Lawrence Wilkerson, who was chief of staff at the State Department under Colin Powell, recently wrote,

As the administration authorized harsh interrogation in April and May of 2002 — well before the Justice Department had rendered any legal opinion — its principal priority for intelligence was not aimed at pre-empting another terrorist attack on the U.S. but discovering a smoking gun linking Iraq and al-Qa’ida.

Wilkerson cited the case of detainee Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, whose tortured testimony was crucial for building the case for war, and was cited in Powell’s speech to the UN.

When the interrogation team had reported to Cheney’s office that their detainee “was compliant” (meaning the team recommended no more torture), the VP’s office ordered them to continue the enhanced methods. The detainee had not revealed any al-Qa’ida-Baghdad contacts yet. This ceased only after Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, under waterboarding in Egypt, “revealed” such contacts.

About this case, Human Rights Watch has recently written,

Al-Libi was sent by the CIA to Egypt for interrogation in early 2002. A declassified CIA cable later described how al-Libi told the CIA that the Egyptian interrogators had said they wanted information about al-Qaeda’s connections with Iraq, a subject “about which [al-Libi] said he knew nothing and had difficulty even coming up with a story.”

The cable went on to say that al-Libi indicated that his interrogators did not like his responses and then “placed him in a small box” for approximately 17 hours. When he was let out of the box, the cable states that al-Libi was given a last opportunity to “tell the truth.” When al-Libi’s answers did not satisfy the interrogator, al-Libi says he “was knocked over with an arm thrust across his chest and he fell on his back” and was then “punched for 15 minutes.” It was then that al-Libi told his interrogators that Iraq had trained al-Qaeda operatives in chemical and biological weapons, information that was later used in Colin Powell’s speech to the UN Security Council to justify war with Iraq.

A bipartisan report by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence found that that al-Libi “lied [about the link] to avoid torture.”

The Senate Intelligence Committee knows that al-Libi’s false, tortured testimony was part of Colin Powell’s speech to the UN. Human Rights Watch knows it. Lawrence Wilkerson knows it. And you know it.

But supposedly Colin Powell doesn’t know it. Is this credible?

Journalist Sam Husseini caught Colin Powell outside the Sunday chat shows in DC, and asked him about the al-Libi case and the use of tortured evidence to make the case for war, leading to this breathtaking exchange:

Sam Husseini: General, can you talk about the al-Libi case and the link between torture and the production of tortured evidence for war?

Colin Powell: I don’t have any details on the al-Libi case.

SH: Can you tell us when you learned that some of the evidence that you used in front of the UN was based on torture? When did you learn that?

CP: I don’t know that. I don’t know what information you’re referring to. So I can’t answer.

SH: Your chief of staff, Wilkerson, has written about this.

CP: So what? [inaudible]

SH: So you’d think you’d know about it.

CP: The information I presented to the UN was vetted by the CIA. Every word came from the CIA and they stood behind all that information. I don’t know that any of them believe that torture was involved. I don’t know that in fact. A lot of speculation, particularly by people who never attended any of these meetings, but I’m not aware of it.

“Speculation by people who never attended meetings”? Who is Powell trying to discredit? The Senate Intelligence Committee? Or his own former chief deputy?

With the passage of the war supplemental by the Senate, President Obama and Congress are “doubling down” on war in Afghanistan. Are we - and the Afghan people - doomed to endure many more years of war?

There is no reason that we need be, according to Thursday’s New York Times, which reports that talks between Taliban leaders and Afghan government representatives have accelerated since Obama’s election, and that Afghan officials say they have the tacit blessing of Washington for the talks.

Furthermore, the demands being put forward by the Taliban in the negotiations appear, on the face of it, to be eminently reasonable.

Daoud Abedi, one of the intermediaries in the talks, told the Times he had hammered out a common set of demands between the Taliban and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s group. The groups agreed to stop fighting if those conditions were met, Abedi said.

The first demand was an immediate pullback of American and other foreign forces to their bases, followed by a cease-fire and a total withdrawal from the country over the next 18 months. Then the current government would be replaced by a transitional government made up of a range of Afghan leaders, including those of the Taliban and other insurgents. Americans and other foreign soldiers would be replaced with a peacekeeping force drawn from predominantly Muslim nations, with a guarantee from the insurgent groups that they would not attack such a force. Nationwide elections would follow after the Western forces left.

Is there anything here which appears unreasonable on its face?

- Pullback to bases: this was a demand of the Iraqi government, which the US eventually agreed to a version of.

- Cease-fire: a standard element of any peace plan.

- Timetable for US withdrawal - in Iraq, the US agreed to a timetable for withdrawal.

- Transitional government including insurgent leaders: another standard feature of peace agreements.

- Replacement of Western troops by peacekeepers from Muslim nations: eminently reasonable. Note that many Muslim nations who might be willing to contribute to such a force have very close relations with the United States.

- Guarantee from insurgents not to attack such a force: obviously, a pre-condition of such a force being deployed; Muslim nations wouldn’t deploy their forces unless they believed such guarantees were credible, and if the Taliban reneged on such a deal, it would hurt them very badly politically. Moreover, the Taliban have adhered to similar agreements made in the past, mediated by Pakistan.

- Nationwide elections after departure of Western forces - who could be against that? A standard principle of UN decolonization is that elections should not take place under the auspices of occupying powers.

The Taliban also demand the end of US drone attacks in Pakistan. But since even counterinsurgency expert David Kilcullen says the drone attacks are doing the US more harm than good, and since according to Pakistan they are killing more civilians than militants, it’s hard to see why this should be a deal-breaker.

The talks are significant because they suggest how a political settlement may be able to end the eight-year-old war, the Times says.

Of course, all this is one-half of the negotiation: the Taliban demands. What’s missing for an agreement are the US demands. The US is sure to demand, at the very least, a guarantee from the Taliban about Afghanistan not being a base for attacks on the US; past statements from Taliban officials suggest that such a guarantee might not be very hard to obtain in the context of an agreement. But in any event, the fact that the Taliban are making reasonable demands ought to focus attention on the need for the Obama Administration to get serious about supporting inside-Afghanistan diplomacy.

The signaled position of the Obama Administration has been: we’re not in any hurry for talks, because we want to bloody the Taliban first, so they’ll be more flexible in negotiations. But if the Taliban are already being flexible, perhaps we could skip over the bloodying part - given that for every bloodied Taliban, there are going to be fifty bloodied Afghan civilians - and move straight to meaningful negotiations.

If civilian deaths from U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan were CO2 emissions, perhaps we’d be having a more effective discussion about reducing them.

The pattern seems to be this. When there are complaints about civilian deaths from U.S. airstrikes and night raids, first the Pentagon denies there were any. When civilian deaths are documented, the Pentagon says civilian deaths are regrettable but we are doing everything we can possibly do to reduce them. When the complaints grow too strong to be dismissed in this way, the Pentagon announces that we are taking new steps to reduce civilian casualties (passing over the fact that this contradicts the previous claim that we were doing everything we could before to reduce civilian casualties.)

Then the cycle repeats.

If reducing civilian deaths from U.S. military operations were a priority, it would be a benchmark. After all, according to the repeated statements of U.S. officials, it’s all about “hearts and minds” and securing and maintaining the allegiance of the population. So it seems obvious that an objective benchmark of progress is this regard would be the degree to which civilian casualties are reduced, since it is generally acknowledged that killing people’s friends and relatives is extremely unpopular.

If civilian deaths from U.S. military operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan were CO2 emissions, people would be arguing that we should cap them at a percentage of their current level.

For example: we could tell the Pentagon: each month you have a cap for how many civilians you can kill. The cap is seasonally adjusted, and is equal to, say, 90% of the average for the previous year.

No doubt the idea of a cap for civilian deaths will make some people squeamish. But governments make such calculations all the time; if deaths due to auto accidents, or drug overdoses, were reduced 10%, this would be considered good news. Imposing a cap would kill fewer civilians, so if killing fewer civilians is truly a U.S. goal, this policy would be objectively preferable to the status quo. Call it “harm reduction.”

If the Pentagon reached its monthly quota before the month was out, it would be required to cease offensive military operations for the rest of the month. Since the Pentagon won’t like this, it would give them a strong incentive to stay within their quota all the way along.

If U.S. forces are attacked while they are standing down from offensive military operations because they have reached their quota, of course they could defend themselves. But if they killed civilians while doing so, the civilian deaths would count against the next month’s quota.

Of course, such a plan would require the Pentagon to keep a tally of civilian deaths from U.S. military operations. But that would be a good thing. It’s hard to think of many “metrics” for “success” more worthy than “killed fewer civilians.”

Note that in order for this plan to be successful, it isn’t necessary that the Pentagon’s tally of civilian deaths be totally accurate. In many cases it will have to estimate, because the precise tally of civilian deaths will be in dispute. But what matters here is the trend, and even if the Pentagon systematically underestimates civilian deaths due to U.S. military operations, if it does so in a consistent way, it will have no effect on the plan. Suppose that the Pentagon’s estimate is consistently equal to one-half of the true number: it will still have to reduce future deaths by the same proportion as if its estimate were totally accurate. Indeed, this plan will give the Pentagon an incentive not to low-ball its estimates of civilian deaths, since a low tally today will lead to a smaller quota in the future.

Note that the plan is compatible with, and supportive of, every other means of reducing civilian casualties. It doesn’t “micromanage” the military, any more than “cap and trade” micromanages polluters. It leaves up to the military how to stay under the quota.

And it would incentivize diplomacy. Since taking actions that would lead to more civilian deaths would no longer be an option, U.S. officials would work harder at achieving their objectives by other means.

It would be an exaggeration to say that Congress has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity this week to reform the policies of the International Monetary Fund. If the future is like the past, if Congress misses this opportunity, another one will come along - in about 10 years or so.

This week, House and Senate leaders are meeting in a conference committee to work out the differences between the House and Senate versions of the supplemental appropriations bill. The Senate version of the bill is likely to include $100 billion and new authorities for the IMF, but the House version of the supplemental bill did not include funds for the IMF. The Senate is debating amendments now as I write. The conference committee will almost surely meet soon after Senate passage; the stated goal is to pass the supplemental before the Memorial Day recess.

Concrete, observable reforms of the IMF’s policies in poor countries should be part of any agreement: there should be no “blank check” for the IMF. The IMF is imposing policies in developing countries we wouldn’t accept in the U.S. - when we have a recession, our government spends money to help the economy recover, as we did in President Obama’s stimulus package. When developing countries have a recession, the IMF demands budget cuts. With Democrats in charge in Washington, the IMF - in which the United States has overwhelming influence - should not be imposing Republican economic policies. In particular, the IMF should not be imposing Republican economic policies in Pakistan and Afghanistan, since that fundamentally undermines the quest for political stability in these countries. It’s the height of self-defeating absurdity to appropriate US tax dollars for reconstruction and development in these countries while with the other hand - the IMF hand - we tell them that their governments can’t stimulate their economies.

What happens in the conference process is largely controlled by key leaders on particular issues. Regarding the IMF, what House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senator Chris Dodd, and Congresswoman Nita Lowey do will greatly determine whether the IMF will get a blank check or will have to implement meaningful reforms. In the past, Pelosi, Dodd, and Lowey have been leaders on issues of World Bank and IMF reform, international debt relief, HIV/AIDS, and global health.

If you care about these things, now would be a good time to pick up the phone. If you live in Connecticut, call Senator Dodd: (202) 224-2823. If you’re a constituent of Rep. Lowey in New York, call her office: 202-225-6506. Otherwise, call Speaker Pelosi’s office: (202) 225-0100.

When you speak to the receptionist, you could say something like the following:

“My name is ___________ and I’m calling from _______________[city/state]. In the conference committee on the supplemental, [Speaker Pelosi /Senator Dodd/ Congresswoman Lowey] has the power to be a champion for reform of the IMF’s policies which have limited access to health care and education in poor nations and poor country debt relief. I urge [Speaker Pelosi/Senator Dodd/Congresswoman Lowey] to include language in the conference report that ensures IMF agreements do not impose contractionary, recession-worsening policies as they currently are doing, which is resulting in rising unemployment and the closure of hospitals and schools. Thank you.”

More information can be found here.

[UPDATE: Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio has introduced an amendment (#1161) that would stop the IMF from imposing budget cuts on health and education. Urge your Senators to support it: 202-225-3121.]

Two cheers for President Obama.

President Obama, at the press conference today with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu:

Now, Israel is going to have to take some difficult steps as well, and I shared with the Prime Minister the fact that under the roadmap and under Annapolis that there’s a clear understanding that we have to make progress on settlements. Settlements have to be stopped in order for us to move forward.

In calling for an end to Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank, President Obama is restating longstanding U.S. policy. However, under the Bush Administration, U.S. officials tended to use weak formulations like referring to the settlements as “an obstacle to peace” rather saying explicitly that they should stop. And the statements tended to come from folks like Secretary of State Rice, rather than from the President himself. By making the statement in his press conference with Netanyahu, President Obama underscored the policy.

However, what really matters is giving teeth to the policy. There can scarcely be any reasonable doubt that if the Obama Administration really wants to, it can stop Israeli settlement activity in the West Bank. The U.S. has a great deal of leverage over the Israeli government. The question is whether the Obama Administration will use that leverage.

For example, earlier this month, President Obama sent his FY2010 budget request to Congress and, as expected, included in it $2.775 billion in military aid for Israel, an increase of $225 million from this year’s budget.

This presents the perfect opportunity for the Obama Administration to “put its money where its mouth is.” The Obama Administration could, for example, support conditioning the increase in U.S. military aid on Israeli compliance with a settlement freeze. No-one could plausibly claim that conditioning the increase on compliance with a settlement freeze would “endanger Israel” in any way - even if Israel did not comply with the settlement freeze, and did not receive the increase in military aid as a result, that would leave Israel receiving exactly as much U.S. military aid as it receives now.

But such a move would make clear that the Obama Administration is serious.

Without a settlement freeze, there can be no progress on a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. If President Obama truly wants to see an agreement establishing an independent Palestinian state achieved during his first term in office, now is the time to match words with deeds.

Almost completely lost in the drama over the war supplemental for Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan is a sneaky play by the U.S. Treasury Department to get $108 billion in U.S. tax dollars for the International Monetary Fund through the supplemental. Of course, if Treasury can get the money through the supplemental, it can avoid any Congressional debate over the policies of the International Monetary Fund and whether this is a wise and just use of U.S. tax dollars; and whether Congress should insist on meaningful, observable reforms of IMF policy as the price of new U.S. funding.

After 1980 the IMF became one of the most powerful institutions in the world. The IMF’s power largely derived from the fact that it headed a “creditors’ cartel” that included the World Bank and other multilateral development banks, and as a result developing countries that didn’t obey the IMF’s policy “advice” could face a cut-off of international credit, a powerful disincentive. This power was used to impose an agenda of privatization, cuts in social spending, and removal of policies deemed obstacles to profit by foreign banks and corporations. The power of the IMF in middle-income countries has waned in recent years, as Venezuela, Brazil, Argentina and other countries broke free, repudiating a legacy of policies that failed to promote economic growth and reduce poverty. But in the poorest countries, especially in Africa, the IMF’s abusive reign has largely continued. Now, rich countries are trying to strengthen the influence of the IMF, using the “opportunity” of the global economic crisis - that’s the context of Treasury’s request for more U.S tax dollars.

The House so far has rejected Treasury’s request. Regardless of what one thinks of the IMF, there’s a commonsense, nonpartisan, good government reason not to include IMF funding in the supplemental: funding for the IMF is not an “emergency” and it has nothing to do with funding the wars. The only reason to include funding in the supplemental is to avoid transparency and debate.

But on Thursday the Senate Appropriations Committee went along with Treasury’s request. The Senate is expected to consider the supplemental next week; if the money for the IMF is not stripped out, the question will go to House-Senate conference. In a House-Senate conference, the leverage of Congressional leadership is high and that of rank-and-file legislators is weak, so Treasury may get its way even if the majority of Members of the House wouldn’t support money for the IMF in a freestanding vote.

That would be a terrible shame. The last time there was a vigorous Congressional debate on the policies of the IMF was 1998, over ten years ago. Real reforms - not changes in rhetoric that have no practical consequence but actual changes in policy that one can verify - would have a tremendous impact on the quality of life of millions of people around the world.

In 2000, at the urging of aid groups and the AFL-CIO, Congress passed legislation that required the U.S. representatives at the IMF and the World Bank to oppose any agreement between these institutions and developing countries that required governments to impose school fees on primary education, a policy previously embraced by the World Bank that had kept many children out of school, especially girls. In part as a result of this legislation, the World Bank publicly repudiated the previous policy, and this opened space for many countries to dramatically expand access to primary education.

Today a coalition of NGOs is demanding that as the price for any new U.S. funding, the IMF agree to the following reforms: the IMF must not impose contractionary policies during recessions, or must provide quantitative justification for doing so; the IMF must exempt health and education spending from any government budget caps; parliaments must be given authority to approve or reject deals negotiated between the IMF and finance ministries.

If the IMF will not agree to stop imposing contractionary policies during recessions, or will not agree to stop promoting cuts in education and health spending, then the much-advertised pretense that funding the IMF bears any relationship to helping poor people in poor countries doesn’t pass the laugh test. If we truly want to help poor people in poor countries, there are far better things we can do with $100 billion dollars. Indeed, simply using this money to stimulate our own economy would do far more good for the world, through increasing our capacity to absorb other countries’ exports, not to mention the remittances that flow from our economy to Haiti, El Salvador, and elsewhere, than would increasing the leverage of the IMF to impose austerity.

—

Dear Secretary-General Insulza,

We, the undersigned, are concerned by your recent statements regarding the April 19 Senate elections in Haiti. Your claim that the elections were “part of an invigorated and persistent democratic exercise … contributing to the institutional consolidation of that country” overlooks the fact that the great majority of eligible Haitian voters seem to have boycotted the election due to the unjustified absence of the largest political party, Fanmi Lavalas (FL), from the ballot. Far from being characterized by mere “indifference,” as you described it, the low turn out was a sign of the widespread support for the boycott. The election was also marked by various disruptions that prevented people from voting. Some current senators and leaders from across Haiti’s political spectrum have called for the April 19 election to be invalidated due to the poor turnout and exclusion of FL. We therefore call on the OAS to revise its line on the April 19, 2009 Senate elections in Haiti, and instead support the holding of new elections.

When the disqualification of FL candidates from the ballot was announced, the international community promptly denounced it as a threat to democracy. The U.S. government[1], the Canadian government[2], the UN[3], and you yourself[4], all issued statements voicing concern in advance of the election. Although the denounced irregularities were never corrected, the denunciations disappeared as the election approached.

Eliminating the party most likely to win elections – in this case, FL - should not be done except for a very good reason, and through a well-explained, transparent process. Haiti’s Provisional Electoral Council (CEP) gave neither a good reason nor used a transparent process for disqualifying FL. There were a number of aspects of the process that made it seem arbitrary and irregular. First, the CEP imposed a requirement on these elections it did not impose in previous elections. Candidates were allowed to run in 2006 as Fanmi Lavalas without a signature from President Aristide, even though the party had announced that it was not participating in those elections. Second, the CEP did not even follow its own procedures for reviewing candidates: under the rules, the Departmental offices first rule on the candidates, then the CEP rules if there is an appeal. In this case, the CEP ruled directly on all of the candidates’ eligibility. Third, the CEP moved the goalposts, imposing different requirements as the process continued.

The CEP’s requirement that FL obtain the signature of party leader, Jean Bertrand Aristide, was especially unfair, considering Aristide’s unique circumstances. As you know, the United States has repeatedly expressed its opposition to Aristide’s return to Haiti. This was made clear in 2004, when, after flying Aristide to the Central African Republic (a voyage that Aristide says he did not make willingly), the Bush administration stated that it not only did not want Aristide in Haiti, it did not even want him in the Western Hemisphere[5]. When Aristide did return to the Caribbean, to Jamaica, briefly in March 2004, US Ambassador to Haiti James Foley condemned the trip, warning that Jamaica was “taking on a risk” by accepting Aristide, albeit briefly[6]. Foley’s words were understandably perceived as a threat by Jamaica and by Caricom. Then-acting charge d’affaires Timothy Carney reiterated the position following Haiti’s 2006 elections when he stated, “There has never been any doubt about the U.S. position on Aristide’s return since Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was here last autumn and said he was a man of the past.”[7]

Since Aristide is half a world away, exiled to another continent under international pressure, FL officials obtained his signature via fax. This also was rejected by the CEP as insufficient.

Other FL leaders have been kept intimidated, especially former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune and Amanus Maette, by the threat of arrest in cases hanging over their heads indefinitely. Neptune’s situation has been particularly outrageous, as the Inter-American Court found the Government of Haiti was violating his rights in regards to the trumped up charges against him, and ordered the government to stop persecuting him last June. The government has refused to comply with this ruling.

It is also worth noting that these arbitrary decisions to keep FL candidates off the ballot were made by a Provisional Electoral Council with no constitutional mandate to oversee these elections. [8]

As the electoral authorities proceeded with the elections, despite the controversy and international statements of concern, FL called for a boycott of the elections. This is an understandable response in light of the facts which you have previously acknowledged, and the resulting poor turnout is proof of the effectiveness of the boycott. It appears that the majority of eligible voters either honored the boycott by not casting ballots, or were prevented from voting due to irregular circumstances.

The April 19 voting was also marred by a number of irregular circumstances. Many polling stations were closed due to protests. As the Associated Press reported, “Voting for one of 12 vacant seats in the rural Central Department was canceled on election day after protesters raided polling places and a poll supervisor was shot.” Some Port-au-Prince voters were unable to reach the polls after authorities halted transportation.
These events have understandably led some in Haiti to question the election’s legitimacy. AP cites Radio Kiskeya reports that “At least four senators have said the election should be invalidated because of the poor turnout and are threatening to vote against seating the winners.” Many candidates of other political parties said the elections had no legitimacy.[9]

The CEP decision not to allow the FL candidates continues a pattern of years of political persecution of FL party leaders, activists, and members which started with the removal of the constitutional government, continued with the killing of thousands, physical and sexual assaults on many others[10], and the wrongful imprisonment of hundreds, including prominent FL leaders such as former Prime Minister Yvon Neptune, former Interior Minister Jocelerme Privert, Annette “So Anne” Auguste, and Father Gerard Jean-Juste (who was prevented from running in the 2006 elections on the FL ticket by the CEP, as he was imprisoned on trumped-up charges at the time[11]). Even since Preval’s election, political persecution against FL has continued, with well known FL leader, Lovinsky Pierre Antoine kidnapped and possibly “disappeared” in 2007, shortly after announcing his intention to run for the Senate (which the government never effectively investigated, according to the UN and Amnesty International[12]) The bogus “La Scierie massacre” case hanging over Neptune’s and Deputy Amanus Maette’s heads (in which opposition groups at first claimed that more than 50 people were killed by Aristide supporters in a February 11, 2004 incident, but investigators and reporters have only been able to confirm that three to five people were killed in a clash between pro- and anti-Aristide groups[13]), and the continued imprisonment of Ronald Dauphin and other FL political prisoners.

These events mark a shameful and dark period in Haiti’s history, and characterized the interim government of Haiti (2004-2006) as a blatant human rights abuser and an anti-democratic regime, in addition to being an unconstitutional and illegal one.[14]

In light of these circumstances, we believe that democracy in Haiti can only proceed when all parties are represented, and can only fail when the largest party, FL, is blocked from the ballot. Rather than endorse runoff elections and the eventual seating of Senate candidates resulting from an irregular and unrepresentative election, the OAS should support free and fair elections with all candidates represented on the ballot – including those from the most popular political party. To this end, we call on the OAS to revise its line on the April 19, 2009 Senate elections in Haiti, and instead support the holding of new elections.

Sincerely,

Brian Concannon Jr., Esq.
Director
Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti

Fritz Gutwein
Haiti Reborn Coordinator
The Quixote Center

Nicole Lee, Esq.
Executive Director
TransAfrica Forum

Mark Schuller
Assistant Professor
York College, City University of New York

Mark Weisbrot
Co-Director
Center for Economic and Policy Research

Robert Naiman
Senior Policy Analyst
Just Foreign Policy

References:

[1] Jacqueline Charles, “40 barred from Haitian Senate race — including Lavalas slate.” Miami Herald, February 7, 2009. (http://www.miamiherald.com/579/story/892401.html) Accessed May 1, 2009.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Associated Press. “UN tells Aristide party to fight in Haiti election,” March 14, 2009. (http://www3.whdh.com/news/articles/world/BO107518/). Accessed April 30, 2009.
[4] Organization of American States. “Insulza Expresses Concern Over Haitian Situation And Calls For Calm Among Political Actors.” Press Release, February 7, 2009. (http://www.oas.org/OASpage/press_releases/press_release.asp?sCodigo=E-029/09) Accessed April 30, 2009.
[5] Statements by then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, then-Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and other administration officials to this effect are cited in Democracy Now!, “Defying Washington: Haiti’s Aristide Arrives in Jamaica.” March 15, 2004. (http://www.democracynow.org/2004/3/15/breaking_news_br_democracy_now_broadcast) Accessed May 1, 2009.
[6] Democracy Now!, 2004.
[7] Carol J. Williams, “`Belgian Option’ Helped Avert Crisis in Haiti.” The Los Angeles Times. February 19, 2006.
[8] See Concannon, Brian. “Haiti’s Stealth Elections: What’s At Stake?” Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti, December 8, 2006. “Every one of Haiti’s elections over the last nineteen years has been run by a Provisional Council. All but the first of those Councils was chosen through a formula not recognized by the Constitution. And all but the first of the elections they ran was contested by the losing parties, who challenged (with good reason) the Provisional Council’s legitimacy.”
[9] Candidates who have challenged the election’s legitimacy include Marie-Denise Claude of the Fusion of Social Democrats (FUSION), David Bazile of the Party of National Unity (PUN), Lespwa candidate Moise Jean-Charles, General Secretary of the Union party, Chavane Jeune, Independent Candidate Ronald St. Jean, and Victor Benoit, President of the Fusion of Social Democrats, among others.
[10] See Kolbe, Athena R, MSW, and Royce A Hutson, "Human rights abuse and other criminal violations in Port-au-Prince, Haiti: a random survey of households." The Lancet, September 2, 2006. Vol. 368 No. 9538 pp 864-873.
[11] Ben Ehrenreich. “Haiti’s Hope.” LA Weekly, April 14, 2006.
[12] Amnesty International, “Document - Haiti: Appeal Case: Lovinsky Pierre-Antoine is still missing.” January 28, 2008. Index Number: AMR 36/003/2008 (http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/AMR36/003/2008/en). Accessed May 4, 2009.
[13] Peter Hallward, Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide, and the Politics of Containment (Verso, 2007), pp. 159–60.
[14] The process by which the interim government of Haiti was installed in 2004 violated articles 129, 137, 138, 149, and 155 of Haiti’s constitution. Interim Prime Minister Gerard Latortue was ineligible to assume his post under additional articles regarding his lengthy of residency in Haiti; Latortue had been living in the United States (article 157 of the Haitian constitution) prior to accepting the office of Prime Minister.

Despite the common belief that Members of Congress won’t take action now because Afghanistan has been perceived as “the good war,” or because Congressional Democrats think we should all hold back and give the new guy a chance, Members of Congress are starting to speak up.

Representative Jim McGovern is working to attach an amendment to the supplemental that would require the administration to develop an “exit strategy” from Afghanistan and report that strategy to Congress by the end of the year. At the level of rhetoric, at least, the idea that an exit strategy is needed doesn’t want for prominent supporters - President Obama himself told CBS’ “60 Minutes” in March that “There’s got to be an exit strategy.” But the President’s request for funds - like any budget, a planning document - does not provide any exit strategy. Representative McGovern’s proposed amendment already has at least three dozen supporters. If Members of Congress hear from their constituents this week, the McGovern amendment will gain Congressional support.

Thanks in large measure to the advocacy of Representative Barbara Lee, the current version of the supplemental bans the use of funds for “for the purpose of establishing any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Afghanistan.” If this provision is becomes law it would be a statement of U.S. policy and could be used to constrain future appropriations. Similar language on Iraq is already U.S. law. Last July Walter Pincus noted in the Washington Post that Congress was rejecting military requests for construction funds in Iraq suspected of being long-term while approving them in Afghanistan.

Peace Action is working to get Members of Congress to demand information about and justification for the continuation of U.S. air strikes in Pakistan and Afghanistan. As Peace Action’s Paul Kawika Martin notes, only a handful of Members of Congress and their staffs have been briefed on air and drone strikes, and there are no non-classified reports on their efficacy. Yet counterinsurgency expert David Kilkullen has told Congress that U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan are destabilizing the Pakistani government and should be stopped, and the Washington Post reports that some senior U.S. officials think the Pakistan drone strikes “have reached the point of diminishing returns.” Meanwhile, recent U.S. airstrikes in Afghanistan may have killed civilians on a scale unprecedented in Afghanistan since 2001. It’s long past time for Congress to speak up about air and drone strikes in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

If you want Congress to assert itself on these issues, Tuesday is the time to call.

Until this week, it seemed like the conventional wisdom in Washington was that stopping U.S drone strikes in Pakistan was outside the bounds of respectable discussion.

That just changed. Or it should have.

Writing in the Los Angeles Times, Doyle McManus notes that counterinsurgency guru David Kilcullen has told Congress that U.S. drone strikes in Pakistan are backfiring and should be stopped. Until now Congress has been reluctant to challenge the drone strikes, as they are reluctant in general to challenge “military strategy,” even when it appears to be causing terrible harm. But as McManus notes, Kilcullen has unimpeachable Pentagon credentials. He served as a top advisor in Iraq to General Petraeus on counterinsurgency, and is credited as having helped design the Iraq “surge.” Now, anyone in Washington who wants to challenge the drone strikes has all the political cover they could reasonably expect.

And what Kilcullen said leaves very little room for creative misinterpretation:

“Since 2006, we’ve killed 14 senior Al Qaeda leaders using drone strikes; in the same time period, we’ve killed 700 Pakistani civilians in the same area. The drone strikes are highly unpopular. They are deeply aggravating to the population. And they’ve given rise to a feeling of anger that coalesces the population around the extremists and leads to spikes of extremism. … The current path that we are on is leading us to loss of Pakistani government control over its own population.”

Presumably, causing the Pakistani government to lose “control of its own population” is not an objective of United States foreign policy.

McManus says there’s no sign that the Obama Administration
is taking Kilcullen’s advice and Obama administration is unlikely to abandon “one of the few strategies that has produced results.” But a Washington Post report suggests otherwise:

Although the missile attacks are privately approved by the Pakistani government, despite its public denunciations, they are highly unpopular among the public. As Zardari’s domestic problems have grown, the Obama administration last month cut the frequency of the attacks. Some senior U.S. officials think they have reached the point of diminishing returns and the administration is debating the rate at which they should continue.

Since it is manifestly apparent that 1) the drone strikes are causing civilian casualties 2) they are turning Pakistani public opinion against their government and against the U.S. 3) they are recruiting more support for insurgents and 4) even military experts think the strikes are doing more harm than good, even from the point of view of U.S. officials, why shouldn’t they stop? Why not at least a time-out?

Why shouldn’t Members of Congress ask for some justification for the continuation of these strikes? The Pentagon is asking for more money. It’s time for Congress to ask some questions.

There have been hints in the press that the Obama Administration has been considering conditioning U.S. aid to Israel on a real freeze of Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank. There’s a conventional wisdom that suggests that doing this would touch a “third rail of politics.” But the conventional wisdom might not have been accurate; if it once was accurate, it might not be accurate any more.

WorldPublicOpinion.org has just released a poll showing that three-quarters of Americans oppose Israeli settlement expansion in the West Bank. This number is up 23 points from 2002.

Even among respondents who say they sympathize with Israel more than the Palestinians, 64% say Israel should not build settlements in the West Bank.

Opposition to settlements is found among majorities of Democrats, Republicans, and independents. Those who followed the issue closely oppose settlement expansion by the same margin as those who don’t.

Some may say: public opinion doesn’t matter. What matters, they may say, is that the so-called “Israel Lobby” will effectively punish any politician who tries to shift U.S. policy towards Israel and the Palestinians.

But the Obama Administration has already proved that this isn’t necessarily so.

The Los Angeles Times reports:

The administration has asked Congress for minor changes in U.S. law that would permit aid to continue flowing to Palestinians in the event Hamas-backed officials become part of a unified Palestinian government.

Secretary of State Clinton defended the administration’s position before Congress. She noted that

the United States supports and funds the Lebanese government, even though it includes members of Hezbollah, another militant group on the U.S. terrorist list.

Reps. Nita Lowey and Mark Kirk objected. But as the Jewish Telegraphic Agency notes,

Significantly, however, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Shultz (D-Fla.), a pro-Israel stalwart, defended Clinton in a call organized by the National Jewish Democratic Council to mark the first 100 days of the Obama administration.

“The unity government itself will have embraced those principles,” she said. “The most important priority for members of Congress is to support Israel and to move the peace process forward.”

If the Obama Administration can shift U.S. policy towards engaging in some form with Hamas, then surely it can shift policy towards moving the U.S. from ineffective to effective implementation of its stated policy of opposition to Israeli settlement expansion, as it is virtually universally recognized that stopping Israeli settlement expansion is an absolutely necessary element of achieving a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict - just as it is virtually universally recognized that some form of engagement with Hamas will be necessary to achieve a two-state solution in the long run, and to get effective aid into Gaza in the short run.

Moreover, if the U.S. would get serious about stopping Israeli settlement expansion, it could help fundamentally alter the political dynamics in Israel. Israel’s right-wing has grown accustomed to the notion that Israel can indefinitely go through the motions of a “peace process,” while steadily expanding settlements in the West Bank in the hopes of making a Palestinian state impossible. If the U.S. puts an end to this game, it will empower the political forces in Israel who genuinely want a two-state solution - who, on this question, represent the majority of the Israeli population.