Mia Farrow: “virtual hostage”

Irony alert
Those familiar with Farzaneh Milani’s path-breaking literary analysis will recognize the phrase “hostage narrative,” a term she has been devloping over many years to apply to that best-selling genre of politically tinged “true stories.” In these “hostage narratives,” women writers who are now “liberated” or “un-veiled” tell the world of their past “cultural captivity” in their native, usually Muslim lands.
In this genre, as Professor Milani documents, the line between “fact” and “fiction” gets lost, as those sympathetic to the “message” focus only on the cause served. It’s a great way to sell books and a shrewd way to “heat up” the political culture to support bombings and invasions to “liberate” the presumed hostages. Thus the sequel:
“Reading Lolita while bombing Tehran.”
(And oh by the way, are women now better off in today’s de facto Islamic Republic(s) of Iraq than they were under Saddam? Where’s columnist Ellen Goodman been on that?)
Veteran actress Mia Farrow now takes the “hostage narrative” to a new, virtual realm, with her over-the-top offer to exchange herself for the “freedom” of a Sudanese “dissident” rebel leader and Darfur advocate, Suleiman Jamous. Depending on the source you read, Jamous is a “virtual prisoner” who cannot leave a UN hospital and/or cannot leave the country for medical treatment.
To Sudan’s President, Ms. Farrow writes,

Mr. Jamous is in need of a medical procedure that cannot be carried out in Kadugli… Mr. Jamous played a crucial role in bringing the SLA to the negotiating table and in seeking reconciliation between its divided rival factions.
I am… offering to take Mr. Jamous’s place, to exchange my freedom for his in the knowledge of his importance to the civilians of Darfur and in the conviction that he will apply his energies toward creating the just and lasting peace that the Sudanese people deserve and hope for.

How curious. Ms. Farrow’s “courageous offer” to become a female hostage in a Muslim land is a recognizable stroke of p.r. brilliance. It’s getting widespread softball media treatment in the US, as anything supporting the long-suffering Sudanese Darfuris is “hip” in the US and must be “a good thing.” And besides, she’s a UNICEF goodwill ambassador, and what’s the harm — particularly if it helps focus the international microscope back on unresolved Sudanese nightmares? (US international broadcasting has been prominently featuring Ms. Farrow’s offer too….)
Ms. Farrow of course knows there isn’t a chance the Sudanese government will take her up on her offer to become a “hostage.” What a p.r. disaster for them that would be!
In her best acting yet, Ms. Farrow professes to the media the sincerity of her wish to be a real hostage. Indeed.
We’ll likely have to settle for Ms. Farrow keeping a journal for enthralled admirers of her “ordeal” as a surreal hostage-in-waiting – a “virtual hostage” on behalf of a “virtual prisoner.”
Oh the drama. I feel another best-seller in the works, no doubt for a worthy cause. (Aren’t they all? Though perhaps in Mia Farrow’s case, the title, “Not Without My Daughter” might be a bit inappropriate…..)
So what’s next? Hundreds, if not thousands, of Darfur activists on college campuses signing up to join Mia as “virtual hostages?” eh? Me & Mia? No doubt that’s too harsh.
I hear Ms. Farrow’s next movie will be a comedy.

Bush vs. Karzai

Sometimes a simple pairing of quotes speaks volumes. Case in point – Presidential comments about Iran by Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai and America’s George Bush.
Yesterday, Karazai appeared on CNN’s Late Edition. Karzai bluntly conceded that “the security situation in Afghanistan over the past two years has definitely deteriorated.” Karzai also affirmed as “exactly true” US General David Rodriguez’ assessment there has been a 50-60% increase in foreign fighters comings into Afghanistan from Pakistan over the past year.
By contrast, Karzai contradicted recent US (and media) contentions that Iran has likewise been a growing source of trouble in Afghanistan:

BLITZER: “The U.S. ambassador in Afghanistan, William Wood, suggested in June that Iran is playing a significant role in the security situation in Afghanistan as well. “There is no question,” he said, that weaponry of Iranian types has been entering Afghanistan for some time in amounts that make it hard to imagine that the Iranian government is not aware that this is happening.” Is Iran directly involved in the security situation — the deteriorating
security situation in Afghanistan?
KARZAI: We have had reports of the kind you just mentioned. We are looking into these reports. Iran has been a supporter of Afghanistan, in the peace process that we have and the fight against terror, and the fight against narcotics in Afghanistan. Iran has been a participant in the — both processes. They then have contributed steadily to Afghanistan. We have had very, very good, very, very close relations, thanks in part also to an understanding of the United States in this regard, and an environment of understanding between the two, the Iranian government and the United States government, in Afghanistan. We will continue to have good relations with Iran. We will continue to resolve issues, if there are any, to arise.
BLITZER: Well, is Iran a problem or a solution as far as you are concerned? Are they helping you or hurting?
KARZAI: Well, so far Iran has been a helper and a solution.”

Nothing new in that, really, as Karzai (and former key Bush Administration officials like Flynt Leverett) have long been more positive about Iran’s disposition towards Afghanistan since 9/11. Yet Karzai’s reiteration of a positive view of Iran flatly presents a problem for the Bush Administration as it rolls out the Iran-on-the-march bogey to justify massive new arms sales to the Saudis.
Consider then Bush’s intense response today to a question about Karzai’s comments:

Q “President Karzai said yesterday that he believed Iran was playing a helpful role in Afghanistan. Was he able to convince you in your meetings that that was the case, or do you still have concerns about Iran’s role?…
PRESIDENT BUSH: It’s up to Iran to prove to the world that they’re a stabilizing force as opposed to a destabilizing force. After all, this is a government that has proclaimed its desire to build a nuclear weapon. This is a government that is in defiance of international accord, a government that seems to be willing to thumb its nose at the international community and, at the same time, a government that denies its people a rightful place in the world and denies its people the ability to realize their full potential.
So I believe that it’s in the interests of all of us that we have an Iran that tries to stabilize, not destabilize; an Iran that gives up its weapons ambitions. And therefore, we’re working to that end. The President knows best about what’s taking place in his country, and of course, I’m willing to listen. But from my perspective, the burden of proof is on the Iranian government to show us that they’re a positive force.”

In other words, for the Bush Administration, the Iranians must prove a negative, that they’re not up to “no good” in Afghanistan – never mind what an otherwise close American ally like Karzai has to say on the matter.
While he was at it, Bush threw in a bone for the “regime change” crowd:

“And I must tell you that this current leadership… is a big disappointment to the people of Iran. The people of Iran could be doing a lot better than they are today. “

Another clarion call from the black kettle to the pot…. Such rhetorical bombast helped Iran’s President Ahmadinejad get elected in the first place. But no matter.
Not seriously interested in inconvenient evidence to the contrary, President Bush retreats to the all-too-familiar neocon script on Iran:

“But because of the actions of this government, this country is isolated. And we will continue to work to isolate it, because they’re not a force for good, as far as we can see. They’re a destabilizing influence wherever they are.”

Preach it.

More on the US’s nuclear-use posture

This is additional info on whether the US has or doesn’t have a meaningful “no-first-use” posture regarding the use of nuclear weapons, a topic I wrote about briefly here, earlier today.

A good friend sent me this link, which is to a page on the Nuclearfiles.org website dated April 1995, that presents the nuclear-use posture of all five of the recognized nuclear-weapons states. For the US it says this:

    The United States reaffirms that it will not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapons States parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons except in the case of an invasion or any other attack on the United States, its territories, its armed forces or any other troops, its allies or States towards which it has a security commitment, carried out or sustained by such a non-nuclear-weapon State, in association or alliance with a nuclear-weapon State.

This is not an unqualified No First Use statement, though it goes some way to providing the negative security assurances (to non-nuclear states) that are required as part of the NPT’s “Grand Bargain.”
On that web-page, the positions presented by Russia, the UK, and France all look very similar to that one.
China’s NFU position is, by contrast, far less hedged-about and equivocal. It is this:

    China undertakes not to be the first to use nuclear weapons at any time or under any circumstances. China undertakes not to use or threaten to use nuclear weapons against any non-nuclear-weapons states or nuclear-weapon-free zones at any time or under any circumstances.

I was disapppointed that that web-page did not give any sources or links for these statements. So I did a little more online research and came up with these resources, which considerably enrich (and substantially change) the picture:
1. Global Security has, on their website, excerpts from a leaked copy of the Nuclear Posture Review of 2001-2002 that was presented to Congress on 31 December 2001 by Secdef Donald Rumsfeld. Given the stature and reputation of Global Security, I am assuming these are accurate excerpts from the document in question, which has never been made fully public.
It includes the following quotes:

    — p.7: “Nuclear weapons play a critical role in the defense capabilities of the United States, its allies and friends. They provide credible military options to deter a wide range of threats, including WMD and large-scale conventional military force. These nuclear capabilities possess unique properties that give the United States options to hold at risk classes of targets [that are] important to achieve strategic and political objectives.”
    — pp.12-13: “Composed of both non-nuclear systems and nuclear weapons, the strike element of the New Triad can provide greater flexibility in the design and conduct of military campaigns to defeat opponents decisively. Non-nuclear strike capabilities may be particularly useful to limit collateral damage and conflict escalation. Nuclear weapons could be employed against targets able to withstand non-nuclear attack, (for example, deep underground bunkers or bio-weapon facilities).”

I will note the following:

    a. He was stating explicitly that the US nuclear force could be used to deter threats from non-nuclear forces, including both CW or BW threats as well as “large-scale” non-WMD forces. I.e., the US under President George W. Bush does NOT have anything resembling a “no first use” policy.
    b. He was saying the US could even use nukes against “political” objectives. What does that mean??
    c. Planning to use nuclear weapons as part of broader military operations aimed at defeating an enemy is considerably different than planning to use nuclear weapons only as a deterrent against other country’s use of nuclear– or even non-nuclear– weapons.

2. The Joint Chiefs of Staff’s ‘Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations’ of March 2005(advanced draft.) This document was originally scheduled for publication in October 2003, but it became repeatedly delayed. In around September 2005, the people at the Nuclear Information Project got hold of an advanced draft dated March2005. So did the WaPo’s Walter Pincus, and Hans Kristenson of Arms Control Today.
After Pincus and Kristenson wrote about the DJNO document– which called for the first time for the use of US nuclear weapons in a pre-emptive strike (i.e., in line with Bush’s National Security Strategy of September 2002)– the Senate Armed Services Committee called a hearing on the matter, and publication of the final version of the document was abruptly cancelled.
As the Nuclear Information Project people wrote, though,

    Does the cancellation mean that U.S. nuclear policy has changed? No. The decision to cancel the documents simply removes controversial documents from the public domain and from the Pentagon’s internal reading list. The White House and Pentagon guidance that directs the use of nuclear weapons remains unchanged by the cancellation.

3. Retired US arms control negotiator Jack Mendelsohn’s mid-2002 analysis of the 2001-2002 Nuclear Posture Review is also really useful.
He writes:

    The document… singles out five countries that could be involved in “immediate, potential or unexpected” contingencies [i.e., requiring some form of US nuclear operations]: North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria and Libya. North Korea and Iraq are characterised as “chronic military concerns.” All five are considered to “sponsor or harbor terrorists, and all have active WMD and missile programs.”
    In addition, the NPR lists China as a country that could be involved in an “immediate or potential” contingency and, while a nuclear strike contingency involving Russia “is not expected,” Russian nuclear forces and programs “remain a concern.” Carrying forward the arguments of the Clinton administration for it’s ‘hedge’ force, the NPR cautions that in “the event that US relations with Russia significantly worsen in the future, the United States may need to revise its nuclear force levels and posture.”
    Keeping open the option to use nuclear weapons in other than a deterrent or retaliatory role is not new. Since at least the Gulf War and during the Clinton administration, the United States has embraced a dual and contradictory policy on nuclear weapons use. The President, through the Secretary of State, declared in 1978 and reaffirmed in 1995 in connection with the review and extension of the 1970 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), that the United States – joined by the other four declared nuclear powers – would not use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states party to the NPT unless they are allied with a nuclear state in an attack against the United States or its allies.
    The National Security Council (NSC) and the Defense Department, on the other hand, believing that deterrence is strengthened by ambiguity, have for some time taken the position that “no options are ruled out” in response to an attack by any weapon of mass destruction. In 1996, NSC official Robert Bell, in conjunction with the US signature of the Protocols to the African Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone (ANWFZ) Treaty, announced that US adherence “will not limit options available to the United States in response to an attack by an ANWFZ party using weapons of mass destruction.” In late 1998, Walter Slocombe, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, stated that retaining the option to use nuclear weapons against an attack with chemical and/or biological weapons “is simply an issue of making sure that we continue to maintain a high level of uncertainty or high level of concern, if you will, at what the potential aggressor would face if he used [CBW] or indeed took other aggressive acts…”
    The latest round in this policy tango occurred earlier this year when in February Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security John Bolton called into question the utility of and administration support for the US pledge not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states.22 Questioned about Bolton’s comments, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher reiterated the most recent version of the negative security commitment (1995) and then added: “We will do whatever is necessary to deter the use of WMD against the United States, its allies, and its interests. If a WMD is used against the United States or its allies, we will not rule out any specific type of military response.”

So I guess I still stand substantially by what I wrote earlier this morning. The US has never been prepared to adopt a clear and unequivocal “no first use” policy (though the declaration of 1995 was a partial step in the right direction.)
These days, of the “Recognized Nuclear Five”, it looks as if only China has an unequivocal NFU policy.

    Update, 9:57 p.m.:

More resources, adduced here because said good friend did refer specifically to Robert McNamara:
4. Robert McNamara writing in Foreign Policy mag, May/June 2005:

    The United States has never endorsed the policy of “no first use,” not during my seven years as secretary [of Defense] or since. We have been and remain prepared to initiate the use of nuclear weapons—by the decision of one person, the president—against either a nuclear or nonnuclear enemy whenever we believe it is in our interest to do so.

5. Robert McNamara, “Defense Arrangements of the North Atlantic Community,” Department of State Bulletin 47 (July 9, 1962), pp. 64-70. Republished here:

    We shall continue to maintain powerful nuclear forces for the alliance as a whole. As the President [JFK] has said, “Only through such strength can we be certain of deterring a nuclear strike, or an overwhelming ground attack, upon our forces and allies.”

Etc., etc.

Hillary Clinton’s irresponsible hawkishness on nukes

Hillary Clinton yesterday outdid herself in trying to appear “tough” on foreign affairs when she refused to rule out the use of nuclear weapons against Osama Bin Laden or other terrorist leaders in Afghanistan or Pakistan.
The WaPo’s Anne Kornblut wrote there that,

    Clinton’s comments came in response to Obama’s remarks earlier in the day that nuclear weapons are “not on the table” in dealing with ungoverned territories in the two countries, and they continued a steady tug of war among the Democratic presidential candidates over foreign policy.
    “I think it would be a profound mistake for us to use nuclear weapons in any circumstance” in Afghanistan or Pakistan, Obama said. He then added that he would not use such weapons in situations “involving civilians.”
    “Let me scratch that,” he said. “There’s been no discussion of nuclear weapons. That’s not on the table.”
    Obama (Ill.) was responding to a question by the Associated Press about whether there was any circumstance in which he would be prepared or willing to use nuclear weapons in Afghanistan and Pakistan to defeat terrorism and bin Laden.
    “There’s been no discussion of using nuclear weapons, and that’s not a hypothetical that I’m going to discuss,” Obama said. When asked whether his answer also applied to the possible use of tactical nuclear weapons, he said it did.
    By the afternoon, Clinton (N.Y.) had responded with an implicit rebuke. “Presidents should be careful at all times in discussing the use and nonuse of nuclear weapons,” she said, adding that she would not answer hypothetical questions about the use of nuclear force.
    “Presidents since the Cold War have used nuclear deterrents to keep the peace, and I don’t believe any president should make blanket statements with the regard to use or nonuse,” Clinton said.

It is well known that– ever since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, almost exactly 62 years ago today– the US has never been prepared to state openly that it would “not be the first to use” nuclear weapons. Russia, and before that the Soviet Union, did have an explicit “no first use” stance.
The US’s stance therefore leaves open– or, as US pols like to say, “on the table”– the possibility that the US might use nuclear weapons in response to somebody else’s non-nuclear attack.
But to leave “on the table” the possibility that the US might use nuclear weapons against terrorists??? This is even more shocking, and seems to reveal that neither Hillary Clinton nor any of the other pols who adopt the same, striving-to-be-tough stance, basically have no idea about the nature of nuclear weapons or the consequences of their use.
The use of even what the US calls “tactical” nuclear weapons would be devastating for a wide area around the detonation site. And upon using any nuclear weapon in such circumstances, the US would also immediately lose just about all credibility as a leader of any moral standing in the world.
Barrack Obama is quite right to say that the use of nukes should not be on the table in the discussion of combating Al-Qaeda or other terrorists.

Body blow to Iraq’s Potemkin Government?

I’ve been locking myself down writing my new book. (Two chapters almost finished!) But I couldn’t help noticing the reports (e.g. here) about the (mainly Sunni) Iraqi Accord Front having now left Iraq’s Potemkin Government.
‘Potemkin’, because it doesn’t actually do anything that governments by definition do, such as provide solid basic services to the citizenry– especially public security. This body is, however, occasionally pulled out of hiding to “appear” to be doing something. For example, we were told on NPR today that President Bush had a lengthy discussion with “Prime Minister” Maliki by videolink, in which they discussed affairs of state together.
But the fact that the IAF pulled out of the Potemkin Government at the very same time Sec of State Rice and Sec of Defense Gates have been visiting Saudi Arabia and other Gulf Arab countries, urging them to give a bit of support to the said “government”, shows the degree of ineffectual chaos into which the US’s Iraq policy has fallen.
It is quite clear that no-one in the Bush administration has the foggiest idea of how to identify and pursue any policy in Iraq that has any chance of “winning”. Actually it is far too late for that now. There is no such policy any more.
But still, the exit from Iraq can be managed with either a greater or lesser degree of intelligence, and therefore of orderliness and predictability for everyone concerned– Americans, Iraqis, and neighbors of Iraq. And the way this administration is lurching around the region these days, it seems less and less likely that they will be able to manage even a drawdown/withdrawal of forces without making major blunders.
I think “lurch” will have to be one of the major ways in which the historians of the future describe the tenor of the Bushites’ whole engagement with Iraq. They lurch like cognitively impaired drunkards from one side to another, with no stable center of understanding, realism, or political principle to steady them or help pull them forward. They arm the Shiites, then they arm the Sunnis. They blame the Iranians, then they blame the Saudis. They publicly scold the Saudis for failures in Iraq– and then within hours of that they say they’ll be relying on them to help give political legitimacy to Maliki’s Potemkin Government.
The one constant through all their lurchings around the Middle East? Their propensity to look at every problem as a military problem, and at every relationship as one that can easily be strengthened or manipulated through arms transfers. Hence, their main legacy in the region thus far is one of distrust, tensions, anti-Americanism– and also, massive arming.
Oh well, I need to get back to my book. But before I do that, I’ll just note that, on reflection, it may well be that, inasmuch as the Maliki government is only a Potemkin Government, not the real thing– and certainly not one that controls any functioning levers of state power!– then whether the IAF leaves it or stays in may not actually make any difference. Not because the IAF isn’t important, but because the Maliki government is not the real thing.

Meet the Evangelical Zionists

This is a brilliant short video by Max Blumenthal, shot during the recent big meeting held in Washington DC by a big Evangelical organization called Christians United for Israel (CUFI).
Blumenthal, who’s Jewish, goes to the conference in the role of naive reporter. He gets some great footage of an interview with recently disgraced GOP Speaker of the House of Representatives Tom DeLay, and of him (MB) questioning CUFI head “Pastor” John Hagee about whether he really thinks– as written in one of his books– that the Jews have only themselves to blame for all the times they’ve been persecuted.
The “vox pop” discussions with CUFI members in the hotel lobby are really revealing… Also, the extremely scary parts where you see a large roomful of people swaying and dancing– one even doing a cheerleading-type hop– with Israeli and US flags clasped to their breasts… And we see two uniformed soldiers, one in US camo and the other in Israeli camo and a prayer shawl, come up to the front and salute each other. Religion, ecstasy, and militarism all tied up together in one big package.
I believe that use of a US forces uniform in such a context is actually illegal?
And yes, the vox pop people do talk a bit about how “the Muslims” are “the enemy.”
Then– Joe Lieberman!! I had read some of the disturbingly fawning remarks he made there about Hagee, before. But to see him make them on the video… Well, I am almost speechless.
I think it’s been the case for a while now that the Christian Zionists– who have very, very long roots in this country– have been a stronger base of support for Israel here than the Jewish-American Zionists. And of course, given that the beliefs of many of these Evangelical Zionists are that at the time of “Armageddon” all the Jews will either become converted to Christianity or get consumed by fire, there are many Jewish Americans who are still fairly wary about the Evangelicals’ strong support for Israel.
The game plan for these Evangelicals (as also laid out lovingly in their extremely well-selling though in practice almost unreadable novels about “the End Time”) is that first, the Jewish people all need to be “ingathered” into Israel, and then soon after there will be “Armageddon” and the “Second Coming.” And along the way there, there’ll be great fighting against “Babylon” (or Baghdad) and perhaps even some nuclear war…
But it’s all– from these people’s very scary point of view– in a good cause.
I want to note that I know that not all Evangelical Christians in the US are like these ones. I have a number of Evangelical friends who are deeply committed to social-justice causes including to the pursuit of just peace between Palestinians and Israelis. However, sadly, so far it seems to be the well-organized Christian Zionists among them who seem much stronger than the other lot.
Meanwhile, huge kudos to Max Blumenthal and his videographer Thomas Shomaker for making this great and informative little piece of live-reporting video. (Did I tell you they got kicked out of the conference toward the end of the movie. I wonder what they missed? No matter. What they got was excellent.)

Nuclear disarmament, as well as nonproliferation

Late in June, on the last day that Tony Blair was in office in Britain, his Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett made a notable speech at the Carnegie Endowment in Washington in which she called on both the US and Russia to make deep cuts in their nuclear arsenals.
Beckett recalled that at the heart of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1970 there was a “grand bargain” between the recognized nuclear-weapons states and the non-nuclear states, under which the nuclear-weapons states undertook to engage in complete and general disarmament, in return for the non-nuclear states foreswearing the pursuit of nuclear arsenals. And she noted the key linkage this established between nuclear (non-)proliferation and nuclear disarmament:

    Our efforts on non-proliferation will be dangerously undermined if others believe – however unfairly – that the terms of the grand bargain [between nuclear and non-nuclear states] have changed, that the nuclear weapon states have abandoned any commitment to disarmament.

This is an excellent point to make– though I don’t currently see any need for that caveat about “however unfairly”. So here are my two main questions about the Beckett speech:

    1. To what extent did the position she laid out actually reflect anything about the positions to be taken by the soon-to-take-over government of Gordon Brown?
    2. Which people of similar political stature within the US are equally ready to speak out publicly about the need for nuclear disarmament?

Regarding the first of those questions, I detected a faint echo of the “Beckett position” in the speech that new Foreign Secretary David Miliband made for Chatham House and Avaaz.org earlier this week. (Video from Avaaz, here.) Miliband spoke quite a lot there about nuclear nonproliferation, and the need to achieve this in cooperation with other countries, etc.– all pretty boiler-plateish stuff, really, unless you come from a John Bolton-like position of rampant unilateralism.
But he did also say at one point:

    We need to find similar ways of leading thought on other areas, whether this is concrete and immediate challenges such as nuclear disarmament and proliferation or longer term challenges such as the future of global institutions…

So I guess what I’m seeing there is that he thinks nuclear disarmament is a concrete and immediate challenge (and one that may be linked to nuclear proliferation)– but it is still only something we need to find ways to start thinking about, not something we actually need to do anything about at this point?
And it was indeed quite appropriate that Miliband didn’t commit his government to doing anything about nuclear disarmament right now… Especially since, as Paul Rogers has laid out at depressing length here, the Brown government last Wednesday announced plans:

    1. “to allow the US base at Menwith Hill in north Yorkshire to become a key component in the new national missile-defence system Washington is now developing” [maybe that should be a global missile-defence system? ~HC] and
    2. “to build two huge new aircraft-carriers for the Royal Navy, much bigger than any other ship the country has ever deployed… The military purpose of the two new carriers is to give Britain a global expeditionary strike capability that it has lacked for decades… ”

Yes, certainly depressing.
Rogers notes, too, that the new carrier-building program is intimately linked to the program had Blair started, to upgrade and replace Britain’s arsenal of Trident, submarine-launched nuclear missiles. He analyzes Brown’s decisions in these fields at some length, noting that the timing of the two announcements, “was in the best tradition of British democracy: in a familiar pattern for decisions that governments seek to ‘bury’, they arrived at the end of the parliamentary session as MPs prepare to leave for the summer recess, thus ensuring an absence of debate and (in the main) media discussion…”
He comments,

    What is really dismaying at this early stage of the Gordon Brown government is the missed opportunity to take a hard look at Britain’s defence policy and engage in a fundamental review of the country’s long-term security needs. Instead, it seems that in this key area of Whitehall – notwithstanding the rhetoric of change from the new prime minister – it is business as usual.
    There is a remote possibility that wiser counsel will prevail, perhaps after the next election…

And talking of elections, here we are in the United States, and what do our presidential candidates here have to say about nuclear proliferation and nuclear disarmament?
On the Democratic side, both Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Gov. Bill Richardson have articulated what look to me like excellent positions.
Kucinich’s, as expressed here is as follows:

    It is practical to work for peace. I speak of peace and diplomacy not just for the sake of peace itself. But, for practical reasons, we must work for peace as a means of achieving permanent security. It is similarly practical to work for total nuclear disarmament, particularly when nuclear arms do not even come close to addressing the real security problems which confront our nation, witness the events of September 11, 2001.

And Richardson’s, as expressed on his own website here, is this:

    Getting all nations to agree to a stronger nonproliferation regime will require skillful diplomacy and new thinking. Which brings me to the second task: the nuclear states must stop making new weapons and must reduce the size of their existing arsenals.
    The Non-Proliferation Treaty commits non-nuclear states to forego nuclear weapons, and it also commits the nuclear weapons states to the goal of nuclear disarmament. To get others to take the NPT seriously, we need to take it seriously ourselves. We should re-affirm our commitment to the long-term goal of global nuclear disarmament, and we should invite the Russians to join us in a moratorium on all new nuclear weapons. And we should negotiate further staged reductions in our arsenals, beyond what has already been agreed, over the next decade.
    In a world in which nuclear terrorism rather than war with Russia is the main threat, reducing all nuclear arsenals, in a careful, orderly way, makes everyone safer.
    Negotiations to reduce our arsenal also are our diplomatic ace-in-the-hole. We can leverage our own proposed reductions to get the other nuclear powers to do the same — and simultaneously get the non-nuclear powers to forego both weapons and nuclear fuel enrichment, and to agree to rigorous global safeguards and verification procedures.
    The United States also should ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, not only because it is good policy, but also to send a signal to the world that America has turned a corner, and once again will be a global leader, not a unilateralist loner.

Richardson has considerable experience in the nuclear-weapons field. In the Clinton administration he occupied at different times the positions of both Ambassador to the UN and Secretary of Energy. The latter position involves a lot of oversight over the country’s nuclear arsenals. I am really delighted that he has adopted the clear and persuasive position that I read there.
But how about the two Democratic front-runners, and how about the main Republican candidates for president?
With a fairly rapid search, I have been unable to find any noteworthy statements any of those others have made on the topic of real nuclear disarmament (i.e., including by our side), as such.
If any of you readers out there can find good records of these other candidates’ positions on the topic, could you post a link to it here? Thanks!
Also, another point. When citizens or journos get a chance to ask questions of all these candidates in the weeks ahead, shouldn’t we all be asking them some very well-phrased questions about the need for “all-points” nuclear disarmament?

A UN maritime policing role in the Gulf?

I’ve just been writing a sidebar text on “Outcomes in Iraq and the Gulf” for my new book. The book is about the big-picture, slightly longer-term global fallout from the US’s ongoing debacle in Iraq, so that’s why in Chapter 1 Iraq and the Gulf get only a sidebar.
Anyway, I was thinking in particular about the possible range of outcomes that the US’s notable overstretch-and-later-defeat in Iraq might have on the geopolitics of the Gulf region. And the more I think about it, the more likely it seems to me that the outcome for the US’s until-now strategically dominant position in the Gulf will be analogous to the outcome that ensued there (albeit in a long-drawn-out way) from Britain’s notable similar (strategic) defeat in Egypt, in 1956.
Regarding Britain, until 1956 it seemed generally uncontested by any other significant world powers that Britain would keep a sizeable naval presence “east of Suez”, including its bases in Hong Kong, Aden, etc; and also that it would keep its position as the dominant naval power in the strategically vital Persian/Arabian Gulf.
In 1956, Anthony Eden notably overplayed Britain’s hand and joined with France and Israel in the tripartite invasion of Egypt’s Suez region. Those invasion/occupation forces were not driven out of Suez (and Sinai and Gaza) primarily through by the national liberation actions of the local people. But they were forced to withdraw completely from those areas under US pressure, in the broader global context of the US muscling into many third-world areas to displace the previous European colonial hegemons (and also, in the context of the US placing huge pressures on the Soviet Union to withdraw the troops it had sent into Hungary against the locally-based uprising there.)
Be that as it may… Eden’s participation in the Suez affair marked the beginning of the end for Britain’s ability to maintain its own robust naval presence east of Suez. Over the 14 years that followed Britain was able to conclude political arrangements with the local leaders of the city-states along the southern coast of the Gulf who had previously supported Britain’s naval presence there: these “emirs” were given “national independence” over their city-states, and thus we saw the emergence of the “states” of Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, and for the seven even smaller local emirs, who banded together in something called the United Arab Emirates…
The US Navy was meanwhile increasing its abilities to maintain a strong naval presence in the Gulf; and essentially what happened was that as the exhausted crews of the Royal Navy steamed home, the bigger ships of the US Navy glided into the waters they had left.
That all took quite some time to happen, though. 14 years to be precise. The Gulf’s littoral (coastline) states had very little say in the matter.
So now, what might be the range of things that we see in the Gulf in the years after the exhausted US ground forces exit from Iraq?
I’d like to underline here something I think I should start stressing a bit more, namely that the longer the US government delays its withdrawal from Iraq, the worse– from the point of view of “the US national interest”, as it has traditionally been conceived, though not necessarily from the viewpoint of the actual, longterm interests of the US citizenry– will be the general strategic terms on which it is able to undertake this withdrawal.
That is, after all, the nature of quagmires, imbroglios, and imperial overstretch in general.
So I think we should all look rather seriously at the idea that the UN should plan to build and deploy a maritime policing capacity for the Gulf, and that that may well be the very best outcome. It seems highly anomalous that the US– which is half way around the world from this Gulf– should arrogate to itself the “right” to police the whole Gulf area. The only other current even near-contender for this role is Iran, which is overwhelmingly the most strategically weighty of the littoral states. Actually, though, looking at my copy of The Military Balance, I see that the Iranian Navy looks fairly puny. It has three Kilo-class submarines, three frigates, three corvettes, and few much smaller vessels…
More to the point, though, there would be numerous significant states, both in and far beyond the Gulf, that would strongly distrust Iran’s commitment to running a fair and safe maritime security regime in the whole Gulf. Hence, my suggestion that we should think of building the UN’s capacity to do this job.
I’ll just note here– as I noted in the sidebar I wrote this morning– that the littoral states of the Gulf, as well as everyone else around the world who is connected to the world oil market, all have a shared interest in the Gulf and its approaches being well policed. The Gulf states need to export their oil and to import the many other necessities of daily life on which they have become dependent– and the oil-importing countries need those sea-lanes open, too. So from one point of view, thinking of the UN having the maritime policing responsibility seems like an obvious solution.
On the other hand, the UN has never done anything like this before. So the capacity would have to be built up over a number of years. Who could contribute? All the littoral states should have some good contribution, according to their capacities. Beyond there, South Africa has quite a lot of experience in this field. So do a number of European and Asian powers.
(I just saw this piece in Asia Times in 2004, in which Eric Koo was suggesting a very similar UN maritime-policing role in South East Asia. He was wrong, though, I think to describe the UN as “a centralized, neutral body with considerable naval capabilities”. Neutral– arguably so. But centralized? Having considerable naval capabilities? I don’t think so!)
I also saw this entry on Maritime Security Regimes in Wikipedia. The author gives a little bit of good basic background. But s/he concludes, “the dearth of literature on Maritime Security Regimes, particularly maritime policing, International Agreements and Interstate Maritime Cooperation suggests more research is required.”
Indeed.

Mapping and the will to power

Today I was looking at this map on Wikipedia:
Image:Unified Command map s.jpg
(You can click on the map for a larger version of it. Or click here for an even better (5 MB) version.)
At one level, this map is not remarkable at all. It was produced in, I think, 2002, by the US military’s National Imagery and Mapping Agency, and it simply shows the way the various “regional commands” of the US military divide the world up amongst themselves for the purposes of their planning and operations. Thus, it shows the areas that come under “Pacific Command”, “Central Command”, and so on.
For an update, you can go to this little (also clickable) pair of maps:
Image:USAFRICOM United States Africa Command Map Draft .jpg
On it, you can see how the DOD is thinking of allocating the responsibility for most of Africa to a brand-new “Africa Command”, and what that command’s borders will be. (H’mm. I wonder if they had a big tussle among them, there in the Pentagon, over who “wins” control over Egypt? According to that latter map, it stays with Centcom, while Sudan and the whole Horn of Africa including Kenya get wrestled out of Centcom’s hands and allocated to the new Africom…)
At another level, though, these maps are completely outrageous and mindblowing!
Who in China do you think ever gave “permission” to the Pentagon to put the whole of their country squarely under the letters “USPACOM”? Who in Brazil or Peru gave permission for their countries to fall under the letters “USSOUTHCOM”?
Russia, you will see, has been restored not to its full former red glory– but it has been shaded in the delicate pink of USEUCOM. Reminds me of the old days, growing up in England, when so many of the old maps in our country also had a huge number of the world’s countries tinted pink, for “British Empire.”
Ah, talking of pink for British Empire, let’s look at this little (clickable) map:

It’s a reproduction of “Africa 1892” from something called Gardiner’s Atlas.
Quite a lot more complex than the “UASAFRICOM” map, you’ll notice. But the same land-mass. And descendants of the very same poor-bloody-Africans are still living there in that same terrain that’s getting divided up among outside powers with no-one seriously asking their permission.
Back in the 1880s and 1890s, it wasn’t the different branches of the US military who, arguing among themselves for bigger budgets and more flying space, had laid those lines on distant parts of the world as they laid claim to them. Instead, it was the “concert” of European powers who at the Berlin Conference of 1884-85 daintily tinted huge parts of Africa pink (for Britain) and others grey (for France), orange (Germany), yellow (Portugal), or whatever.
Note that Congo (though not “French” Congo) was described on Gardiner’s map as “Congo Free State”, and marked a sort of aqua color denoting “independent.” Belgium’s King Leopold II must have been falling about laughing to see how he’d hoodwinked ’em all! Because he was at that very time running the whole darn country as his own, personal rubber-extraction plantation, and in the course of that inflicting genocidal mega-deaths on the country’s people…
Anyway, I guess my larger point is this. Mapping places and indeed other loci of knowledge is very frequently an essential concomitant to, or precursor of, the exercise of raw power.
Back in the 1980s, when I was doing graduate studies in strategic affairs at the University of Maryland, it was always kind of taken for granted that the US had somehow gotten into a position where it “had to” manage all these cumbersome strategic alliances with other powers around the globe… in its quest to “keep the international peace”.
Nowadays, though, I think its is either outrageous or hilariously funny, the idea that this one tiny country with less than 5% of the world’s people should even imagine it has the right to paint the colors of its various different “strategic commands” all over other everyone else’s countries around the world! One thing this situation certainly is not, is “natural”. It is in every way extremely un-natural, not to mention inherently unstable.
As a pacifist, too, I’d like to make the argument that this situation of the US pushing its military bases ways out beyond our own borders and into so many other different countries around the world, and George W. Bush asserting that the US has the right to use military force unilaterally and “preventively” wherever it pleases, are both manifestations of the reductio ad absurdum of the whole theory of “legitimate self-defense.”
Enough already! There really is a better way to assure the security and wellbeing of our citizenry than continuing with this arrogance and folly.

My new book: Help with mapping and other graphics

I wrote here about the new book project I’m currently working on. I’d really like any help any of you can give (or link to) regarding production of good graphics for it.
Yesterday, I figured out some fairly good chart-creating tools– on Excel and from the “Createagraph” website. So that’s good: pie-charts, bar graphs, here we come!
Today I’m a bit stuck on maps. Primarily, I’d love to find a good clear outline map of the whole world on which I could overlay either a few lines (as in, these lines regarding how the US military overlays its operational planning on the whole world) or perhaps some text-boxes, as in, texts relating to the numbers of people from each continent killed through armed violence since 2000, or numbers of people living in poverty in each continent, or whatever.
Nice to be able to put such info onto the shape of a clearly recognizable world map, don’t you think?
Note: all these graphics must look good and clear in black and white!
Any suggestions, friends?