Connecting the DOP Dots
By Sean Gonsalves, AlterNet
Posted on March 9, 2007, Printed on March 12, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/49038/

Of course the people don't want war. But after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger. -- Nazi commander of the Luftwaffe, Hermann Goering

Back in the 1940s B.G. (Before Goering) they used to call it the War Department. Now, it's the "Defense Department," which is kinda ironic considering that our current SecDef is presiding over a pre-emptive war launched under false pretenses against a nation that had nothing to do with 9/11.

It was one big Neo-Con job with Scooter the latest "friendly-fire" casualty of Bush hawks out-of-balance world view. All yin. No yang.

And no Department of Peace (DOP), as Thomas Jefferson's homies, Benjamin Banneker and Benjamin Rush, were calling for way back in 1782.

Banneker, a celebrated African-American inventor and scientist, and Rush, a medical doctor who signed the Declaration of Independence and helped expedite the Lewis and Clark expedition, proposed a Peace Department, while the first GW talked about the need to establish a West Point-like Peace Academy.

A century and a half later, Dr. King posed two prophetic questions. Nonviolence or nonexistence? And, where do we go from here? -- which, was the title of his last book and a powerful critique of the war of his time.

Last week, I said not enough peace advocates are focusing on the details of the most important war-and-peace question: how do we get from 'here' to 'there?'

Thankfully, there's organizations like The Peace Alliance, made up -- not of mere idealists -- but forward-thinking realists who support Congressman (and presidential candidate) Dennis Kucinich's legislation to establish a DOP.

The basic idea is to "establish nonviolence as an organizing principle of American society, providing the U.S. President with an array of peace-building policy options for domestic and international use," explains Matthew Albracht, managing director of The Peace Alliance.

If you're not familiar with long and successful history of nonviolent methods or just love chugging down gallongs of Hater-ade, you'll be rolling your eyes and asking questions like: Aren't there existing agencies whose duties include components of the DOP legislation? - as if that weren't true of the Department of Homeland Security before Bush created it.

The Peace Alliance short answer to these ahistorical inquiries is: "The establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency by Richard Nixon did not begin our commitment to the environment, yet it raised it to a much higher level of national priority. And so should it be with the interests of peace."

Another red-herring is the claim that the DOP is really a ruse to replace the military with peaceniks. Congressman John Conyers, a DOP bill co-sponsor, points out that "sometimes force is needed to protect our vital interest ... a Peace Department would be a partner, not an alternative, to the Pentagon."

In fact, a DOP would train peacekeepers to deal with the aftermath should war be necessary, "creating teams on the ground to help rebuild an emotional and psychological foundation to create a stable system in the war-torn region." Military strategists are talking about the same things, though they use different jargon.

In Thomas P.M. Barnett's "Blueprint for Action: A Future Worth Creating" -- a far cry from pie-in-the-sky pacifism and well-received among wonks and military officers -- he analyzes the "Core" states, like the U.S., and "failing" states who fill "the Gap."

"When a military intervention does occur, these adversaries simply do their best to lie low and wait out our mighty blow, knowing that they can do little about its impact ... in this way, they conserve their resources for the real fight ahead: our subsequent halfhearted attempts to impose peace and civil order."

That's what Gen. Petraeus was talking about last week when he said: "any student of history recognizes that there is no military solution to a problem like (guerrilla insurgencies) in Iraq."

Though I have deep disagreements with Barnett, he does offer some important observations. "As we take on new nation building challenges with regularity, our manpower requirements for waging peace will skyrocket."

If folks are serious about "shrinking the Gap" and winning this global war on terrorism, Barnett argues, then what he envisions as "our SysAdmin force" (peace-waging force) will have to "dwarf our Leviathan (traditional military) force."

Check out the question Barnett is raising: "Where will we find the civilians to join this SysAdmin force -- this pistol-packin' Peace Corps?... I seriously doubt that, absent a dedicated cabinet-level department, America's effort to shrink the Gap will succeed over time."

This "waging peace" talk also has striking parallels with Nobel prize-winning economist Amartya Sen's 1999 book arguing for the need to see "development as freedom" in dealing with nations filling Barnett's "Gap."

Connect the dots. Shrink the Gap. Development as Freedom. Department of Peace.

That's how to get from 'here' to 'there.'

Sean Gonsalves is a Cape Cod Times staff reporter and a syndicated columnist.

© 2007 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/49038/

CAIR vs. Human Rights
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | March 12, 2007

The St. Petersburg Declaration, issued at the Secular Islam Summit in St. Petersburg, Florida, last week, is the most comprehensive and forthright statement of Islamic reform anyone has yet managed to come up with. Instead of denying the existence of the elements of Islam that are being used around the world today to incite violence and justify oppression – as do all too many putative Islamic reformers and moderates – the St. Petersburg Declaration is firmly rooted in reality, and evinces no interest in fashionable evasions or political correctness.
Confronting directly the elements of Islamic Sharia law that are at variance with otherwise generally accepted principles of human rights, it affirms “the inviolable freedom of the individual conscience,” in contrast to the Muslim prophet Muhammad’s dictum, “If somebody (a Muslim) discards his religion, kill him” (Bukhari 4.52.260), and calls upon governments to “oppose all penalties for blasphemy and apostasy.” It declares, “We believe in the equality of all human persons,” cutting against the Qur’anic observation that non-Muslims are the “the worst of created beings” (98:6) and that “Muhammad is the messenger of Allah. And those with him are hard against the disbelievers and merciful among themselves” (48:29).

Challenging the jihadist aspirations to establish a unified Islamic state under the rule of Sharia, the Declaration states: “We insist upon the separation of religion from state and the observance of universal human rights…. We call on the governments of the world to reject Sharia law, fatwa courts, clerical rule, and state-sanctioned religion in all their forms…”

Anticipating criticism, the Declaration adds: “We see no colonialism, racism, or so-called ‘Islamaphobia’ in submitting Islamic practices to criticism or condemnation when they violate human reason or rights.”

But some do – notably the Council on American Islamic Relations. CAIR’s Ahmed Bedier huffed, “In order to have legitimate reform, you need to have the right messengers.” In an editorial, Investor’s Business Daily gave the perfect response to this: “And who might that be? The four CAIR executives who have been successfully prosecuted on terrorism-related charges? The CAIR co-founder who said the Quran should replace the U.S. Constitution as ‘the highest authority in America’?”

Bedier complained that the Summit was funded by “neoconservatives,” and objected to the Secular Islam Summit because it featured many ex-Muslims, including Ibn Warraq, Wafa Sultan, and Nonie Darwish. But CAIR’s opposition to the Summit may offer one hint as to why they felt they had to leave the fold. As Tawfik Hamid, author of The Roots of Jihad, told Bedier on the Glenn Beck show, “The truth should be independent of whoever says it.”

That simple fact seems to have eluded CAIR, as it eludes so many these days. Its denunciations of the Secular Islam Summit have focused on speakers there, not on the message. And unfortunately, no journalist has had the presence of mind or the courage to ask any CAIR official point-blank what he or she actually thinks of the content of the St. Petersburg Declaration.

The Council on American Islamic Relations bills itself as “America’s largest Islamic civil liberties group” and claims that “its mission is to enhance the understanding of Islam, encourage dialogue, protect civil liberties, empower American Muslims, and build coalitions that promote justice and mutual understanding.” The mainstream media and even many government and law enforcement officials accept it as a moderate group. CAIR officials have worked with the FBI and other organizations at the highest levels.

Yet suspicions persist about the group, due not only to the terror convictions of several of its former officials and the questionable statements of some of its spokesmen, but because it always seems to be on the opposing side of anti-terror efforts, as well as of any honest attempt to examine and reform the elements of Islam that jihadists are using to justify violence today.

In light of all that, the St. Petersburg Declaration offers CAIR a golden opportunity to demonstrate the genuineness of its claim to moderation. Since Hamid’s dictum that the truth is independent of the identity of the speaker is manifestly true, CAIR should declare its support for the St. Petersburg Declaration. Shouldn’t a dedicated and sincere group of Islamic moderates jump at the chance to go on record opposing “all penalties for blasphemy and apostasy,” as well as opposing “female circumcision, honor killing, forced veiling, and forced marriage”?

Shouldn’t CAIR gladly and without hesitation endorse a statement calling for protection of “sexual and gender minorities from persecution and violence” and the elimination of “sectarian education that teaches intolerance and bigotry towards non-Muslims”? Isn’t CAIR dedicated to protecting “civil liberties”? And as for the developing of “an open public sphere in which all matters may be discussed without coercion or intimidation,” wouldn’t such a public atmosphere help CAIR “encourage dialogue” and “build coalitions”?

What’s not to like? CAIR need not worry that endorsing the St. Petersburg Declaration will lead anyone to think they are associated with the “neoconservatives” behind the Summit. But such an endorsement would go a long way toward reassuring people that CAIR is indeed what it presents itself to be, and not a group whose goals are, in fact, quite different from those of the St. Petersburg Declaration.

Reporters should be asking Nihad Awad and Ibrahim Hooper this week: do you endorse the St. Petersburg Declaration? And if not, why not? Don’t tell us, gentlemen, what you think of the people involved. Tell us what you think of the principles expressed and statements made. We are listening. Let the dialogue begin.

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March 12, 2007
Op-Ed Contributor
Slobodan Milosevic’s Last Waltz

By RUTH WEDGWOOD
Washington

EVEN from the grave, Slobodan Milosevic roils the international system. When he was alive, his violence in the Balkans required NATO to intervene twice. He swaggered on the stage of the Dayton peace negotiations. And even after he was bundled off to a United Nations court to stand trial on charges of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity, Mr. Milosevic tried to convert his criminal defense into a political rant to be shown nightly on Serbian television. The trial meandered for four years, and both the presiding judge and Mr. Milosevic died before a final verdict could be returned.

Now the skeleton’s waltz has turned one more time around the dance floor. This round brings us the ruling of the International Court of Justice, in a civil suit that should never have been brought if its result was to be so meager.

In 1993, Bosnia sued Serbia in the International Court of Justice, sometimes known as the World Court, for planning, abetting and committing genocide in the Bosnian conflict. Bosnia argued that the Serbian militias’ sniping and bombardment of civilian enclaves, torture and assassination of detainees, and ultimately, slaughter of more than 7,000 Muslim men and boys at Srebrenica, amounted to genocide.

Last month, the court dismissed Bosnia’s case on almost all counts. The judges sitting in Andrew Carnegie’s peace palace in The Hague held that the Serbian campaign of violence and ethnic cleansing against Bosnian Muslims could not constitute genocide. The only actionable instance of genocide, said the court, was the wholesale execution of prisoners at Srebrenica in 1995, and even there, Serbia was not adequately implicated in the crime’s commission.

This is a remarkable result. It’s true that Srebrenica woke the West from its stupor and brought NATO military action. But the ethnic conflagration had already raged for three years, with countless acts of nationalist violence aimed at expelling Muslims from the north, south and east of Bosnia. Yet the International Court of Justice shrinks from recognition, failing to explain why the deliberate slaughter of civilians in the riverside town of Brcko in 1992, or the torture and execution of Muslim civilians in Foca, were legally different in kind from the Srebrenica murders.

The court does lay one misdemeanor at Serbia’s doorstep: Belgrade failed to take steps to “prevent” the genocide at Srebrenica. For this, the court says, no damages are due. But that passive fault fails to account for Belgrade’s robust program of financing, equipping and supporting criminal militias like Arkan’s Tigers and the Gray Wolves, as well as the forces that specialized in leveling Muslim villages.

The court’s judgment has broad implications. It amounts to a posthumous acquittal of Mr. Milosevic for genocide in Bosnia. Though he planned to divide the country in two, in a scheme devised with Croatia’s president, Franjo Tudjman, and engineered the strategy of violent ethnic cleansing, the court concluded that this did not amount to a campaign to destroy the ethnic group of Bosnian Muslims in whole or in part, for he was just pushing their reduced numbers somewhere else. As a law student might suppose, it will take years of study to understand how that could be true.

Worse yet, by saying that only the Srebrenica massacre amounted to genocide, the International Court of Justice limits the charges that can be effectively brought against the Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, if Belgrade at last allows them to be arrested.

It is hard to say why the court did not step back from these dire consequences. But there were both technical missteps and political snares in its judgment.

First, the World Court rejected the standard of vicarious liability used in the United Nations criminal tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. In applying the Geneva Conventions to the Bosnian fighting, the criminal court early concluded that Belgrade’s support was enough to make major portions of the conflict into an international war.

But the International Court of Justice chides the United Nations criminal court for offering an opinion on an issue of “general” international law like state responsibility and, despite more than 10 years of settled criminal case law, rejects the criminal court’s conclusion. This sibling rivalry between international courts has been gently called “fragmentation.” It does not bode well for any coherent jurisprudence.

The World Court also insists that unless Belgrade gave “direct orders” for particular operations or the Bosnian Serbs were “completely dependent” on Belgrade, there is no liability at all. This will be a surprise to scholars of ordinary tort law, who are accustomed to supposing that responsibility for wrongdoing can be shared.

Though the court claims to be acting on the basis of a 1986 decision in a case pitting the United States against Nicaragua, the law has moved on since then. Indeed, the court’s lackadaisical standard is at odds with United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373, passed in the wake of Sept. 11, which says that no state has a right to provide any intelligence, logistics or financing to terrorist activities.

Second, the International Court of Justice applies the demands of criminal proof to a civil case. The judges insist that even for civil liability, proof against Belgrade has to be “fully conclusive” and “incontrovertible,” with a level of certainty “beyond any doubt.” This standard is well known when the jail door will shut, but it exceeds the demands of civil liability. And in trying to meet this standard, the court declines to draw any adverse inference against Belgrade, even though the documents it turned over to the court were heavily redacted.

Third, the International Court of Justice has a small jurisdictional embarrassment. After the NATO military intervention in Kosovo, Serbia went to the United Nations war crimes prosecutor to complain about NATO’s war fighting methods. The prosecutor concluded that there was no basis for a criminal investigation of NATO. Serbia then sued various NATO states in the International Court of Justice. These suits were dismissed on the ground that Yugoslavia was no longer a member of the United Nations and hence had no plaintiff’s right of access to the court.

But reasons cut both ways, argued Belgrade, and disqualification as a plaintiff could also protect Serbia as a defendant in Bosnia’s civil action. Lingering doubts about jurisdiction may have diminished the court’s willingness to make more rigorous findings of liability in the Bosnian genocide case.

To be sure, the International Court of Justice has held that the Genocide Convention requires Serbia to surrender criminal suspects like Mr. Karadzic and General Mladic, who are wanted by the United Nations war crimes tribunal. But this is a redundant finding, for the legal authority of the Security Council already requires that surrender. It is not a substitute for clarity about Serbia’s role.

It is all to the good that Serbia may soon rejoin Europe. But it does not facilitate that reunion to disguise what happened in the past.

Ruth Wedgwood is a professor of international law at the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University

Shocking and poignant., January 3, 2007
Reviewer: iyacyas "helicopter mike" (Florida) - See all my reviews
This book shows the story of the rendition of "people." One would think that when the subject of "rendition" or kidnapping by government would only concern Taliban or Iraqi insurgents or international terrorists. In many cases it does. In most cases however, it contains stories of people who were just living their lives normally like any other citizen. Some of them were and are innocent American citizens. Guilty of being Arabic or Muslim. I am a Christian, but fear that if the administration in power doesn't agree with my political ideals whether it be democrat or republican, they could render me. It really makes you think.

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

A Good Primer on the U.S.'s "Extraordinary Rendition" Program, November 26, 2006
Reviewer: Michael D. Rose "100% Disabled American Veteran" (Oklahoma, USA) - See all my reviews

Trevor Paglen and A.C. Thompson have written a good primer on the U.S.'s "Extraordinary Rendition" Program. For those who don't know, our proxies in the CIA and the military have quietly kidnapped hundreds of "enemy combatants" and detained them in prisons throughtout the world. They are often tortured, or disappear altogether. For a more detailed account see Stephen Grey's GHOST PLANE: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program, and Chris Mackey's THE INTERROGATORS: Inside the Secret War Against Al Qaeda.

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5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

A good starting point, October 19, 2006
Reviewer: George (NY USA) - See all my reviews
The size and book jacket caught my attention at the local bookstore. I'm glad that it did. The book is around 200 pages and filled with photographs. It can be easily read in a day or two.

What I like so much about this book so far, is the feeling that your part of the investigative team. Partly this is due to the writing, which is clear and concise. Second, are the photographs ("Ghost" signatures, documents, buildings) which correspond to the story being told at that point. All of the photographs, except for one were taken by the Mr Paglen.

What conclusions if any, the authors come to, I dont know. I'm on page 58. I do know its an engaging and page turning story that will leave me wanting to learn more. Thank you Mr Paglen and Mr. Thompson.

March 12, 2007
In New Tactic, Militants Burn Houses in Iraq

By DAMIEN CAVE
BAGHDAD, March 11 — Sunni militants burned homes in a mixed city northeast of Baghdad on Saturday and Sunday, forcing dozens of families to flee and raising the specter of a new intimidation tactic in Iraq’s evolving civil war, Iraqi officials and witnesses said.

Militants also continued their campaign against Shiite pilgrims on Sunday, striking as the pilgrims returned home from the southern city of Karbala after observances there for the Arbaeen holiday over the weekend. The worst attack, a car bombing, killed at least 19 people in Baghdad as they were riding home from the south in a pickup truck.

Attackers burned both Sunni and Shiite homes in a neighborhood of Muqdadiya, a city of about 200,000 in Diyala Province, about 60 miles from Baghdad. There were differing reports about how many houses were affected. A security official in Diyala said that at least 30 houses were completely burned, including occupied and abandoned buildings, while a Sunni Arab politician from the area said that only six houses were destroyed. Some witnesses said as many as 100 houses were set on fire.

Victims from both sects blamed the Islamic State of Iraq, an umbrella organization for Sunni extremists that has taken over several other towns in the area. Residents said the group had recently demanded money, weapons and oaths of support from the local populace.

They said the burnings were intended to scare people into giving in or running away. Dozens of families escaped the city, either left homeless by the attacks or terrified that they would be next.

“I left everything behind because I didn’t want to contribute to harming other Iraqis,” said Abu Muhammad Khailani, a Sunni, who said he fled to a Shiite village for protection.

“I know why they want the money and weapons,” he said. “They will kill innocent people and do whatever it takes to reach their goals.”

The attacks reignited fears that Iraq is being hollowed out by efforts in some areas to drive out those who do not support an extremist sectarian agenda. Many mixed neighborhoods of Baghdad have already been transformed into homogenous enclaves, with Shiites and Sunnis issuing death threats to the minority sect and even those who intermarry or have cross-sectarian friendships.

Two other explosions in Diyala Province, both near Baquba, killed at least five people and wounded 13 on Sunday.

Even before the house burnings over the weekend, Diyala had become a cauldron of daily violence, with American and Iraqi forces fighting a growing Sunni threat that has often overwhelmed the province’s Shiite leaders. Residents report that in some villages, the Islamic State of Iraq brazenly flies flags that declare loyalty to Abu Omar Al-Baghdadi, the group’s leader, in what appears to be both a warning and a taunt to the group’s opponents.

American military officials have said they are increasingly concerned about the area’s slide into chaos. The commander for northern Iraq, Maj. Gen. Benjamin R. Mixon, said this week that he had already shifted additional troops to the province and asked for extra reinforcements.

On Thursday, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Iraq, said Diyala would “very likely” get more troops as part of an increase concentrated in Baghdad.

The Baghdad police said the 19 Shiite pilgrims were killed Sunday in the mostly Shiite area of Karada when a car bomb exploded next to their truck. They were on their way home from Karbala, where they observed Arbaeen, which marks the end of a 40-day mourning period to commemorate the killing of Imam Hussein, the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson.

Witnesses said a silver Hyundai sedan parked on the side of the road exploded when the truck passed. Mustafa Mahdi Sahed, the truck’s driver, who survived without serious injury, said the blast tore through his passengers, turning their cooking pans into shrapnel and bloodying the posters they had carried to honor the martyr Hussein. Sitting on a curb by his destroyed vehicle hours after the blast, he said he had driven the pilgrims home from Karbala without charge. In contrast, he said he had heard that suicide bombers or their families get paid to kill.

“Is it worth it to sell Iraqi lives for $200 or $300?” he said.

In the same neighborhood on Sunday, a roadside bomb killed one person. And just west of Sadr City, the sprawling Shiite district in northeast Baghdad, a suicide bomber on a minibus set off his explosives near a restaurant, killing at least 10 other people and wounding eight, an Interior Ministry official said.

In Adhamiya, a nearby Sunni neighborhood, a remotely piloted American reconnaissance aircraft crashed. An American military spokesman said the drone was later recovered intact. He would not say whether it had been shot down.

An Iraqi police official said the aircraft had been brought to a precinct in the Shiite Shaab neighborhood east of Adhamiya, where American troops collected it.

The United States military also said in statements that three American soldiers died Sunday. A roadside bomb in Baghdad killed one soldier, wounding two others. Another soldier was killed in an explosion in Salahuddin Province. In northern Iraq, a soldier died in a noncombat-related incident that the military said it was investigating.

Sunday’s bombs in Shiite areas capped an especially bloody week for Shiite pilgrims. On Tuesday, at least 150 of them, many traveling by foot, were killed by insurgents in a variety of attacks as they converged on Karbala. In the deadliest attacks, more than 100 people were killed in Hilla by back-to-back suicide bombers who lured pilgrims with cakes.

On Sunday, the police in Hilla said they had arrested four men believed to be involved in planning attacks last week. Officials said that the men were from the neighborhood where the attack occurred, and that one of them had been found driving a white Oldsmobile that had been seen carrying the two suicide bombers.

In Mosul, a bomb exploded in the lobby of the Iraqi Islamic Party, a major Sunni political party, on Saturday night, killing three people, the police said.

A spokeswoman for the German Foreign Ministry said Sunday that the German government was investigating reports of two Germans kidnapped in Iraq. She said a special group dedicated to threats against German citizens abroad was scrutinizing a videotape posted Saturday on the Internet, which showed a woman begging for help in German as a young man she identifies as her grown son looks on.

“I am here threatened by these people, they will kill my son in front of my eyes, then they will kill me if the German forces do not pull out of Afghanistan,” she said, according to a news agency translation.

The authenticity of the videotape could not be independently verified.

Also on Sunday, Iranian, Iraqi and American officials cautiously praised Saturday’s regional security meeting in Baghdad.

In Tehran, Mohammad Ali Hosseini, an Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman, said that his country was willing to continue the dialogue and that “we support any efforts that will bring Iraq out of its current problems,” The Associated Press reported.

Iraq’s foreign minister, Hoshyar Zebari, told CNN that officials in Tehran needed to “match their statement of support for the Iraqi government with actions.”

President Bush, traveling in South America on Sunday night, reinforced that idea. Speaking of Iran and Syria, he said, “If they really want to help stabilize Iraq, there are things for them to do, such as cutting off weapons flows and the flow of suicide bombers into Iraq.”

He continued: “There are all kinds of ways to measure whether they’re serious about the words they utter. We, of course, welcome those words.”

Reporting was contributed by Khalid al-Ansary, Hosham Hussein, Ali Adeeb and Khalid W. Hassan from Baghdad, an Iraqi employee of The New York Times from Diyala Province, and Jim Rutenberg from Bogotá, Colombia.