minuten" is scheduled for UK release in February 2008; no date for US release visible.

I won't try to list all the awards and nominations for "Vier Minuten," since IMDB does such a good job of it.  In our estimation, the awards are justified, especially in the strong performances of the two female leads, Monica Bleibtreu and Hannah Herzsprung.  The elderly Frau Kruger (Bleibtreu) seems to have been in the prison forever - at least since the days when it was a makeshift hospital during World War II - though she's not a prisoner (at least not in the juridical sense).  She gives piano lessons to prisoners, a motley group of drugged-out, suicidal, violent misfits, probably motivated by nothing more than getting out of their cells for their keyboard drills.

Until Jenny (Herzprung) appears, that is.  It's clear that she has a kind of virtuosity, though the severe looking Frau Kruger disapproves of Jenny's taste for "Negro Music."  Indeed, Frau Kruger is timeless: her clothing, gray hair in a bun, utilitarian glasses, and taste for Schumann, all put her in a kind of time warp.  It's not terribly important when or where the film takes place, though it has a gray industrial atmospheric look of 1980s (East?) Germany.

Frau Kruger knows that Jenny is special, and invests much - in fact, everything, including what's left of her career - in nurturing Jenny's talent.  But it's no easy task, as Jenny has much to be angry about.  She lashes out at everyone, and makes a couple of unfortunate enemies - usually a bad idea in prison.  All the while, we get glimpses of Frau Kruger's youth, when another young woman is the object of her affections.  Does modern-day Jenny remind the aging spinster of her youth?

Another thing that is not so important, but inevitably enters into web searches, categorizations, and pigeon-holing: "Vier Minuten" has been featured at Gay and Lesbian Film Festivals in Paris and Oslo.  But you could probably also do a Google search for films about piano music, and "Four Minutes" would pop up too.  Director Chris Kraus has a longstanding interest in music, the legacy of Nazism, and the gay world (he wrote "The Einstein of Sex... the story of Dr. Magnus Hirschfeld, a German Jew, who as a physician established the field of sexology, and fought militantly against German anti-sodomy laws in the late 19th century, up to the rise of the Third Reich in the mid 1930s").

With a director as apt as Kraus, and a film with music at it core, you can expect a topnotch soundtrack.  There is, of course, Frau Kruger's beloved Schumann, and Jenny's "Negro Music" (as Frau Kruger dismisses it) runs the gamut from North African rai to the heavy metal played by two lovable, bearlike ex-cons who help Frau Kruger move her piano around.  If you liked the eclectic soundtrack of "Babel," you're sure to like the music in "Vier Minuten."

Photo source: Cinenews.be. 

Africa (Fleetingly) on Their Minds - Until the Next Summit

In the last seven days

• The European Union hosted its Africa Summit, where the biggest news was Mugabe (and the biggest No Show was Gordon Brown);

• Condoleeza Rice traveled to Addis Ababa prior to her attendance at the NATO Foreign Ministerial;

• General "Kip" Ward, commander of AFRICOM, met with African regional organizations;

• UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon launched a distress call for troop and equipment contributions for the Darfur peacekeeping effort.

Now that the world has paid attention to Africa, we can say that 2007 came and went without Africa being completely forgotten.

Last week the Belgian francophone daily "Le Soir" carried a front page photo opening its coverage of the EU-Africa Lisbon summit.  I'm sorry, but their facile placement of a photo of a little African child, a tear running down his cheek, is the kind of attitude toward Africa that shows only scant evolution since the time of King Leopold's rape of the Congo.

How many times must Africa listen to the West's default position on Africa - patronizing, platitudinous, pandering, preachy, paternalistic - and then compare it to that of China, which invests massively in Africa for base reasons of self-interest.  But at least they don't preach.

I won't try to answer my own question, but here is another conundrum: why, after being called "Africa's First World War," and after the loss of (4 million?) people through guns & machetes, starvation, and AIDS-infected rape...why in God's name is the conflict in the Democratic Republic of Congo relegated to the back pages?  One could simply add the DRC's plight to that of other forgotten African conflicts (Eritrea-Ethiopia; Ethiopia-Somalia; Morocco-Polisario etc.), if it weren't for the (inordinate?) attention paid to the conflict in the Sudanese region of Darfur.  Simply type "Darfur" into Google, and you'll come up with innumerable links to genocide, plus refs to George Clooney, Colin Powell, and a host of other well-intentioned people.  Not to mention the still-imprisoned in Chad French do-gooders from  "l'Arche de Zoe," who mixed up humanitarian intervention with impunity.

At least Condoleeza Rice reminded African leaders of the long-running Congo conflict during her brief visit.

Back to Darfur.   Granted, the Sudanese government appears to be doing everything possible to delay and obstruct the AU-UN-international community effort in Darfur.  But there's the sticky issue of coming up with 24 helicopters to assist the peacekeeping mission.  24 helicopters?  If every one of the 27 members of the EU came up with one each, problem solved.  Ditto for the 26 members of NATO.  Hell, if they can't do it, then the US, with its wonderful rust-free "boneyard" of surplus aircraft at Davis-Monthan AFB in Arizona, certainly can.

Please, no more such silly excuses.

Photo source Alistair Maclean (who says that these Vietnam-era "Hueys - UH-1s - [are] kept here because their sale might precipitate a collapse in the civil helicopter industry."

Americans Against Torture © - My Personal “Persons of the Year”

Photo Source: McClatchy Newspapers

Time Magazine gives everyone their chance to vote for the "Person of the Year" 2007, from a list of ten, including people from J.K. Rowling to Mahmoud Ahmadinajad (I am not kidding).

The little "Copyright" symbol in my "Americans Against Torture" is, unfortunately, whimsical: no such organization exists, though a Gallup poll a couple of years ago showed that a majority of Americans opposed the use of torture: "Gallup pointed out that while President Bush recently said, "We do not torture," most Americans 'think otherwise.'"

Well, if "AAT" doesn't exist, readers near a patent office should feel free to steal the title and band together.  Individually, many Americans have already taken a strong stand against this practice which we all thought had been banned by the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, and the Constitution, not to speak of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Worthy of "Persons of the Year" hall-of-fame-ness:

• Former President Jimmy Carter, our national conscience, spoke out early
• Senator John McCain, himself a torture victim, has legislated valiantly
• General Antonio Taguba, who helped awaken the world to the horrors of Abu Ghraib
• Scott Horton, lawyer-turned-blogger for Harper's & scourge of former Atty. Gen. Gonzales
• Jane Mayer, of The New Yorker, whose "Outsourcing of Torture" is must reading
• Mark Danner, same magazine,  author of "Torture and Truth"
• Joe Galloway*(below), war correspondent, author of "We Were Soldiers Once...and Young"
• Andrew Sullivan, blogger for The Atlantic, showed the Nazi roots of "enhanced interrogation"
• Ariel Dorfman, escapee from Pinochet's torture regime
• The US military JAGS, who drafted the torture-free US Army Interrogation Manual
• The Center for Victims of Torture: CVT used to just help victims of rogue regimes
• Human Rights Watch: world-respected voice based in New York

Well, including Chilean Ariel Dorfman in this list is o.k. if we define "American" in the Hemispheric sense.  He wrote "Death and the Maiden," and teaches in the US.  Ditto for Brit Andrew Sullivan.  Apologies to all the brave opponents of American Torture who don't appear on my list - I know there are many.

I guess people in the Bush Administration who have deemed the Geneva Conventions "quaint" and who refuse to believe that "when Americans do it, it can't be torture" have never learned the lessons of "Do Unto Others" and "What Goes Around Comes Around."  What I can't get is this: didn't they watch movies like Judgment at Nuremberg, The Great Escape, and Bridge on the River Kwai during their formative years and see that it's the Bad Guys who mistreat prisoners, who torture, abuse, interrogate in an "enhanced" fashion?  And that it was exactly that reprehensible behavior that landed Nazi German and Japanese camp chiefs before the international tribunals of the day?

My list shows that there are still people who can distinguish between the Bad Guys and the Good Guys, and they want to be part of the latter's team.  Go ahead and vote, if you want, for Time's laughable list of ten usual celebrity suspects.  But I salute the people and organizations in my (incomplete) list who remember what it is to be a truly patriotic American.

* The last word, from Joe Galloway's recent article in the McClatchy syndicate:

When George W. Bush was the governor of Texas, the state investigated, indicted, convicted and sentenced to prison for 10 years a county sheriff who, with his deputies, had waterboarded a criminal suspect. That sheriff got no pardon from Gov. Bush.

I rest my case.

Bush to Clinton '92: "Here's Somalia;" Bush to Clinton '08: "Here's Iraq"

For those of us who like to mark anniversaries (or at least remember the historical antecedents of what is happening in our world), here's a good one: fifteen years ago this week, in December 1992 (in other words, after he had lost the election to Bill Clinton), President George H.W. Bush committed US troops to Somalia.  With weeks left in his one-term presidency

Bush assures the American people and troops involved that this is not an open ended commitment; the objective is to quickly provide a secure environment so that food can get through to the starving Somalis, and then the operation will be turned over to the UN peacekeeping forces. He assures the public that he plans for the troops to be home by Clinton's inauguration in January.

The deployment of 28,000 US troops was said to be the result of the "CNN-ization" of humanitarian intervention, and led to comedic scenes of peaceful beaches being stormed by fully armored soldiers, filmed by international TV news crews awaiting their arrival.  Less than a year later (the troops were not, of course, sent home before the new president took office), the situation is anything but funny, and after the "Blackhawk Down" episode, President Clinton starts the draw down of American troops.

Fast forward to 2008, and we can take President George W. Bush at his word when he tells us that the commitment of US troops in Iraq "extends beyond my presidency."  Indeed, while the world was watching the Annapolis Conference on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, the Bush Administration set the stage with the Maliki government to bond Iraq and the US forever.  If November 2008 is to be Hillary Clinton's (or Barack Obama's, or John Edwards') big party time, they might want to prepare for the long hangover of extricating US troops from Iraq.  They certainly won't be home by inauguration day 2009.

One place for the rest of us to start considering options is the current issue of Mother Jones magazine.  I recommend buying their December issue, "Iraq Out Now! How?"  It is replete with serious, balanced, scary facts on how even anti-war Democrats won't be able to push a magic "withdraw" button, Presidency or not.

Back to the "Somalia Effect."  Since that fateful encounter between US Army Rangers and Somali warlord irregulars on the streets of Mogadishiu, the US has had an allergic reaction to whatever smacks of "humanitarian intervention" with its own troops in Africa.  True, there have been initiatives ("ACRI" under Clinton, "ACOTA" and "GPOI" and "AFRICOM" under Bush) to train African peace keepers and generally engage with African militaries.  But there has been a general convergence of African reluctance to accept US (and other non-African) troops on the continent, with American reluctance to do anything other than train, equip, and transport.

Whatever "enduring bonds" the Bush Administration and the Maliki government agree to in this last year before the US chooses a new president, chances are that the "Iraq Effect" will kick in once that new president finds a way to end this sad chapter of American history.  Be prepared for another agonizing reappraisal of the Post-Vietnam type.  One thing for sure: the Post-Iraq era is likely to last at least as long.

Sarkozy in Algeria: What Can (and Cannot) Be Said About History

President Sarkozy at Roman ruins of Tipasa (Photo Source: AFP/Le Monde)

It's hard to keep up with "Speedy Sarkozy" (as Le Monde has taken to calling him), or my own appellation controlee "The Energizer Bunny."  I was simply going to refer in this post to Sarkozy's speech on his return from Algiers, but I have to specify: his speech to French and Algerian French veterans on the injustices done over the 45 years since Algerian independence.  Not his speech - very timely, touching, and targeted - to the FARC leader Manuel Marulanda proposing a humanitarian liberation of French/Colombian hostage politician Ingrid Betancourt.

President Sarkozy's visit to Algeria - the first French President to do so who does not have historical baggage through military or governmental service in support of colonialism - was, as the Algiers daily "Liberte" said today, "under the sign of business."  As usual, veteran Algerian political cartoonist Dilem (also of "Liberte") got it right in today's sketch ("After Sarkozy's speech on colonialism, Algerians were relieved; 5 billion euros!"):

There's nothing terribly wrong about a state visit that is a glorified business junket.  In fact, given the sensitivities between former colonizer and colonized, it might be more productive to stay away as much as possible from History.  Sarkozy did, however, make a speech in Algiers where he condemned the excesses of French colonialism as practiced in Algeria from 1830 to 1962, but he shied away from the A-word, and did not issue anything like an "apology" that could give comfort to those looking for a clear mea culpa.

But in my book, Sarkozy's most significant Algeria speech was delivered immediately after his return to France.  Last night he welcomed to the Elysee Palace the associations representing the combat veterans of the War in Algeria and the repatriated harkis (those who weren't repatriated in 1962 were horribly annihilated by their Algerian compatriots) and their descendants.   The harkis (Algerians who joined the doomed effort to keep Algeria French) are the real losers in the whole sad story of, as Alistair Horne called it, the "Savage War of Peace" that was Algeria's fight for independence from 1954 to 1962.  Those who survived the vengeful mobs made it to France, only to be shunted off to isolated camps, sometimes for decades.  Their families, born in France like the millions of other "beurs," were looked upon with scorn as the offspring of traitors.

For a thought-provoking look at how wrenching the harkis' choice of loyalties must have been, look no further than the little-known French-Belgian 2005 film "The Betrayal" ("La Trahison").  This is from Variety's review:

The army destroys a village suspected of collaborating with the FLN and moves the residents to a refugee camp. Torture of Algerian suspects is an everyday occurrence at headquarters.  A notebook falls into the army's hands that seems to prove Taieb and the other Arab soldiers in Roque's unit are double agents, planning to slaughter their fellow soldiers.  It could be an FLN trick to sow suspicion and undermine morale -- or it could be the real deal. If Roque arrests innocent men, he will proving the French Army is racist; but if they really are traitors and he doesn't act in time, blood will be shed.  A less ambitious film might have stuck to watching events unfold from Roque's point of view alone, but here plenty of scenes show the Algerian soldiers talking among themselves, their dialogue in Arabic never quite proving or disproving the accusations against them.  The picture cleverly plays with language to draw out suspense, not just to create mystery for its own sake but to allow the full complexity of the issues to sink in.  The performers deftly sustain the air of ambiguity, and there's a soft-spoken intelligence. Even the battle scenes are quiet...

In Algeria, there is still little or no sympathy for the Algerians (some of whom, like those portrayed in "The Betrayal," were drafted into the French Army) who fought with the French.  Finally, in his speech last night, Sarkozy recognized the "debt" owed to those who joined the French cause, and the justification for "reparations" to make up for the shabby treatment they have received.  As Sarkozy said, "Pour la France, il s'agit aujourd'hui d'une question d'honneur" (no translation required).

Here's my question: when will an American director make a film about the Iraqis who joined the Coalition Forces as interpreters, drivers, or civil affairs advisors?  Or those Iraqis who are so identified to the American occupation that whatever regime follows the inevitable American withdrawal will treat them as traitors?  And what American president will have the guts to speak of "honor" when it comes to taking care of those who - for the second time since the Shiites suicidally heeded George H.W. Bush's call to rise up against Saddam in the aftermath of the liberation of Kuwait - joined this particular American Crusade?

Brussels Transatlantic Institute Conference: Will Annapolis Open Way to a Syrian-Israeli Rapprochement?

Syria was not the central feature of the December 4th "Policy Conference" sponsored by the Brussels-based Transatlantic Institute (which is in turn sponsored by the American Jewish Committee).  I will be returning to the Brussels conference in subsequent posts, but I thought that the discussion of one aspect of the Annapolis Conference - which was largely dissed by most panel members (which included Arabs, Israelis, Europeans, and Americans) for its vagueness and lack of a follow-on work program - deserves special attention.  And that is the matter of Syria and the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.

Historical note: the strategic Golan Heights were occupied by Israel, first in the June 1967 "Six Day War," then expanded during the 1973 Yom Kippur (or, if you are using Arab appellation, the Ramadan War).  In the long years of the Hafez al-Assad reign, there was never any question of Israeli surrender of these 444 square miles since without a serious peace agreement, as it would be tantamount to giving an enemy sniper a roost in your tallest tree.

But things could be changing.  Syria's attendance at the Annapolis Conference, according to the AP's Sam Ghattas, has been

paying off for President Bashar Assad.  The Arab world is treating Damascus more warmly, the sharp criticism from Washington has tapered off and Syria is getting credit inside Iraq for a drop in cross-border infiltration of foreign fighters.  In Lebanon, the army commander approved by Syria nine years ago when it ran Lebanon is edging closer to becoming the new president, after the anti-Syria, U.S.-backed parliamentary majority dropped its candidates and backed him. The about-face, which is expected to preserve Syrian interests, wouldn't have been possible without the thaw in Syrian-U.S. relations.

The article goes on to chronicle a whirlwind of Syrian diplomatic activity, with its Deputy Foreign Minister flying to Iran to reassure its old ally, but also Syrian discussions with Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian Authority.

But it is the Israeli connection that is the most intriguing.  At the Transatlantic Institute yesterday, David Makovsky of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) - whose organization appears to have excellent access to PM Ehud Olmert and others in the Israeli establishment - said that the Israeli Army leadership is among the "biggest cheerleaders" for pursuing a rapprochement with Syria.  The Annapolis agenda of weakening ties between Syria and Iran, Hizbollah, and Hamas is seen very favorably in Israeli circles.  The thinking is that Syria's relationship with Iran, one of almost equals when allies in the Iran-Iraq War of the eighties, has changed considerably for Syria - now definitely the junior partner - and therefore possibly amenable to Israeli overtures.  Interestingly, though the post-Annapolis Syrian mission to Iran allowed Iranian President Ahmadinajad to fulminate against the US and Israel, Syria did not repudiate the Annapolis Conference.

A separate peace between Israel and Syria, a la Israel-Egypt and Israel-Jordan, may be a chimera, especially in the absence of an overall Arab-Israeli peace.  But then again it just could be an obtainable goal, and one that - with tripwires, guarantees, confidence-building measures, etc. - could be made to work.  This optimism over Syrian prospects contrasts sharply with general pessimism over the ability of Abbas and Olmert to come to any lasting solution to the Palestine-Israel dilemma.  More on that to follow.