Friday, July 29, 2005

US Not Totally Honorable with North Korea

With North Korea back in the news, and with me thinking about Rome in the late 1990's, it reminds me that one of my jobs at the American Embassy in Rome was to take the tin cup out to the Italian Foreign Ministry and beg for money to help the US meet its commitments under the agreement with North Korea that it then still honored. Italy then held the presidency of the EU, and thus we begged Italy as a country and as a representative of the entire EU.

The problem was that the agreement called on the Western parties, the US, Japan, and South Korea, to provide heating oil to North Korea while work was proceeding on the non-proliferating, Western design nuclear reactors that we had promised North Korea to replace their indigenous reactors that were producing the bad bomb-making plutonium. However, the US Congress, under its non-treaty-honoring Republican leadership would not appropriate enough money to meet the US obligations under the treaty. So, we browbeat our allies to make up the difference, presumably because they were more concerned about the future of the world than the Republican Congress was.

I didn't like that any more than I liked punishing children for the sins of their parents, despite the precedent for such punishment in the Old Testament. (See previous post).

So, as I approached the end of my career, it was as if the Republicans became less concerned about the protecting the US, and more greedy (giving money that should have gone to protecting the US to their wealthy campaign contributors instead).

These current negotiations with the North Koreans bring back bad memories. Although Christopher Hill is a career Foreign Service officer (who spent time in Poland as I did), I don't trust the US negotiating position. The North Koreans are crazy, but so is John Bolton, who was in charge of this process until recently. And Condi Rice named him to be Ambassador to the UN, not a good sign for Condi's competence.

Clinton's Winds of War

I happened on a copy of War and Remembrance by Herman Wouk, which I bought after returning from my tour as an American diplomat in Rome.

While I was in Rome around 1996 or '97, I went to a party celebrating the launch of an Italian satellite, as I recall somewhat vaguely, and struck up a conversation with a man who worked for an Italian telecommunications company, maybe the state telecom company. He said that America must really hate him and his little daughter, because it had refused his daughter a visa to visit the US because of the company he worked for.

It turned out the problem was the Helms-Burton law, named after its sponsors in the Senate and House, two bigots and proud of it. I was appalled that the US was punishing children to affect the conduct of their parents. But I had already decided to leave the Foreign Service because I did not feel that the US was living up the standards that it should. Helms-Burton was passed by Republicans, but President Bill Clinton was enforcing it. This was just one more sleazy thing I was glad to be leaving behind.

After I returned to the US, I happened to be watching the mini-series "Winds of War" and "War and Remembrance" on TV, partly because it involved diplomats in Rome. Lo and behold, one the sleazy things that one of the "nice" the Nazi diplomats there was doing was threatening the child of the Jewish heroine, Natalie, to get her to force her uncle to make propaganda broadcasts against the Allies. How little things change! I didn't personally take any actions against children, but I had worked at an embassy that did. Jesse Helms liked those Nazi tactics! What an awful man!

I'm not sure that the TV mini-series exactly followed the novel. I can't find exactly what I think I remember seeing on TV, but here are some pretty close passages (from the Pocket paperback edition):

Our friend and rescuer, Dr. Werner Beck [the Nazi diplomat], is moving heaven and earth to get us released, or at the very least, to designate three other Americans from the list for the retaliation, if it comes to that. (p. 250)

I have concealed this news from Natalie. Her dread of the Germans and what they may do to her baby borders on the psychotic. (p. 251)

Aaron was describing Werner Beck's intervention to quash the summons from the secret police, at the time when alien Jews had been interned. (p. 294)

"My guess would be," said the doctor, "that this Dr. Beck is preventing you from leaving Italy."

"How preposterous!" exclaimed Jastrow.

But Castelnuovo's words stirred a horrible dark sickness in Natalie. "Why? What would there be in it for him?" (p. 295)

With a curl of his lips, and a total confusion of f's and th's, Beck retorted, "But there's also the question of Mrs. Henry [Natalie] and her baby 'rotting here.' And there's the more serious question of how long you can stay on in Siena."

Natalie interjected, "What's the question about our staying in Siena?"

"Why the OVRA pressure never lets up on me, Mrs. Henry. You realize that you belong in a concentration camp with the rest of the alien Jews....." (p. 339)

Dumbly Natalie nodded. She went to the library to draft the [misleading] letter [to Beck], feeling -- half with terror, half with relief -- that the lead had in an eyeblink passed from her to her uncle, and that she and her baby were now in the dark rapids. (p. 342)

Monday, July 25, 2005

Iraq War Is a Mess

Most of the op-eds in the NY Times today deal with the mess we are in in Iraq. For me the best is David Kennedy's "The Best Army We Can Buy", although it goes hand-in-hand with Duncan's "Uniform Sacrifice." The theme is that Iraq is not a war that the US is fighting as a nation, but one which we have hired mercenaries to fight. Although many are American mercenaries, many more are more typical mercenaries, Hispanic immigrants who are not citizens.

I have a very low opinion of Bush, Cheney, and Republicans in general as military leaders. Bush joined the National Guard to stay out of Vietnam, and even worse, after the Air Force had trained him as a jet fighter pilot at a cost of hundreds of thousands of dollars, if not a million or more, Bush said, "Hey, I'm going to Harvard Business School. I'm done with the National Guard. The US can take its hundreds of thousands of dollars that it spent on me and shove it!" That is in general Bush's attitude toward the government's money (spend it on yourself or your friends, it's free), and his attitude toward defending America. He and Cheney are cowards. After 9/11, Bush flew to Louisiana and Nebraska rather than return to Washington to lead the country, and Cheney went into some cave under or near the White House. These are not men that I would want to follow into battle.

In general the people who favored Iraq, Republicans and Jews, won't fight for it. How many children of wealthy Republicans are in the military in Iraq? And how many Jews? The neo-cons who lobbied so strongly for the Iraq war were predominantly Jews. One was my old nemesis, Richard Perle.

That there is something wrong with Jewish attitudes is illustrated by the dispute between Israeli Prime Minister Sharon and London Mayor Livingstone. As this article in Haaretz shows, Jews are the verbal attack dogs of the world, currently led by a hate-filled Sharon. As Livingstone implied, Israeli Jews are at least partly to blame for inflaming the hatred of Muslims which has resulted in the current rash of terrorism around the world. Of course, there is a lot of bad blood between Britain and Israel, because before World War II, Palestine was a British protectorate, and Jews living there introduced terrorism into the Middle East in order to kill British officials, most notably when they blew up the King David Hotel. In addition, the American invasion of Iraq, instigated under pressure from the Jewish neo-cons, has something to do with the Muslim terrorism problem, too.

On the Bush is a coward issue, I just want to say that I went to Vietnam. I think it is sad how few others did. But, in the Senate, for example, you can see how much better men the veterans are -- McCain, Hegel, Roberts, etc. -- than the draft dodgers. I don't really count John Kerry as a veteran, since he turned on his Vietnam veteran colleagues when he returned to the US.

Thursday, July 21, 2005

Will Nuclear Accord with India Make the US Safer?

The Bush administration has begun implementing its policy of containment of China by legitimizing India's status as a nuclear weapons nation, despite its failure to adhere to the existing nuclear non-proliferation regime, primarily incorporated in the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). The administration has not formally announced a policy of containment of China, but almost simultaneously with the announcement of the new nuclear policy toward India, the Pentagon released a report on China, playing up its potential military threat. According to the Washington Post:

The report comes as the Pentagon focuses on China's steady military modernization as a driving force in long-range U.S. defense strategy and overseas basing, American military officials and analysts say. It generated intense debate within the Bush administration, with the State Department pushing for a benign depiction of China's intentions, while the Pentagon sought to emphasize a potentially insidious threat, defense officials said.
Thus, it appears that the US is adopting a policy of containment toward China much like that proposed by George Kennan after World War II toward the Soviet Union. India is one of the primary countries that can "contain" China. Interesting, India's nuclear-armed neighbor and oftentime enemy, Pakistan, is a protoge of China. Pakistan is also George Bush's close ally in the "war" against terrorism. The administration will have to weigh the importance of a potential real war with China, against an existing threat (but not a war between nations) of terrorism.

Meanwhile, the acceptance of India's nuclear status threatens to undermine the existing nuclear non-proliferation regime by encouraging beligerant smaller countries, such as Iran and North Korea, to follow India's example of flaulting the regime, and by encouraging more responsible countries that see themselves on a par with India for world status to develop their own nuclear weapons capability, countries such as Brazil and Japan. The situation may be manageable but only with a finesse that the Bush administration has not shown in any of its foreign policy actions to date. If anything, it means that for securing the US from nuclear threats, diplomacy is out, and military force is in, which we have used so well in Iraq. US troops can look forward to winters in Korea and Iran.

Where is Israel's Apology?

The "war" between us and the terrorists is inextricably tied to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Therefore, Israel is to some extent responsible for 9/11, and now for London's 7/7 and for Madrid's 4/11 or whatever it was. Israelis probably treat Palestinians better than Anglos in the US treated the Indians as the Anglos marched across the continent to fulfill their "manifest destiny," but times have changed. What was acceptable 100 or 200 years ago is no longer acceptable.

Of course, the Arabs started the wars against Israel, but that probably had something to do with the way Israel was created. In addition, Israel started the use of terrorism in the Middle East while Palestine still belonged to the British. To his credit, Secretary of State General George Marshall opposed the way Israel was being created, which he said was being done by President Truman for domestic US political purposes in response to American Jewish pressure. It may well have been the reason that Truman upset Dewey in the election. However, we have been paying the price ever since. Only recently have we begun paying in significant quantities of blood.

Israel should at least own up to its partial responsibility for the deaths in the US and Europe. Those who committed the atrocities are of course responsible, but they were egged on by the heartless way Israel treated the Palestinians who lived in Palestine. Israel should apologize to the West for the bloody consequences of its callous denial of Palestinian human rights.

Saturday, July 09, 2005

London and Iraq

In all the press coverage about the London subway bombings, there has been little comparison made to Iraq. About 50 people were killed in the London bombings. That is about 1 week of casualties in Iraq, maybe even just in Baghdad, which is smaller than London. And the the killings in Iraq go on week after week.

Bush's argument is that as long as terrorists are killing Iraqis in Iraq, they are not killing Americans or Europeans at home. He has certainly accomplished his mission of bringing horrible misery to ordinary Iraqis. But, is his logic valid? Is he winning the war on terrorism? Certainly there has been no terrorist assault to rival 9/11, but would there have been one anyway, even without a war on terrorism. Was 9/11 a one-time thing? We are not talking about armies, or nations at war, we appear to be talking about a few individuals who are fighting for a cause, but not in a united way -- about 20 for 9/11, maybe less than half a dozen in London. Can you fight a war against a few terrorists any more than you can fight a war against an insane sniper who starts shooting people from the top of building?

As John Tierney says in today's New York Times:
... I think that we'd be better off reconsidering our definition of victory in the war on terror. Calling it a war makes it sound like a national fight against a mighty enemy threatening our society.

But right now the terrorists look more like a small group of loosely organized killers who are less like an army than like lightning bolts - scary but rarely fatal. Except that the risk of being struck by lightning is much higher than the risk of being killed by a terrorist.

Wednesday, June 22, 2005

Bush Responsible for North Korea's Withdrawal from NPT

An op-ed in today's Washington Post says that the authors were offered a deal by North Korean President Kim in November 2002, which President Bush rejected. Shortly thereafter, North Korea withdrew from the NPT. Much of the Administration's criticism of the NPT has been based on the fact that North Korea withdrew from the treaty with apparent impunity. But it turns out that Bush was at least partly responsible for North Korea's withdrawal. It was as much a failure of diplomacy as of the legal design of the treaty.

No doubt part of the problem was the John Bolton was largely responsible for this issue within the Administration. It has already turned out since he left that he was responsible for the failure of negotiations over the Nunn-Lugar agreement with Russia, and that work under the agreement is starting to move ahead since he left State. It also appears that his efforts to block ElBaradei from getting another term as head of the IAEA has failed, and that Condi Rice wisely agreed to giving him another term once Bolton was gone. It would appear that Bolton was a major failure in his last job. But Bush has rewarded failure before, e.g., CIA Director Tenet's medal, and Paul Wolfowitz promotion to head of the World Bank.

Friday, June 17, 2005

Danforth on True Christianity

I heartily recommend John Danforth's op-ed in the NYT on genuine Christianity. As he says, moderate Christians are a work in progress, always trying to be better. He says, "But for us, the only absolute standard of behavior is the commandment to love our neighbors as ourselves." If only more politicians would adhere to this standard.

Interestingly, the Times description of him says that he is an Episcopal minister and former Senator. It does not mention that most recently he was US Ambassador to the United Nations, soon to be replaced by John Bolton, a man best known as an SOB who in the past has not loved his neighbor as himself.

When he was leaving the post of UN Ambassador, Danforth refused to criticize the Bush Administration, but he did say the following:
My view is that it’s best that the U.S. have one foreign policy, not a bunch of independent operators. I do not believe that the Permanent Representative to the United Nations is an independent foreign policy maker or should be some sort of figure running around Washington saying exotic things, or running around New York saying exotic things. I really don’t believe that. I believe we should speak with one voice. And therefore I think that this particular method of operation is right. It’s the way I should function. It’s the way the State Department should function. It’s the way the government should function as a totality. Am I used to this kind of operating? No, I mean when I was in the U.S. Senate, I voted my conscience, my point of view and my position on issues, what I thought. And then when I’d go back to my home state and try my best to explain my position to my constituents. You can’t do that in this position, nobody can. I mean everybody who represents the government here does so as an ambassador. You’re representing a point of view that’s the point of view of the entire government, not just the point of view of an individual member of the United States Senate. So it’s a different kind of role, I think that the role here, I’m repeating myself, I think that the role here is not one for somebody who is an independent operator and shouldn’t be that way. And so that’s just the way it is.
Spoken like a true public servant, unlike John Bolton, who frequently made a point of letting the world know that he disagreed with his boss, Secretary of State Colin Powell. But if you read between the lines, it looks like he did not feel that he was voting his conscience at the UN under George Bush's orders. Danforth had too much moral character to represent this Administration.

Guantanamo I

All the talk about how bad Guantanamo is, is good. Maybe we'll do something about it. We created it in Guantanamo because we (the government) thought it would be outside the jurisdiction of US courts. We wanted it outside their jurisdiction because we wanted to do things to the prisoners that would be illegal if done inside the continental US. It turned out that the Supreme Court said that trying to escape their jurisdiction in Guantanamo was itself illegal. Why would the government want to do illegal things? These are bad people. I am inclined to think that the Bush Administration is largely white trash, including George W, but not Laura, who seems to have some class and dignity. They have disdain for law of all types. At first I thought it was just international law, e.g., the Geneva Convention and the Vienna Convention. But now I think it includes US law, too, up to and including the Constitution.

Tuesday, June 14, 2005

Vietnam I

I've just been reading the article on John McCain in the May 30 issue of the New Yorker. I haven't finished it, but so far it has not answered the main question I have about McCain: How does he feel about the US torturing prisoners of war at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Baghram, and other places, including those turned over to other countries for torture under under some process called rendition.

The article brings out McCain's strong support for the war in Iraq and the troops fighting it, but does he also support our torturing our prisoners of war after he was tortured as a prisoner of war in Vietnam? If he does, it seems perverted -- that he wants revenge for what he suffered in Vietnam. That view seems to go against everything else that he has done vis-a-vis Vietnam, working to restore diplomatic relations, find remains of MIAs, etc. So, does he believe torture is just an inescapable part of human nature, accepted in both Vietnam and Iraq? I'd like to know. If he had to live up the Military Code of Conduct as a prisoner in Vietnam, why shouldn't both Vietnam and the US live up to their obligations under the Geneva Convention?

Which leads me to why I'm writing this. I believe that any American acceptance of torture is bad. I think that torture is inevitable, that at least a few of the people we send to fight our enemies will come to hate our enemies and be inclined to torture them if given the opportunity, which is why it is so important that our leadership condemn torture and punish it severely when it occurs. Anything less means that we really condone it. So far, Bush, Rumsfeld and McCain condone it. However, there is a surprising, increasing outcry from Democrats and Republicans to close Guantanamo. Cheney has not gotten the message, which says something awful about his moral character. These are the men who should be setting the standards for our soldiers. It's understandable that some soldiers might have the urge to torture, especially if one of their friends was just killed or wounded, but the political leaders -- Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, McCain --- should set the moral tone.

Friday, June 03, 2005

What Does EU Rejection Mean?

For some, David Brooks and Tom Friedman, the EU's rejection of the new constitution shows that Europe is stuck in the mud and not willing to join today's globally competitive world. They might be right, but there is also the possibility that Europe sees the handwriting on the wall that today's developed countries, including the US, face a world that mean the end of life as we know it, regardless of how hard we work.

Can Americans compete with Chinese and Indian workers? Of course, but they will have to work 20 hours a day (or 35 hours a day according to Friedman), and they will have to live many people in one room, instead of a few people in a whole house. Maybe the Europeans recognize this and are rebelling. While in America, the government is controlled by those who will gain from the changes, those who own the capital that benefits from cheap labor overseas. For a few in America (and in Europe) this will be the greatest change ever. They will live even more like Asian satraps than they do now.

Maybe European voters are smarter than American voters when it comes to their financial well being. Americans have not been quick to destroy Social Security, despite Bush's plea that they do so. Maybe they don't understand that the globalization of the world labor markets threatens their entire livelihood, not just their retirement.

Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Hooray! Bolton's Postponed

John Bolton's confirmation as UN ambassador was postponed yesterday, which means he is in some trouble. I'm still afraid he is likely to be confirmed, but giving such a bad nomination a little grief is better than letting him sail through. The letter from the US AID staffer was apparently the main reason for the hold up. Good for her!

The earlier letter from a number of diplomats opposing Bolton is here. Most of the signatories go way back. Most of the ones that I knew personally, I met while I was working on the Brazil desk, which was I think only my third assignment in the Foreign Service, under the Carter Administration. Nevertheless, more power to them!

Tuesday, April 19, 2005

Cheney Looks Bad on "24"

I'm surprised that Fox television, which is usually pretty loyal to the Bush Administration, is portraying Vice President Dick Cheney as such a coward in its hit show "24." The show has been dealing with a string of terrorist attacks modeled on 9/11. Most recently, Air Force One was shot down, with the President left incapacitated and the Vice President forced to take over. These are events not too unlike when a petrified Bush got in Air Force One on 9/11 and flew off to hide in the sky, Louisiana, Nebraska, wherever -- while Cheney took charge from a bunker under the White House, the same one the fictional VP is operating from in "24." The VP in "24" appears scared and afraid to come out of the bunker. Is this art imitating life, when Cheney disappeared into the bunker, and then stayed out of view for months? So far, Fox makes Cheney look pretty bad.

Cheney was a coward and dodged the draft during Vietnam. During 9/11 he went underground and stayed there. Let's hope he never really has to try to lead the country.

Monday, April 18, 2005

Bolton Is a Bad Man

The referenced letter from the Daily Kos Blog to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee regarding a US AID official who had a bad experience with John Bolton shows his bad personal traits. He was then out of government and working as a lawyer for some Republican organization that was doing US AID work in Kyrgyzstan. Interestingly, Kyrgyzstan, which lived in anonymity for years, is now in the news as a result of its coup. Is this due to the great work of Republicans in bringing democracy through this US AID project, or as most people think, just a coup.

I don't doubt that Bolton has some bad personal traits, which he evidenced in his dealings with some State/INR staffers during his more recent stint as Under Secretary of State, but more importantly are his political and philosophical views on foreign policy. In his earlier job as State Assistant Secretary for International Organizations (the UN) and more recently as Under Secretary, he has show his comtempt for diplomacy and working internationally. He, like many of his neo-con allies, believes that the US should just use its raw power internationally, as we did in Iraq. Diplomacy is for wimps (apparently in personal behavior as well as in international dealings).

The text of the letter is:

Dear Sir:

I'm writing to urge you to consider blocking in committee the nomination of John Bolton as ambassador to the UN.

In the late summer of 1994, I worked as the subcontracted leader of a US AID project in Kyrgyzstan officially awarded to a HUB primary contractor. My own employer was Black, Manafort, Stone & Kelly, and I reported directly to Republican leader Charlie Black.

After months of incompetence, poor contract performance, inadequate in-country funding, and a general lack of interest or support in our work from the prime contractor, I was forced to make US AID officials aware of the prime contractor's poor performance.

I flew from Kyrgyzstan to Moscow to meet with other Black Manafort employees who were leading or subcontracted to other US AID projects. While there, I met with US AID officials and expressed my concerns about the project -- chief among them, the prime contractor's inability to keep enough cash in country to allow us to pay bills, which directly resulted in armed threats by Kyrgyz contractors to me and my staff.

Within hours of sending a letter to US AID officials outlining my concerns, I met John Bolton, whom the prime contractor hired as legal counsel to represent them to US AID. And, so, within hours of dispatching that letter, my hell began.

Mr. Bolton proceeded to chase me through the halls of a Russian hotel -- throwing things at me, shoving threatening letters under my door and, generally, behaving like a madman. For nearly two weeks, while I awaited fresh direction from my company and from US AID, John Bolton hounded me in such an appalling way that I eventually retreated to my hotel room and stayed there. Mr. Bolton, of course, then routinely visited me there to pound on the door and shout threats.

When US AID asked me to return to Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in advance of assuming leadership of a project in Kazakstan, I returned to my project to find that John Bolton had proceeded me by two days. Why? To meet with every other AID team leader as well as US foreign-service officials in Bishkek, claiming that I was under investigation for misuse of funds and likely was facing jail time. As US AID can confirm, nothing was further from the truth.

He indicated to key employees of or contractors to State that, based on his discussions with investigatory officials, I was headed for federal prison and, if they refused to cooperate with either him or the prime contractor's replacement team leader, they, too, would find themselves the subjects of federal investigation. As a further aside, he made unconscionable comments about my weight, my wardrobe and, with a couple of team leaders, my sexuality, hinting that I was a lesbian (for the record, I'm not).

When I resurfaced in Kyrgyzstan, I learned that he had done such a convincing job of smearing me that it took me weeks -- with the direct intervention of US AID officials -- to limit the damage. In fact, it was only US AID's appoinment of me as a project leader in Almaty, Kazakstan that largely put paid to the rumors Mr. Bolton maliciously circulated.

As a maligned whistleblower, I've learned firsthand the lengths Mr. Bolton will go to accomplish any goal he sets for himself. Truth flew out the window. Decency flew out the window. In his bid to smear me and promote the interests of his client, he went straight for the low road and stayed there.

John Bolton put me through hell -- and he did everything he could to intimidate, malign and threaten not just me, but anybody unwilling to go along with his version of events. His behavior back in 1994 wasn't just unforgivable, it was pathological.

I cannot believe that this is a man being seriously considered for any diplomatic position, let alone such a critical posting to the UN. Others you may call before your committee will be able to speak better to his stated dislike for and objection to stated UN goals. I write you to speak about the very character of the man.

It took me years to get over Mr. Bolton's actions in that Moscow hotel in 1994, his intensely personal attacks and his shocking attempts to malign my character. I urge you from the bottom of my heart to use your ability to block Mr. Bolton's nomination in committee.

Respectfully yours,

Melody Townsel
Dallas, TX 75208

Friday, April 15, 2005

Sokolski on NPT

When I worked on missile non-proliferation issues at State over ten years ago, Henry Sokolski was my opposite number at the Pentagon. We were almost always at loggerheads. It was my impression that he, like most conservatives working on arms control issues, wanted absolute security from any arms control agreement. That is not going to happen. There are many laws against murder -- local, state, federal -- but murders occur every day. Many innocent people are killed simply because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Similarly, arms control agreements are no guarantee that the things they are supposed to prevent will not occur. But, it's better to have laws against murder than not to have them, and it's better to have arms control agreements than not to have them.

The other principle is that countries will usually only agree to things that are in their self interest. They are not going to agree to something that will disadvantage them militarily vis-a-vis neighboring countries, for example. So, if you want Iran to give up something that it believes is in its self interest, uranium enrichment for example, you have to make Iran see that it is in its self interest to do so. For example, if Iran were assured that it would be guaranteed a supply of fuel for nuclear reactors at a lower price than it could produce that fuel itself. But, at the same time, it would have to be sure that neighboring countries, Israel for example, could not threaten it will nuclear destruction. It might also mean that current nuclear countries, other than Israel, would have to renounce nuclear weapons, the US for example.

Sokolski glosses over this major problem of nations not agreeing to things not in their self interest, when he says:

The first view was reflected in the original intent for the negotiations announced by Fred Aiken, the Irish foreign minister in 1959, when he laid down the first resolution for a nonproliferation treaty. He basically was concerned that the spread of nuclear weapons to additional states would make disarmament less likely, because it would make war, either inadvertent or deliberate, more likely.

Now that set of concerns produced the first three articles of the treaty, and they basically said, "If you have nuclear weapons, don't give them to anyone else; if you don't have any, don't try to get any; and everyone should submit themselves to inspections to make sure there's no diversion." That was, I think, a very sound view. What happened in the mid-1960s was [the result of] impatience in getting the superpowers to agree with this treaty, compounded by a new theory of what the worry of the world was, which was that there would be an arms race between superpowers that would start the next war, and there would be what they call vertical proliferation, and that had to be blocked. And that what we really needed to do was to get countries to make sure that if they had nuclear weapons, they didn't get many more of them, and that they didn't try to proliferate and make them better and quicker, or more accurate. And that what we really needed to do then was to make sure that there were only finite deterrent forces, if there were nuclear weapons. Now, that theory gave rise to things like mutual assured destruction and the like. (Italics supplied)

You can't have a treaty unless people (nuclear weapons states and non-nuclear states) agree to it. My problem with Sokolski and other DOD types was that they always wanted one-sided, restrictive agreements that no one else would accept. Their favored agreements were dead on arrival.

If they rewrite the NPT in the same manner, the NPT will cease to be an agreement which almost every country in the world has accepted. Granted there are important exceptions -- North Korea, India, Pakistan, Israel -- but by refusing to accept the NPT they brand themselves as outlaw regimes. The problem is not only what to do about countries like Iran that adhere to the NPT but might withdraw at some future time, but what we do about those countries like North Korea and India, who simply thumb their noses at the treaty.

Sunday, April 03, 2005

American Connections to Revolutions in Former Soviet Republics

The NYT reported on Saturday that Kateryna Chumachenko, the American wife of new Ukrainian president Viktor Yushchenko will renounce her American citizenship in order to take on Ukrainian citizenship. The article says she worked at the State Department, the Treasury and the White House before going to the Ukraine after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Could one or more of those jobs be CIA cover? In addition, the Washington Post reported that a US medical team assisted in treating Yushchenko's dioxin poisoning, although the US has been reluctant to admit it for fear of offending Russia. The article said:

The team's role in Yushchenko's recovery from an apparently deliberate case of massive dioxin poisoning has been undisclosed until now, largely because U.S. officials and the doctors did not want to appear to interfere in the political drama of the Ukrainian elections. Yushchenko, whose once-youthful face was mysteriously transformed into a blotch of lesions after the poisoning, visited the private Rudolfinerhaus clinic between the election that was declared fraudulent and the election that resulted in his presidential victory. Yushchenko's election was a bitter blow to the Russian government, and even today U.S. officials are reluctant to officially say they assisted the medical team. Gregory Saathoff, the lead doctor and executive director of U-Va.'s Critical Incident Analysis Group in Charlottesville, would confirm only broad details after saying he received permission from the family to discuss it "on a very limited basis." He said the U.S. government was not involved in his team's work. "It was clear that the U.S. government had no interest or ability in being involved in this situation because this would be interference in the election of another country," Saathoff said. "The U.S. government was notably hands-off." But a senior U.S. official directly involved in the operation said it began with a request from Yushchenko's family for assistance, via an official in the Pentagon, and the State Department provided logistical support during the doctors' overseas trip. He said Saathoff kept in touch with the State Department in Washington, at one point informing officials they suspected they were being followed -- by police or even Russian intelligence agents -- and would cut their stay in Vienna short by a day.
In Georgia, the new president Saakashvilli studied, lived and worked in the United States for years before returning to Georgia to become president.

The NYT today says the revolution in Kyrgyzstan did not move Kyrgyzstan any closer to the Western orbit. It was probably just a coup in which one corrupt group took power from the corrupt group already in office.

Ironically so far the revolutions have taken place in the former Soviet republics that are the most democratic (relatively) compared to the other former Soviet republics. What is the lesson from this? For current despots to crack down harder, maybe including Putin?

What does Russia think about this? As usual, the NYT is on top of this, and says Russia might not be too happy about what's going on in its neighborhood and might be preparing to block similar activities in mother Russia.

Wednesday, March 30, 2005

US Wants Changes to Non-Proliferation Regime

The NYT reported on March 15 on President Bush's efforts to modify the current nuclear non-proliferation regime. He would not change the language of the treaty, but would change how it operates. This is either timely or untimely, depending on how the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) review conference goes in May. An NPT Review Conference is held every five years according to the terms of the treaty.

In essence Bush's plan would bar any country from making nuclear fuel that doesn't already make it, i.e., major world powers, although it might also exempt the backdoor nuclear powers, Israel, India and Pakistan, who are not signatories of the NPT. The article quoted the President's statement on March 7 regarding the NPT Review Conference:
We cannot allow rogue states that violate their commitments and defy the international community to undermine the NPT's fundamental role in strengthening international security. We must therefore close the loopholes that allow states to produce nuclear materials that can be used to build bombs under the cover of civilian nuclear programs.
The question is whether NPT signatories will accept this change in interpretation. I doubt it. As is so often said, nations do what is in their self interest. The NPT looks the way it does, because it had to deal with a lot of trade-offs to gain acceptance, and it has gained wide acceptance -- 189 signers. Bush says he is concerned about countries that might legally develop low enrichment fuel cycles for power reactors under the treaty, and then withdraw from the treaty and use their facilities to produce high enriched uranium for bombs, as the US claims North Korea has. One problem is that we don't have good intelligence that North Korea has done this. The person who probably knows the most about it is A.Q. Khan in Pakistan, and the Pakistani government will not let us talk to him. We know he sold them some erichment equipment, but what exactly did North Korea do with it. It doesn't help that we apparently lied to a number of countries, claiming that North Korea sold uranium to Libya, when in fact it was Pakistan that sold the uranium to them.

Bush and company say the NPT is useless as it is, because it won't permanently prevent bad countries from acquiring nuclear weapons. But that is probably too much to ask of it. It currently serves to slow down bad countries, forces them to open up their activities to IAEA inspectors, and in the worse case, it provides a trip-wire when a country like North Korea withdraws from the treaty, thereby saying publicly that it intends to develop nuclear weapons.

What the non-proliferation regime really needs, rather than a re-interpretation of the NPT is a way to deal with the new nuclear powers that are not members of the NPT: Israel, India and Pakistan. If Iran sees that Israel has the bomb and nobody cares, why shouldn't Iran decide that it should have the bomb, too. We need to show that we care about what happened within the non-proliferation regime that allowed these countries to develop nuclear weapons. For the US to sell F-16s to Pakistan without demanding anything in return on the nuclear side sets a very bad example. Pakistan may be helping on the terrorism issue, but in the long term, the nuclear issue may be more important, especially if terrorists get nuclear weapons.

Bush implicitly says the Pakistanis are moral giants when it comes to nuclear activities and deserve F-16s, while the Iranians are despicable devils. President Bush claims to love some Iranians, apparently the faceless men and women in the street who are believed to be struggling to overthrow the government of the mullahs. However, Bush hates the Iranians he knows, the men running the Iranian government. Nevertheless, he wants them to trust him to supply them with nuclear fuel, to provide the energy to run the country of Iran, its factories, its homes, its military facilities, one of whose missions is no doubt to repulse an American invasion like the one against their next door neighbor, Iraq. Bush's reply to this argument is that Iran doesn't need nuclear power, because it has all that oil. But currently, although Bush says "trust me" to sell Iran nuclear fuel for its reactors, if I were Iran, I wouldn't trust him. It's lack of such mutual trust that makes the NPT look like it does. Smaller countries like Iran also follow President Reagan's dictum: "Trust but verify."

We've already been down this road with Brazil, 30 years ago, when we sold Brazil and Westinghouse reactor, and then refused to sell the fuel for it. Brazil ended up buying, or trying its best to buy, a complete uranium fuel cycle from Germany.

Monday, March 28, 2005

World War II History Keeps Changing

Serge Schmemann misses one major change in attitudes toward World War II in his NYT op-ed on the war's 60th anniversary. He talks about the Baltic states stiffing (Estonia and Lithuania) or meeting (Latvia) Russia, China bashing Japan, Germany's desire to be included, but the only mention of the Holocaust is remembering that the Baltic states and Bulgaria cooperated with Germany in massacring Jews.

Jews have turned against the "greatest generation" that fought for American in World War II because the Allies did not move quickly enough to save Jews in European death camps. I believe that this is why we now have a World War II memorial on the mall. The World War II vets thought they didn't need a memorial because their deeds would be enough to speak to history for them. Now they find that defeating the Germans and the Japanese was not enough. They are condemned for not stopping the Holocaust. So, at least they have their memorial on the mall, but their reputations tarnish by the day under the attack of the Holocaust promoters.

Schmemann missed, or failed to mention, that change in perception toward World War II. Now thanks to endless public promotion, deaths in the Holocaust are perceived as much more important than deaths in combat. Rows of marble tombstones in military cemeteries here and abroad are now less important than images of Auschwitz. Few outside Russia mention that millions more Soviet citizens died in combat or were killed in their homes than the number of Jews who were killed in the Holocaust during the war.

Former Yukos Executive Criticizes Putin

Leonid Nevzlin, an associate of Yukos Oil Company chief Michail Khordorkovsky, spoke out in Israel about the Kremlin campaign against Yukos (NYT, March 21, p. A6). Khordorkovsky, currently in prison in Russia, is one of the mostly Jewish "oligarchs" who ended up with much of Russia's wealth after the privatization that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union.

The article said that Nevzlin fled to Israel nearly two years ago. It added that Israel has ignored an outstanding Interpol request from Russia to extradite Nevzlin. A British judge also rejected Russian extradition of a Yukos accountant and lawyer who fled to London.

According to the article, Nevzlin said there was "an element of anti-Semitism behind the Kremlin's campaign against him and other Yukos executives, some of whom are also Jewish. He joined a number of prominent Russian billionaires who have either fled to or established dual citizenship in Israel, including Vladimir Gusinsky, now a media tycoon."

Tom Friedman Attacks Torture

Tom Friedman criticized the US for its failure to adhere to civilized standards of war in an excellent Op-Ed on March 24. He quotes from Washington's Crossing about how George Washington treated prisoners of war during the Revolutionary War. Friedman says, drawing or quoting from the book:

"Washington ordered that Hessian captives would be treated as human beings with the same rights of humanity for which Americans were striving. The Hessians ... were amazed to be treated with decency and even kindness. At first they could not understand it." The same policy was extended to British prisoners.

In concluding his book, Mr. Fischer wrote lines that President Bush would do well to ponder: George Washington and the American soldiers and civilians fighting alongside him in the New Jersey campaign not only reversed the momentum of a bitter war, but they did so by choosing "a policy of humanity that aligned the conduct of the war with the values of the Revolution. They set a high example, and we have much to learn from them."